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Hi, I’m Analú María López, the Ayer Indigenous Studies Librarian at The Newberry Library in Chicago. While the Newberry is closed and we’re all social distancing, we wanted to keep you connected with our collections and digital resources online. So today I’m streaming live from my home in the neighborhood of Little Village in Chicago, going over one of the many gems we have at the Newberry Library, the Cortes’ Map of Tenochtitlan, or present day Mexico City.
This map of Tenochtitlan (Mexico City) was published along with a Latin version of Hernan Cortes’s letters to the Spanish King, Charles the V, in Nuremberg, Germany. Cortes wrote his letters in 1520. But they weren’t published until 1524. It was the first image Europeans had seen of the Mexica city, Tenochtitlan or as we see it written on the map as “Temixtitan,” the capital of the Aztec empire in the 16th century. On the left is a representation of the Gulf of Mexico, with Florida on the left and the Yucatan, represented as an island.
In these letters Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés trumpeted his exploits, and described the people and wonders of the new land he had conquered. The Newberry Library is fortunate to have one of only two that exist in color, in the world and is part of the American Indian and Indigenous Studies collection here at the Newberry.
The date on the map is really important to note, it’s dated October of 1520, but by the time it was published in February of 1524, the city of Tenochtitlan was in ruins by August 1521 through the war of conquest along with the devastating hatreds that Cortes unleashed.(1)
Nonetheless, as I mentioned, the map was the first image Europe would have ever seen of the city and soon would become the most widespread. Throughout the 16th and 17th centur, publishers from Venice to many other cities had their illustrators reworking this map; versions were published in various other books.
In 1566, Bernal Diaz del Castillo, one of Cortes soldiers in the conquest of Mexico and then and old man, set down his recollection of that November day in 1519 when he and his comrades had crossed the pass between the volcanoes flanking the eastern side of the valley of Mexico and saw the heart of the Mexica (Aztec) Empire for the first time:
“The next day, in the morning, we arrived at the broad Causeway, and continued our march towards Iztapalapa, and when we saw so many cities and villages built in the water and other great towns on dry land and that straight and level causeway going towards Mexico, we were amazed and said that it was like the enchantments they tell of in the legend of Amadis, on account of the great towers and cues [temples] and buildings rising from the water, and all built of masonry. And some of our soldiers asked whether the things that we saw were not a dream.”
If you are just joining in, I’m Analú María López, the Ayer Indigenous Studies Librarian at The Newberry Library in Chicago. While the Newberry is closed and we’re all social distancing, we wanted to keep you connected with our collections and digital resources online. So today I’m live from my home, going over the Cortes’ Map of Tenochtitlan, or present day Mexico City.
The historic importance of this map has led to its widespread publication well into the 20th and 21st century, but most researchers have expressed a vague uncertainty about the map’s nature. Scholar’s like Barbara Mundy, suggest that perhaps Cortes’s map of Tenochtitlan is not just an illustration drawn from the letter but perhaps based on an Indigenous prototype, a Mexica map of the capital city. We do know that the woodcut is carved by a European craftsman, but many precise details of the Indigenous city do not appear in Cortes’ long description of the city and although the Spaniards lived in the city briefly and we have their accounts of this time, the center where we see a lot of important symbolism was foreign to them.
For example, first, the map is oriented with south at the top and if you take a look at the very center of Tenochtitlan we see the ceremonial precinct, with two towers – the twin sanctuaries to Tlaloc and Huitzilopochtil – framing the rising sun, another important Indigenous symbol shown between the pyramids, we see it depicted as a human face, above the Great Temple. Surrounding the ceremonial precinct are the royal palaces, more temples and houses, canals and trees, divided into quarters by four roads.
We also see depictions of Montezuma’s zoo, which is located just right of me on your screen. According to the descriptions by other Spaniards , it is probable that there were pumas and jaguars. There are descriptions of monkeys, wolves, sloths, armadillos, as well as many brightly colored birds as you see to the right of me on your screen. The Spaniards were not familiar with the reptiles of the Americas but there were surely crocodiles, turtles, snakes, and many lizards also found within the zoo. It’s also very possible that the Europeans saw a buffalo for the first time at the legendary zoo but this has been debated over the years.
Now, if we continue taking a look at the center, just below the pyramids, we see a depiction of what could be Mexica moon goddess, Coyolxauhqui or Huitzilopochtli’s mother, Coatlicue, which stood in the center. According to Mexica stories, Huitzilopochtli’s first act after his birth was to slay his sister, Coyolxauhqui, dismember her, and then pitch her down Coatepec’s stairs. In this depiction we see her headless with what looks like ribbons coming out from her hands which could be blood from her wounds. The latin text next to her says it’s a stone idol or “idol lapideu[m].”
Another important thing to note just in front of this depiction of Coyolxauhqui are the two Tzompantli or skull racks, one to the left (or South) of the temples, and one just below them. A tzompantli is a type of wooden rack documented in several Mesoamerican civilizations, which was used for the public display of human skulls, typically those of war captives or other sacrificial victims.
Outro: I hope you all have enjoyed this live streaming to view one of the many gems we have within the Newberry’s collections. Thank you for watching and for being part of our community of learning. If you have any questions, please share it with us in a reply or as a DM, and we’ll get right back to you. And please visit newberry.org to access the Cortes’ Map of Tenochtitlan and the rest of our digital collections and learning and teaching tools.
Resources:
(1) Suggested readings: I am a huge fan of Barbara Mundy’s article where she details the meaning behind the map. Highly recommend anything and everything she writes!
Mapping the Aztec Capital: The 1524 Nuremberg Map of Tenochtitlan, Its Sources and Meanings
Tenochtitlan: Transformation & Endurance after the Spanish Conquest
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