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Códice Casanatense: An Illustrated Portuguese Album Depicting Life In 16th-Century India

Anonymous 16th century Portuguese illustration from the Códice Casanatense, depicting Hindu farmers from the Kanara Coast.
Anonymous 16th century Portuguese illustration from the Códice Casanatense, depicting Hindu farmers from the Kanara Coast. Wikimedia Commons
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Around the corner of Rome's famed Pantheon, on the Via di Sant’Ignazio, the 18th-century historic library Biblioteca Casanatense stands like a great matriarch. Among the 400,000 precious books and manuscripts in its massive collection is a little-known album made of 76 striking watercolour illustrations catalogued as an "Album of drawings, illustrating the uses and customs of the people of Asia and Africa with a brief description in Portuguese language". This is the Códice Casanatense or Codex Casanatense. It was made by an unnamed Indian painter for an unknown Portuguese patron in Goa circa 1540.

An anonymous 16th century Portuguese illustration depicting the Sultan of Gujarat, in India. The inscription reads, on the top left: "King of Cambay". On the right: "This King of Cambay is who sieged the fortress of Diu, and is depicted in his usual fashion"
An anonymous 16th century Portuguese illustration depicting the Sultan of Gujarat, in India. The inscription reads, on the top left: "King of Cambay". On the right: "This King of Cambay is who sieged the fortress of Diu, and is depicted in his usual fashion"Códice Casanatense / Wikimedia Commons

The Codex contains illustrations of daily scenes, professions and religious ceremonies, as well as illustrations of the peoples and cultures of what is now known as the Maritime Silk Road which connected East Africa and China via India.

Anonymous 16th century Portuguese illustration from the Códice Casanatense, depicting Hindu farmers from the Kanara Coast.
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Most of these illustrations show people in their local attires, farming, dining, bathing, and going about their everyday lives. Many of them bear the inscription "taken from life" in Portuguese — hinting at the eye-witness nature of these scenes. One of the later scenes in particular shows the Sultan of Gujarat, identified as the "King of Cambay" in the inscription, on the back of an elephant "in his usual fashion".

Anonymous 16th century Portuguese illustration from the Códice Casanatense, depicting water sellers from the Kanara Coast. The inscription reads: "Kanarese cattle-drivers - gentiles - who bring wheat from Balaghat to sell in Goa"
Anonymous 16th century Portuguese illustration from the Códice Casanatense, depicting water sellers from the Kanara Coast. The inscription reads: "Kanarese cattle-drivers — gentiles — who bring wheat from Balaghat to sell in Goa"Códice Casanatense / Wikimedia Commons

When Vasco da Gama finally found the maritime route to India in 1498, his arrival was followed by many European travellers eager to report all that the early Portuguese explorers discovered in India back to Portugal and Europe at large. These visitors — missionaries, emissaries, traders, doctors, botanists, and mercenaries — would often write travelogues and sketch illustrations detailing the customs, costumes, and rituals of indigenous populations with an orientalist, colonial gaze that sought to show these lands and peoples in an exotic light.

Anonymous 16th century Portuguese illustration from the Códice Casanatense, depicting women from Gujarat bathing in a communal water-tank. The inscription reads: "tank where the women of the kingdom of Cambay wash themselves".
Anonymous 16th century Portuguese illustration from the Códice Casanatense, depicting women from Gujarat bathing in a communal water-tank. The inscription reads: "tank where the women of the kingdom of Cambay wash themselves".Códice Casanatense / Wikimedia Commons

What's remarkable about the Codex Casanatense is its relatively realistic depictions of everyday life in 16th-century India. Although the anonymous Indian painter clearly drew inspiration and conventions from early European prints and paintings brought to India by the Portuguese as well as his personal experience — possibly as a miniature artist employed by any of India's many royal courts — these paintings show remarkably realistic and somewhat intimate portrayals of everyday life in the subcontinent.

An anonymous 16th century Portuguese illustration depicting single Catholic Goan women wearing Portuguese fashion and a Portuguese nobleman, proposing marriage. The inscription reads "Single Indian women. Christians".
An anonymous 16th century Portuguese illustration depicting single Catholic Goan women wearing Portuguese fashion and a Portuguese nobleman, proposing marriage. The inscription reads "Single Indian women. Christians".Códice Casanatense / Wikimedia Commons

Lively and evocative in its depictions of its mostly ordinary subjects, the Codex Casanatense is a unique historical document that provides insights into an India, and Asia, that Europeans were only just discovering, and an early account of an encounter that would alter the course of history.

See more illustrations from the Codex here.

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