After the discovery of the New World in 1484, there's every reason to think that Seville, in the name of having money to spend after such a long and marginal existence, does what Spain did IRL: spends so much New World gold that it collapses economies worldwide, causing a global shift toward the silver standard.
At the lowest point of the gold crash, somebody in the Five Families had an inspired idea: if gold is so cheap, why not make a show of it? Thus was born the Black Codices.
The Black Codices sound much more evil than they are. Truth be told, the first seven volumes were the Manazil, two of the others were complete Qur'ans, and one of the others is a short collection of devotional literature. What defines them, though, is the style they were written in.
Specifically, the Black Codices were written entirely in gold leaf, on pure black paper. (No expense was spared to acquire the blackest paper the technology of the day would allow for, the better to show off the gold.)
Most of the Black Codices have been destroyed in the intervening centuries, but Manzil 2 and Manzil 3 survive (albeit in poor condition) in the University of Prague Rare Books Archive, and Manzil 6 is owned by a private collector in the New World.
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