Aztec calendrics as Christian memory

Rhetorica christiana included a detailed account of the techniques and images used by Franciscan friars in Mexico to convert and catechise natives, including not only Nahuas but also Chichimecas, Otomís and Tarascans. Valadés offered countless illustrations devised by Flemish friars like Peter of Ghent and Juan Focher to secure the conversion of both Nahua elites in central Mexico and stateless Chichimec polities in the northern frontiers. Valades expanded and recreated Renaissance memory palaces of mnemonic alphabets in the Tarascan, Otomi and Nahuatl languages. Valadés included illustrations of Aztec calendrical wheels of 52-year, 20-month cycles that he argued worked as mnemonic aids for native elites.