Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Codex Mendoza - Foundation of Tenochtitlan

Codex Mendoza - Foundation of Tenochtitlan

 * Reason:Good scan of an important historical document
 * Proposed caption:Folio 2R of the Codex Mendoza, a mid-16th century Aztec codex. The codex was created about 20 years after the Spanish conquest of Mexico.  This image depicts the foundation of the city of Tenochtitlan.  The image of the golden eagle, perched upon a cactus (depicted in the middle of the page) is the Coat of arms of Mexico and appears on the Flag of Mexico.
 * Articles this image appears in:Codex Mendoza
 * Creator:16th century Aztec source; uploaded to commons by user:Ptcamn


 * Support as nominator Spikebrennan 21:44, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment It seems a little small. Adam Cuerden talk 02:24, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Reluctant Oppose Love the subjec; however, there are unsightly compression artefacts. Has this been resized? If so, where is the larger version? Jellocube27 15:12, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment. I can't decide what's actually going on with the origin of this document.  For something this old and obviously delicate, I am unclear why it would have been scanned this poorly.  This makes me believe that there is a careful, full-res scan available somewhere.  If people agree, I'll oppose.  Zakolantern 16:43, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
 * If this page is any indication, the Bodleian Library (which is where the Codex Mendoza is now kept) claims copyright on their scans of the document. There's another scan here, but it's from a (presumably copyrighted) book: Frances F. Berdan and Patricia Rieff Anawalt, ed., Facsimile of the Codex Mendoza. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992. Spikebrennan 03:08, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
 * You can't copyright scans of public domain works, not in the US anyway (and we're operating under US law here)—please see Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel Corp. and feel free to upload the highest quality digital copy, no matter where you find it.--Pharos 05:24, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
 * What's the problem with the nominated scan? Spikebrennan 18:59, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Oppose. (I had just commented before).  The scan probably had nothing wrong with it.  The problem is the resolution of this version of the image.  It's *barely* within the minimum size limit for FPs, and that size feels too small for me for a scan of a large document.  Because of the small size, the writing is difficult to read and some details appear lost.  Also, it may be heavily processed post-scanning in a negative way leading to way to high contract, especially in the "paper" background.  ("paper" because I don't know what material it is).  As Pharos said, no version of this image which is faithful to the original can possibly be under copyright.  I see the copyright symbol on the linked page; it's not relevant in the United States.  However, the first link in Spikebrennan's paragraph above indicates that a very detailed scan has been created for this item, where one small section takes as many pixels as this entire image.  That is what we ideally want to feature, not this.  Zakolantern 22:04, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Problem is, the website for the library that has this document only seems to have posted a limited number of scans on its website. I've tried to find better ones, no luck yet. Spikebrennan 23:30, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

MER-C 08:55, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
 * New version. OK, I've managed to scan a higher-res version out of a book.  This presumably needs a little editing, but I'm not skilled in that so I'll leave it to others.--Pharos 03:21, 28 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Question - is the texturing visible in the image, especially in the top-right, part of the original document or part of the paper in the book you scanned it from? Thanks.  Zakolantern 05:58, 28 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Part of the original document. The book's pages are very plain, flat, white paper, in "mint" condition, as it were.  The white areas you see around the document are not edited; they're what the surrounding parts of the page actually look like.--Pharos 06:21, 28 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment on the new scan: can you straighten and re-scan? Presumably a crop will take care of most of the rest of the problems.  Spikebrennan 02:27, 29 July 2007 (UTC)