ANCIENT Mexican painted manuscripts are being featured in a new display at the Bodleian's Weston Library in Oxford.

The free display features four books, and one roll that record the cultures of ancient Mexico in pictorial language using incredibly bright colours.

Most of Mexican manuscripts were destroyed but a few were sent to Europe and later saved by men including Thomas Bodley, the founder of the Bodleian Library, and scholar-collectors William Laud and John Selden, who gave their copies to the Bodleian in the 17th century.

The library's five early Mexican manuscripts are the largest single group to survive together in one place.

Virginia Llado-Buisan, head of conservation and collection Care at the Bodleian Library, said: "This is the first time that all five of our pre-Hispanic and early colonial Mesoamerican manuscripts have been displayed together for the public to admire.

"Seeing them displayed side by side will allow visitors to compare their pictorial styles and the physicality of these manuscripts, which ranges from folding books made from deerskin to a five-metre long roll painted on bark paper."

The manuscripts on display include three screenfolds, which are books folded in a concertina format and painted on both sides.

These include Codex Laud or 'the book of death', which is bound in jaguar skin, and Codex Bodley, both of which have not been on public display for some years.

For further information about the display which runs until July 3 visit bodleian.ox.ac.uk