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1998

“Mapping the Aztec Capital: The 1524 Nuremberg

map of Tenochtitlan, Its Sources and Meanings.”
Barbara E. Mundy
Fordham University, [email protected]

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History Faculty Publications. Paper 6.
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Mapping the Aztec Capital: The 1524 Nuremberg Map of Tenochtitlan, Its Sources and
Meanings
Author(s): Barbara E. Mundy
Source: Imago Mundi, Vol. 50 (1998), pp. 11-33
Published by: Imago Mundi, Ltd.
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 Mapping the Aztec Capital: The 1524 Nuremberg Map of
Tenochtitlan, Its Sources and Meanings

BARBARA E. MUNDY

ABSTRACT: The map of Tenochtitlan published along with a Latin version of Heman Cortes's letters
(Nuremberg, 1524) was the first picture Europeans had of the Culhua-Mexica city, the capital of the Aztec
empire. The source of this woodcut map is unknown, and the author argues here that it was based on an
indigenous map of the city. Once published in Europe, the city map and its companion map of the Gulf Coast,
while certainly documentary, also assumed a symbolic function in supporting Cortes's (and thereby Spain's)
just conquest of the Amerindian empire.
KEYWORDS: Aztec maps, Culhua-Mexica, New Spain, Hernan Cortes, Amerindian maps, Tenochtitlan
[Tenochtitlan, Temistitan], Mexico, cartography, Pre-Columbian maps.

The startling news of the Spanish conquistador 1524, the city it showed was as much a fantasy as
Hernan Cortes's entry into Mexico and his encoun- Amadis: the devastating war of conquest, coupled
ter with the Aztecs in 1519 fascinated Europeans, with the internecine hatreds that Cortes unleashed,
and a large audience awaited the publication of the had reduced the city to smoking rubble by August
conquistador's letters describing his initial adven- of 1521. None the less, the map was the first image
tures.' When these letters were translated into Europe had of the fantastic capital and soon would
Latin and published in Nuremberg under the title become the most widespread. Throughout the
Praeclara Ferdinddi. Cortesii de Noua maris Oceani sixteenth century and into the seventeenth, pub-
Hyspania Narratio . ., they were accompanied by a lishers from Venice to Cologne had their illustrators
map of Tenochtitlan, the Aztec capital city (Fig. 1). reworking this map; versions were published in
Today, this map affords one of the few contempo- Giovanni Ramusio's TerzoVolvmedelle Navigationiet
rary pictures we have of a city that struck one Viaggi and Braun and Hogenberg's Civitates Orbis
conquistador 'like the enchantments they tell of in Terrarum,among others (Appendix 1).
the legend of Amadis, on account of the great The historic importance of this map has led to its
towers and cues [temples] and buildings rising from widespread publication in the twentieth century,
the water'.2 The original woodcut map shows this but most writers have expressed a vague uncer-
impressive metropolis set like a jewel in the centre tainty about the map's nature. The woodcut is
of an azure lake (in the hand-coloured versions). undoubtedly carved by a European craftsman, but
Around the lake cluster neighbouring cities, the close examination reveals many precise details of
whole urban area connected by causeways, and the the Amerindian city that do not appear in the long
lake water tamed by a dike. description of the city that Cortes had included in
By the time the map was published in February, his Second Letter.3 In short, the map is not just an

* Dr Barbara E. Mundy, Department of Art History and Music, FMH 446, Fordham University, 441 East
Fordham Road, Bronx, NY 10458, USA. Tel: (1) 718 817 4897. Fax: (1) 718 817 4829.
? Imago Mundi. Vol. 50, 1998. 11
tK?

Fig. 1. Nuremberg map of Tenochtitlan and the Gulf Coast, 1524. This was the first map of the Aztec capital city to be published in Europe; it acco
Hernan Cortes. (From PraeclaraFerdinadi.Cortesiide Noua marnsOceaniHyspaniaNarratio . . . (Courtesy Rare Books and Manuscripts Division, The
and Tilden Foundations, *KB+ 1524.)
illustration drawn from the letter. We are left to conquistador trained as a pilot or surveyor. Because
conclude that the picture must derive from another of its flawed planimetry, Toussaint's colleague
source. Justino Fernandez granted the map only a limited
But what was this source? Was it an Aztec map role in helping to reconstruct the layout of Aztec
or a European one? Was it an insider's view or not? Tenochtitlan.7 In short, the main objections to an
The question of the map's provenance is a crucial indigenous source for the Nuremberg map are thus:
one. While the conquistadores lived in the city first, the map's style reveals it to be essentially a
briefly and left a few written accounts of it, the European product, and second, since the view it
Aztec imperial centre was foreign to them and they presents of the Culhua-Mexica city seems unfaith-
hardly understood it. Today, when we piece ful to its planimetry, it owes more to European
together the sixteenth-century accounts of Tenoch- conventions than to first-hand knowledge of
titlan (many of which were stained by the Tenochtitlan.
prejudices of their European authors) with infor-
mation from recent excavations, we are only Paradigm Shifts
beginning to understand what the city was to the But since these writers were considering the
Culhua-Mexica: a cosmic linchpin, a place where map, underlying theories guiding the history of
the human world brushed up against the divine.4 A maps and Mexico have shifted. The grout of their
sixteenth-century paean to the city written in objections no longer seems as firm as it once did.
Nahuatl, the language of central Mexico, described The map begs to be re-examined in light of
it: changing models as well as in light of our growing
Mexico TenochtitlanAtlitic. . . understanding of the nature of the Aztec capital. In
Among the rushes and the reeds this essay, I argue that the Nuremberg map is
At the heart and the head
indeed based on an indigenous prototype-a
Of what is calledthe New World
Here it is at the setting of the sun Culhua-Mexica map of the capital city-and offer
Where are awaitedand received a re-interpretation of the map that embraces its
The diversepeople of the four quarters.5
ideological and rhetorical functions.
But the puzzle of Tenochtitlan is far from resolved, When Keen wrote, the widely accepted view
and indigenous maps of Tenochtitlan might afford among historians and art historians was that style
us practical information on the layout of the city or was perhaps the best index of authorship-if
perhaps yield a glimpse of the ideological concep- something looked European, then its painter or
tion of the imperial capital. For we know the carver or artist was European. The same held for the
Culhua-Mexica and their neighbours in central Aztec, and Donald Robertson's influential work on
Mexico made maps, and these maps-in their native style systematically laid out how to distin-
symbols and their logographic writing-share guish that style from European.8 In the years since
many features with Aztec 'picture writing' in Robertson wrote, however, numerous art works
general. Unfortunately, we know of no map of from the colonial New World that look European
Tenochtitlan that survived the conquest, and little but were authored by indigenes disprove any
has been preserved from the early colonial period. simple equation of style to authorship.9 New
Today we can count few indigenous maps that historical research also suggests that indigenous
show the sixteenth-century city.6 culture persisted long after its most visible and
The Nuremberg map offers a tantalizing possi- highly organized forms (like religion) were sup-
bility: Could it have been based on yet another, pressed. As a result we now tend to think of culture
now lost, indigenous map of the capital? Most in the New World, and with it visual culture, as a
scholars have, in passing, thought not: Benjamin cross-pollination of the European and the indigen-
Keen, a masterful scholar of Europe and the Aztecs, ous, and of its artifacts as hybrids.'?
theorized that the map was based on an eye- Like hybrid flowers, where crossing red and
witness sketch of Tenochtitlan sent by Cortes and white may not lead to pink, the way hybrid artifacts
that whatever fidelity it owes to the Culhua-Mexica manifest connections to their precursors is often
capital is mitigated by its style, which follows 'the unpredictable and surprising. Thus style in the
conventional aspect of island-city plans [of Europe]. hybrid artifact can be misleading when used to
The total effect is unreal. . .' Manuel Toussaint held determine authorship. When applied to the Nu-
that it was not made by Cortes but by a fellow remberg map, the concept of the hybrid allows us to 13
 so many points of contact with indigenous maps as
NORTH
to leave little doubt of an indigenous pedigree."
A
The Source
While the woodcut's origins have been masked
by the European style and convention (houses are
rendered in perspective, Aztec towns give rise to
medieval towers and Renaissance domes), other
aspects of the city, particularly its centre, show the
distinct imprint of a cosmic model that the Culhua-
Mexica imposed on their capital, whereby the
human city was patterned after the perceived
order of the larger cosmos.12 We understand this
cosmic modelling both through the nucleus of the
ceremonial centre which has been excavated in the
centre of present-day Mexico City,13 and through a
number of indigenous portrayals of Tenochtitlan.
These later documents present, more than the
planimetry of Tenochtitlan, the idea of Tenochtitlan,
wherein the intermeshing of city and cosmic model
are made manifest. In the following sections, I will
lay out in detail the close correspondence between
the Nuremberg map, the known details of the
SCALE MILES temple precinct and the extant pictorial record of
0 5 the native city.
Fig. 2. Map of the Valley of Mexico in the sixteenth
century. (Author drawing.) The Circular City
In the Nuremberg map, Tenochtitlan, with its
re-evaluate the importance of its style. While the prominent square temple precinct, is set in the
style of the Nuremberg map may look convention- centre of a round lake, clearly contradicting the
ally European-it was, after all, copied at least once actual planimetry of the system of linked lakes,
by an artist cutting the wood block in Nuremberg, which looked something like a backwards ( (Fig.
and he may have been working from a European 2). Cortes himself well knew that there was not just
copy of the original-if we examine the map with one lake but two, one salty, the other sweet,
the emphasis on its content, then we will see it separated by a chain of mountains, and linked by a
freshly revealed as rooted in an Aztec mapping narrow canal.14 So how are we to understand the
tradition. distorted planimetry? Incompetence? Misunder-
A change in the theories guiding cartographical standing? On the contrary, the island set in the
circular lake, although far from planimetrically
history also allows us to re-evaluate the map's
correct, reflects an indigenous understanding of
ambiguous relationship to the planimetry of
the centre of empire. Perfect geometry, albeit
Tenochtitlan. Following the work of Brian Harley
distorted planimetry, pervades native images of
and others, we are now more ready to accept that a
the city.
map can be shaped by ideology as well as
Sometime after the city was destroyed, it was
planimetry-that is, a city map can be faithful to a represented in a native history recounting the siege
reigning idea of a place, rather than to the of the final phase of Cortes's campaign. This native
mathematical relationships between points A, B lienzo (canvas) is called the Lienzo of Tlaxcala
and C. If we forgive the Nuremberg map for its (c.1550) after its city of origin (Fig. 3). In it,
faulty geometries, what we can discover in the map Tenochtitlan is remembered in shorthand-as an
is a previously overlooked fidelity to the Aztec idea island set in a circular lake. In the Codex Boturini
of Tenochtitlan. Despite its undoubtedly European (c.1530), another native work made soon after the
14 authorship and mode of projection, this map offers Conquest, the Culhua-Mexica showed themselves
Fig. 3. Lienzode Tiaxcala.Thisscene froma largerlienzo(canvas)shows the Spanishand theirindigenousalliesmarching
on the Aztecislandcapitalin 1521. At the centrea shorthandversionof Tenochtitlanappearsas a templepyramid,pictured
in profile,ringedby a lake.The originalof the lienzoof c.1550 is now lost, and the lithographicversionreproducedhere was
published in 1892 (after Alfredo Chavero (ed.), Homenajea Crist6bolColon:Antigiiedadesmexicanaspublicadaspor la Junta
Colombinade Mexicoen el cuartocentenariodel descubrimientode America(Mexico City, 1892), vol. 2, pl. 42). (Courtesy of the
New YorkPublicLibrary,Astor,Lenox and TildenFoundations.)

leaving Aztlan, which they held as the mythic All of these pictures showing the capital city as a
prototype for Tenochtitlan.15 In this account, Aztlan square, circle, or oblong set into a lacustrine
is depicted in roughly the same fashion as its rectangle or circle are examples of modelling,
successor Tenochtitlan-an oblong set in a squared- where a physical description (a map) follows a
off circle (Fig. 4). The Codex Aubin repeats roughly symbolic prototype. This visual practice is in turn
the geometric formula-a rounded island set in a related to Aztec concepts of cyclical time and
square lake-in rendering Aztlan.16 And when the patterned history, where events are seen as belong-
Culhua-Mexica represented the founding of their ing to endlessly repeating cycles. In the case of the
city Tenochtitlan, the latter-day Aztlan, they did so Culhua-Mexica, they held a place called 'Anahuac',
in an equally schematized fashion. The Codex the 'Place Surrounded by Waters' to be the original
Mendoza (c.1542) shows Tenochtitlan as a template of their home of the past (Aztlan) and their
rectangular city surrounded by a thin frame of home of the present (Tenochtitlan).
lake (Fig. 5).17 The depictions of Tenochtitlan recall the emble- 15
 Fig. 4. Drawing after Codex Boturini. This native history of c.1530 tells of the migration of the Mexica from their original
homeland, Aztlan, towards their eventual capital, Tenochtitlan. The opening part of the codex, a long strip of paper, shows
the Mexica departure from the island city of Aztlan, represented here by an single figure rowing across a lake. The path of
footprints shows him to be heading towards a place named Culhuacan-a hill symbol with a curved top-where the deity
Huitzilopochtli, wearing a hummingbird head-dress, awaits. The date of departure is written in the square cartouche at
centre; the year One Flint Knife is thought to have fallen at the beginning of the twelfth century (Museo Nacional de
Antropologia, Mexico, MS 35-38, fol. 1; author drawing.)

matized geography of Europe (T-O world maps and The Temple Precinct
maps of Jerusalem being prime examples), and The map's temple precinct clearly reveals the
thereby raise the possibility that the Nuremberg imprint of Aztec mythic and cosmic models (Fig. 6).
map might just as easily have been drawn by a In the charged ground of the centre of the city, the
conquistador under the sway of his own tradition. Culhua-Mexica carefully forged their world into a
This seems unlikely. We find that Europeans used mirror of mythic history and cosmic order.18 Here,
such emblematic rendering to represent sites on this sacred arena, they built linked temple-
freighted with meaning-the globe as conceived pyramids to honour, on one side, the ancient
of by classical authors, or the axis mundi of the agricultural and water god Tlaloc, and on the
Christian world. Tenochtitlan was certainly not other, their newly fashioned tribal deity Huitzilo-
such a place to the sweaty conquistadores. It was pochtli. The cleft between the temples of the two
such a sacred place to the Culhua-Mexica, how- gods aligned with the rising sun of the equinox; on
ever, being 'the heart and the head of what is called these days, the temples appeared to channel the
the New World'. In showing Tenochtitlan as a sun itself on its ascent.19 Only recently excavated,
square ceremonial precinct, set within a circular these temples have long been the site of specula-
city, set within a circular lake, the Nuremberg artist tion. Cortes neglected to mention the dual nature of
was re-inscribing the idealized geometries of a the central pyramids, and other European accounts
16 native, not a Spanish, conception of the city. and pictures present it fancifully.20
 ('IZo ' I'V
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LI e uoij; Suimoai snpe) e-Alp aqt jo aueu-aeId aq *at8uepai e oiui is x ue se a3el guipunouns pue sleuez aqi sluasaidaj
pue IS I 'Sumpunojsi! jo ieaA aql inuAlp aql SMoqlsii AoIA qsiueds aqi jo isaqaq aqi ie Aiqeqoid 'lIsIUesnoua8ipui
ue Aq umeip ueplq:)oua,L jo deu )ieuaaq:S e si xapo: SJI jo ajnpid Suuado aqj Z eSI' 'ezopuaW xapoD 5 -81

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 Fig. 6. Nuremberg map of Tenochtitlan, 1524, detail. The map's centre shows the great temple precinct of the city
dominated by the twin pyramids, called the Templo Mayor, flanked at left and bottom by two skull racks and facing two
other shrines. (Courtesy Rare Books and Manuscripts Division, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden
Foundations, *KB+ 1524.)

But in the Nuremberg map these pyramids Oddly enough, both the Primeros Memoriales
appear as the Culhua-Mexica knew them, with a and Nuremberg maps show the precinct as mini-
linked base, parallel flights of stairs leading to the mal, bereft of most of its buildings. In the 1570s,
doors of the shrines and distinct roof decorations; Bernardino de Sahaguin, an erudite friar, queried
other native depictions contain the same distin- native intellectuals about the precinct and found it
guishing details.21 The plan on folio 269r of the to have been much more capacious than either map
Primeros Memoriales, a book indigenous writers
shows it to be, containing at least seventy-eight
drew up c.1561, offers an invaluable comparison to
structures. Eyewitness accounts of the Spanish
the Nuremberg map: the Primeros Memoriales plan
likewise comment on its extent.24 I see the brevity
is the only known native drawing of the entire
of the maps as a conscious choice: they show the
precinct of Tenochtitlan (not just the temples).22
On it the temples appear as they do on the precinct stripped down to its bare symbolic essen-
tials, a hieroglyph, as it were, comprising the twin
Nuremberg map (Fig. 7). Surprisingly, the Ger-
man-made map may even better capture the temples, the tzompantli, or skull rack, and the
Culhua-Mexica view, for it includes the solar retaining wall. Had the Nuremberg prototype
event that animated the twin pyramids. In the indeed been drawn by a Spanish conquistador, we
cleft between the twin pyramids on the Nuremberg would expect it to give a better sense of what the
map, the equinoctial sun is glimpsed, a human face Spanish recorded as overwhelming-the expanse
18 with rays of hair.23 and extent of the precinct; we would not expect a
Fig. 7. Primeros Memoriales, fol. 269, c.1561. This native drawing of the temple precinct of Tenochtitlan was created well
afterthis ceremonialcentrehad been razed,but it seems to drawon the firsthandknowledgeof nativeinformants.As in the
Nurembergmap,the twin templesdominateand are set abovea simpleskullrackholdingjust two skulls.Otherceremonial
buildings are included and identified in a facing text. The figures appearing on either side of the temple seem to be statues of
the standard bearers that flanked the temple stairways, while the figure at the centre is a priest. (Photograph copyright ?
Patrimonio Nacional; Codice Matritense del Palacio Real de Madrid, fol. 269r.)
19
 Fig. 8. CodexAzcatitlan,early 17th century.A chronicleof Aztechistory,this Codexdevotesa sectionto the reignsof the
Culhua-Mexicaemperors.Thispage, one of two providingan accountof the short-livedTizoc(reigned1481-1486), records
his re-dedicationof an enlargedTemplo Mayor in Tenochtitlan.At the temple-pyramid'sbase lies a decapitatedand
dismemberedsacrificialvictim. (Photocourtesyof Bibliothequenationalede France,MS Mexicain59-64, fol. 20r'.)

recently arrived Spaniard to reduce the precinct to how the god Huitzilopochtli had chosen to dispatch
its symbolic kernel. Coyolxauhqui. The head was a particular trophy:
The Nuremberg map also registers the twin numerous tzompantli decorated the precinct and
temples as oversized, as if to capture their impor- mainly human skulls, not entire skeletons, have
tance. The Culhua-Mexica held these temples to be been found as buried offerings in the temple.25
Coatepec, 'Serpent Mountain', the mythic birth- For us, like the conquistadores, human sacrifice
place of their tribal god Huitzilopochtli, setting is repellent, but for the Aztecs human sacrifice was
carved serpent (coatl) heads the size of small the ritual that sustained the cosmos; it was the act
boulders at the base of the stairs. According to that transformed the twin temples into the sacred
myth, Huitzilopochtli's first act after his birth was to mountain of Coatepec; it was the ritual that aligned
slay his matricidal half-sister, Coyolxauhqui, dis- human communities with divine needs. Thus in
member her, and then pitch her down Coatepec's native representations of the temples, human
stairs. His murderous sacrifice was well commemo- sacrifice is celebrated, not denied. Numerous native
rated at the twin temples. A low relief carving of the images show us temples with victims of sacrifice at
dismembered Coyolxauhqui, over three metres in their tops, the stairways slick with blood. The
diameter, lay at the base of the temple stairs; victims were also pictured at bottom: the Codex
thousands of human beings were likewise sacrificed Azcatitlan shows the Templo Mayor being conse-
at the temple and then rolled down the stairs, just crated during the emperor Tizoc's reign (1481-
like Coyolxauhqui. Heart extraction brought fame 1486) with a decapitated and dismembered victim
to Aztec sacrificers, but their victims were probably at its base (Fig. 8).26
20 also decapitated and dismembered, since this was The Nuremberg map echoes the Aztec under-
standing of both the necessity and the actual Nuremberg map, but a Culhua-Mexica artist
practice of sacrifice by including a decapitated certainly would-to him, human sacrifice was as
victim who is set at the base of the pyramid; the fundamental to the temple precinct as the archi-
map's European artist understood it to have been tecture itself. Without sacrifice, the buildings were
some kind of monumental statue, labelling it 'idol piles of earth; with it, they were abodes of the
lapideu[m]'. It may even represent the great statue divine.
of the headless mother of Huitzilopochtli, Coatlicue, Just as the city of Tenochtitlan in the Nuremberg
which stood in the precinct, or the bas-relief of the map is modelled on Anahuac, its temple precinct is
dismembered Coyolxauhqui which was set at the modelled on the Culhua-Mexica cosmos.28 On the
base of the temples.27 In the map, banners uncurl map are two tzompantli,one to the left (or south) of
from this 'idol's' hands, perhaps a reworking of the the temples, one below them. These gruesome skull
streams of blood that would have ebbed out of an racks appear through the lens of the European
Aztec sacrifice. We would not expect a Spanish engraver like plant stands, although native depic-
conquistador to understand the function of the tions make their use and purpose abundantly
statues of sacrifice or to distil the bloodbath he clear.29 The Primeros Memoriales map, for
witnessed into the symbolic figure seen in the instance, shows only one tzompantliin the precinct,

Fig.9. CodexFejervary-Mayer,
c.1400-1521.Thefrontispieceof one of the few survivingpre-Hispanicmanuscriptsshows
a mappamundi constructed largely of symbols and set into a calendar of days that takes the form of a Maltese cross.
(Courtesy of the Board of Trustees of the National Museums and Galleries on Merseyside, Liverpool Museum, 12014
Mayer, fol. Ir.) 21
 hand

head of sacrificial
victim
risingsun
streamof blood

tzitzitl

femur streamof blood

~~~~~/ \ <^)9 ribcage

Fig. 10. Drawing after the Codex Fejervary-Mayer. (Author drawing.)

holding just two skulls strung along a pole, and sets general cosmic arrangement to which many
it below the temples (Fig. 7).30 ancient Mexican cultures adhered. Above the
This arrangement of temple, statue, and tzom- centre quadrant of the map, the sun rises in the
pantli clearly adheres to a cosmic template. The east above a temple. At centre is the old god of fire,
Culhua-Mexica imagined that below the skies that with the blood of a dismembered sacrificial victim
held the sun lay their earth, which could be flowing toward him. Below the centre quadrant, to
represented by the mountain Coatepec. The earth the west, a hungry tzitzitl,or death goddess, waits to
in turn was linked to Tlaltecuhtli, the ravenous devour the setting sun. This widely held pattern
earth monster, often shown by the Culhua-Mexica of sun/temple/sacrifice/death shaped Tenochtitlan
as an open maw, into which the blood of sacrifice and its representations, and we see this pattern
would pour.31 Below Tlaltecuhtli was Mictlante- coalescing even in the work of an unwitting
cuhtli, the land of the dead. In the Nuremberg map, woodcarver in Nuremberg.33
we see the arrangement of sun/temple/sacrifice
victim/skull rack echoing the (simplified) cosmic Lakeside Cities
template of sun/earth/Tlaltecuhtli/Mictlantecuhtli. The map shows us numerous cities around the
Indeed, the Nuremberg map is closer than one lake of Tenochtitlan but names only three of them:
might imagine to the famous cosmic map/calendar Atacuba [or Tlacopan, later Tacuba], Tesqua [Tex-
found in the frontispiece of the Codex Fejervary- coco], and Iztapalapa [Ixtapalapa]. Here we might
Mayer, one of the dozen or so known pre-Hispanic discern the Culhua-Mexica sociopolitical view,
manuscripts (Figs. 9 and 10).32 Although this codex perhaps modulated by the Spanish. Tlacopan and
22 was not made by the Culhua-Mexica, it shows the Texcoco were the other two members of the
 importance to the Culhua-Mexica of Tenochtitlan
was great; Culhuacan was seen as one of the older
cities of the valley, its occupants the inheritors of
the great previous civilization headed by the
Toltecs. After the ragtag Mexica settled in the
valley, they looked to the royal line of Culhuacan to
provide their ruler and subsequently took on
'Culhua' as part of their name.34 The Mexica
connection with the Culhua was as direct, and
necessary, as the arrow-straight causeway on the
map; the Culhua-Mexica customarily showed their
own city Tenochtitlan adjacent to its predecessor
Culhuacan. In the Codex Mendoza (Fig. 5), the
newly founded city Tenochtitlan is set triumphant
above Culhuacan, which it lists as its first conquest;
in the Codex Boturini, the prototype of Tenochti-
tlan, Aztlan, is also flanked by another Culhuacan
(Fig. 4).
Given the importance of Culhuacan to the
Culhua-Mexica, it is likely they would have
included it on an early sixteenth century map of
Fig. 11. Place-name of Culhuacan, after Codex Boturini,
Tenochtitlan and environs; yet Europeans, among
fol. 1. The basis of this symbol is the bell-shaped hill them Cortes and the Nuremberg engraver, could
symbol. To write the place-name 'Culhuacan', central not have known the importance that Culhuacan
Mexicans added a curved top to convey 'col', or something
twisted. (Author drawing.) had to the Mexica. Thus I am convinced that the
protrusion on the lake shore in the Nuremberg map
triumvirate headed by the Culhua-Mexica of was a copyist's misreading of the indigenous place-
Tenochtitlan; although the Culhua-Mexica were name that would have been used to designate
the clear leaders, all three shared in the riches of
the tributary empire we have come to call the
Aztec. Thus the Culhua-Mexica's two partners in
the imperial enterprise rightly figure on the map.
Ixtapalapa, on the other hand, was a secondary city
in the southern lakes, where it moved in the sphere
of the larger and more important Culhuacan.
Cortes mentions Ixtapalapa as the last native city
he visited before entering Tenochtitlan; he may
have annotated the map source to this effect.

The Southern Lake

The single disruption to the circular shoreline of
the lake comes to the south or left of the city, where
the lake protrudes into a bell-shape. Towards this
blip, an arrow-straight causeway shoots out from
Tenochtitlan. As with the shape of the lake itself,
this protrusion of the southern lake can not be said
to represent planimetry exactly, rather, it seems to
arise from a western artist mistaking a Culhua-
Mexica convention (Fig. 2).
Although not named on the Nuremberg map, Fig. 12. Tepetl, or hill, symbol, found in native manu-
the principle southern city was Culhuacan. Its scripts of Central Mexico. (Author drawing.) 23
 Fig. 13. CodexOsuna,1565. A page froma collectionof documentscreatedby indigenesin the Valleyof Mexicoas partof
an inquiryinto officialmisdeeds.Thisparttells of the abusesnativecommunitiessufferedin rebuildinga dike acrossone of
the valley lakes. It shows the dike in native fashion, as a chain of stone symbolsstretchingfrom one shore to the next
(BibliotecaNacional,Madrid,MS Vit. 26.2, CodiceOsunafol. 39/501). (PhotocourtesyBibliotecaNacional.)

Culhuacan on the native prototype. The symbol for replacement dike built in the valley after the flood
Culhuacan, a name meaning 'Place of our Grand- crisis of the mid-15 50s.36 The 1555 dike was made
fathers', would have been, on a native map, by piling up stones and mud, and the Codex Osuna
recorded in the logographic writing of central represents it as an overlapping line of stones set in
Mexico (Fig. 11). The symbol, drawn here from an arc (Fig. 13). The picture in the Codex Osuna
the Codex Boturini, begins with the generic hill or bears the imprint of the conventional indigenous
place sign shown in Figure 12, which was to convey manner of representing stones: rounded volutes
the '-can' (place of) suffix, and to this adds a curved and a double S marking the interior (Fig. 14). If we
or twisted top, thus representing 'colli' (grand- imagine the Nuremberg prototype represented the
father) with its near homonym, 'col' (something dike similarly as a line of stone symbols, it would
twisted).35 The successive copying that resulted in bear an uncanny formal resemblance to the round
the Nuremberg map led to this symbol's integration poles and the curving weaving of the Nuremberg's
into the lake shore. As a result, the shoreline takes 'wicker' dike, whose odd design may be ultimately
on the rough bell shape of the hill symbol; with the attributable to a European misreading of a native
topmost part inclining to the right, it retains a dim source.
memory of the original curved top.

The Dike
The dike on the Nuremberg map which runs
between Tenochtitlan and Texcoco may be
indebted to a native source for both its position
and odd design. From what we know, the dike of
Nezahualcoyotl, named after the Texcocan king
who built it, was not the improbable wicker-fence
construction we see in this map but a more
conventional earthen bulwark. In the native-
Fig. 14. Stones,as they appearin native manuscriptsof
24 drawn Codex Osuna, we see a depiction of a later CentralMexico. (Authordrawing.)
Fig. 15. A house as it appears in native manuscripts.
(Author drawing.)

Houses
Rippling out from the centre temples, the houses
of Tenochtitlan appear in careful rows on canals,
making the city look like Venice. The Aztec city
clearly evoked this maritime nation in the minds of
P 1
Europeans,37 and the Nuremberg engraver may
have had maps of Venice on his mind.38 But we can
also encounter a precedent for the house rows in Fig. 16. Nuremberg map, detail: A schematic map of the
Gulf Coast appears to the left of the city map. It is oriented
sixteenth-century native maps. The conventional to the south and shows the coast from Florida to the
house symbol (Fig. 15) was ubiquitous in maps, and Yucatan. (Courtesy Rare Books and Manuscripts Division,
The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden
in a map from the Valley of Mexico called the Plano
Foundations, *KB+ 1524.)
en Papel de Maguey (thought to be a northern
suburb of Tenochtitlan), the city is represented as
in Nuremberg is flanked by a smaller map to its left,
rows of houses arranged neatly along canals just
showing a rough diagram of Mexico's Gulf Coast
like in the Nuremberg map.
(Fig. 16). The wily conquistador Cortes was the first
In the arrangement of the centre and in the
to mention the two maps that were the likely
appearance of details corresponding to the con- sources for the double map printed in Germany.
ventions of native maps, we see the Nuremberg
Cortes informed the king, Charles V, that he had
map indebted to a native prototype. The native sent a detailed city map of Tenochtitlan to
understanding posited Tenochtitlan as an axis
accompany his Second Letter.39 He also included
mundi, the centre of a perfectly centred world; it
in the text of that Second Letter the description of a
was linked to, but separate from, an older centre
second, different map:
of civilization, Culhuacan. While its partners in
a cloth with all the coast painted on it, and there
the imperial enterprise, Tlacopan and Texcoco,
appeared a river which ran to the sea and according to
were included in this picture of the imperial the representation was wider than all the others. This
capital, they were peripheral; their status was river seemed to pass through the mountains which we
call Sanmin . . .40
clearly secondary in Culhua-Mexica eyes. Most
important, the Culhua-Mexica understood their The maps Cortes describes as coming from the
city to mirror the cosmic order, with its temples New World-the detailed city map and coastal
evoking the sites of myths and its sacrifices map-are unmistakably like those published in
echoing those of the gods. The starting point of Nuremberg.4' Cortds only specifies that one artist
the Nuremberg map, therefore, is solidly on Aztec was indigenous, saying that the coastal map had
ground. been commissioned by Moteuczoma, the Culhua-
Mexica emperor, from his artists at Cortes's
The Map in Europe request.42 Cortes says nothing about the authorship
of the city map. The garrulous correspondent Peter
Historical Evidence
Martyr D'Anghera fills in the blank. Not long after
Europeans writing at the time of the conquest Cortes sent his maps to Europe, D'Anghera saw
have left evidence that supports the 'indigenous what must have been the same pair of maps-a
prototype' theory. The city map that was published coastal map on cloth and a city map of Tenochti- 25
 tlan-and makes it clear they were both native reflected in the writing on the Nuremberg map. A
maps.43 Culhua-Mexica map would carry no alphabetic
writing, and the writing we see on the woodcut
Transmission
map may have been a transcription of glosses added
But how could these Culhua-Mexica maps, one by the conquistador to explain the drawings and
of the coast, the other of the city, which Cortes says hieroglyphs of the original native map. Many of the
he sent from Mexico in October 1520 and which inscriptions on the printed map-the identification
Peter Martyr saw, probably in Seville, sometime of sources of water, temples and palaces-suggest a
after early November 1522, have ended up in first-hand knowledge of the city which Cortes had
Germany by 1524?44 We can speculate on their (Appendix 2). Most importantly, the details singled
travels: Cortes's missive would have arrived in out by the inscriptions on the map dovetail with the
Spain, probably Seville, around the beginning of larger arguments made in Cort6s's letter.
1521 and with it two maps. The original letter and What makes the Nuremberg map so compelling,
maps may have remained in Seville, for it was here to my mind, is that the map is stretched like a taut
that Peter Martyr saw them. Since their royal rope between Cortes's ideological programme and
recipient, Charles V, was in Germany at the time that of its Culhua-Mexica prototype. The picture
they would have arrived, it is probable that copiesof drawn from a native prototype often conveys one
the letter and maps were dispatched to him there.45 meaning, while the texts add another layer on top
After Charles left Germany to return to Spain in of the first. The resulting dialogue, which we can
mid- 1521, his copies of the maps may have think of as an exchange between the native artist
remained in Germany among state papers and Cortes, helped shape Europe's view of the
entrusted to his brother Ferdinand, who was the Aztecs. A particularly important matter to Euro-
overseer of the German provinces. Ferdinand spent peans was the question of the foreign capital's
much of 1522 to 1524 in Nuremberg attending its civility. As the map presents it, almost certainly
Diet,46 and it was here, in February of 1524, that an following the prototype, the Valley of Mexico was
impression of the maps, showing them side by side, an orderly place, its cities carefully planned and
was cut into a woodblock and printed. built. Tenochtitlan's order was in part due to the
Above I suggested that the source of the order of the cosmic template upon which it was
Nuremberg map of Tenochtitlan was as much a modelled, revealing how different the Culhua-
map of ideology as it was of spatial relations- Mexica understanding of civilization was from the
positing an Aztec idea of Tenochtitlan and its European. None the less, the way the Aztecs
relationship to the larger Aztec cosmic order. Here pictured their community could easily promote
I aim to show that the Nuremberg map, in turn, their civility in the eyes and understanding of
was shaped by an ideological programme, this one Europe, a 'parallelism in the semiotic codes of these
generated by Cortes. While many have considered two very different cultures' about which Ceceila
what the map showed, few have questioned the Klein has written.47
role of the map in its European context, and this For the careful urban planning seen in the map
neglected aspect of the map is what will concern of Tenochtitlan was widely held in Europe as an
me. Further, I shall argue that the map was not just index of social organization: the more planned a
a passive object; rather, it was an agent in both city, the more advanced a civilization. Spaniards
reflecting and shaping European understandings of went as far as to set urban order as a precondition
the Aztecs and the New World. for policia (polity) and later legislated that New
World cities be laid out in much the manner that
Civility or Barbarity? Tenochtitlan appears in this map-with an ample
Cortes was preoccupied, as he reveals in his central plaza, flanked by religious and royal
letters, with showing Tenochtitlan's place in the buildings, with smaller auxiliary plazas, four
Spanish imperial domain; that is, Cortes was straight main streets and carefully laid out house
concerned not merely with establishing the physical plots.48 In addition, this map-city made manifest
location of the city but also with creating a political the technical abilities of its inhabitants as well as the
space for the city within the larger realm of centralized control they enjoyed, for it seemed to
Hapsburg Spain, as the larger context of his Second show that engineers had planned waterworks and
26 Letter makes clear. We see Cortes's preoccupation conscripted peasants had built them.
 The texts on the map modulate the pictorial The terms of understanding established in the
view, and in them we seem to hear the voice of map-created by inscribing European conceptions
Cortes. For they signal the locus of this order as of barbarity upon an Aztec depiction of urban (and
Moteuczoma, and in this they closely follow cosmic) order-reassert themselves again and
Cortes's own fascination with the doomed king in again. Bartolome de las Casas and Francisco de
his accompanying letter. The map's texts, following Vitoria, both influential theorists and Dominicans,
the letter, identify Moteuczoma's gardens, his zoos, depended upon the dichotomy established in the
his pleasure houses of women, his palace, and in map when they argued for the essential civility of
doing so set him at the top of a familiar European indigenes and simultaneously cited Aztec paganism,
hierarchy (of plants/animals/women/men).49 Thus made manifest by sacrifice, as the essential reason
both the image and the words of the map promote why Spain could establish rights over the New
the Culhua-Mexica as living in an ordered, cen- World. To these friars, as well as (publicly at least)
tralized imperial state, as did many Europeans. to Cortes, Hapsburg rule was necessary to bring true
While the texts help to establish Aztec civility by civility, which was founded upon Christianity; to
European norms, they also undercut it. For they their eyes the flag set on the horizon was the
reveal the Aztec practice of human sacrifice, the banner of native salvation.5'
mortal sin that corrupted all other Aztec achieve-
The Map as Sign
ments. The map's pictures are poor conduits for
European disapprobation, although the stepped Up until now, I have been considering the
pyramids, dominated by spiked profiles, differed content of the Nuremberg map in analyzing its
sharply from the chisel-edged, enclosing churches relationship to its native prototype and its multi-
of Europe (Fig. 6). Instead, the temples' purpose is valent message about Aztec civility. But the map
revealed by the text: 'Templum ubi sacrificant'. can also be considered as carrying a meaning
Should any viewer mistake the bristling racks, the beyond its specific rendering of Tenochtitlan. We
text identifies them-twice, close together-by see this clearly when we turn to the map's specific
their lopped-off heads: 'Capita Sacrificatoru[m]'. function within the context of the Second Letter,
Thus the spectacle of civic and social order set up by with which it was first published (the printed map
the picture implodes at the centre, where the words would come to play the same role for the wider
make present the human sacrifice that corrodes this readership of the printed work as the native
utopia. Notably, the name of the city (called prototypes did for the king). For in this letter, the
Temixtitan here), is set not at the top of the block cunning Cortes had a subtext, and the map was
as might be expected but to flank the scene of crucial in creating it. Superficially, the Second
sacrifice. Given the code established by the words, Letter, penned in October 1520, gives a straightfor-
the map was ultimately understood as proof in ward account to the king of what had occurred
European eyes of essential barbarity, not civiliza- since Cortes reached the mainland, where he and
tion. Once human sacrifice is introduced, the his troops, after an initially courteous reception at
ordered houses of the cityscape that encircle the Moteuczoma's court, had just been repulsed by
temples come to appear like hordes of orants Culhua-Mexica armies and were now regrouping
kneeling before a false god. They turn their backs among indigenous allies in Tlaxcala.
on the banner at the top left of the map, upon But Cortes had other agendas in the letter, and
which the double-headed eagle of the Hapsburgs for our purposes they were three.52 First, so that
unfurls wings and claws. King Charles would appreciate what he, Cortes,
The Nuremberg map, then, oscillates between had discovered, he needed to convince the king of
presenting civility-pictured in the civic order-and the marvels of a city (and empire) that Charles had
barbarity-described by words of sacrifice-a split never seen. To this end, the letter provided a
echoed in the accompanying letter where Cortes lengthy, and at times awestruck, description of
himself wrote: Tenochtitlan and Mexico, and the maps corrobo-
I will say only that these people live almost like those rated its extent and some of its marvels. Second,
in Spain, and in as much harmony and order as there, given the dazzling booty of city and gold that he
and considering that they are barbarous and so far
held out to the crown, Cortes needed to assure the
from the knowledge of God and cut off from all
civilized nations, it is truly remarkable to see what they king that the rout of the Spanish troops and their
have achieved in all things.50 allies was a momentary setback and not, as it must 27
 have seemed to his foot soldiers, a military value even greater than a strategic one, becoming
catastrophe.53 In the map, therefore, the Hapsburg proof of Moteuczoma's absolute submission.
banner at top appears triumphant, as if only Why a map? In the Spain in which Charles V
moments away from being set at the centre of lived, the Spain that was the birthplace of Cortes,
Tenochtitlan.54 maps were highly charged documents; their posses-
While the map played a supporting role in the sion brought power over territory. To give an
first two arguments, it was central to Cortes's third, example: the Casa de Contratacion [House of
and perhaps most important, cloaked argument to Trade] in Seville maintained tight control over
the king, wherein Cortes tried to convince Charles (and secrecy about) mariners' maps. They were
of the validity of the conquest of Mexico. Before entrusted to a ship's pilot at the start of a voyage
Cortes had penetrated the Mexican interior, Span- and immediately collected upon his return. Map
ish conquistadores had merely skirmished with theft was a weighty crime, and map pirating a
Amerindians and had assumed them to be tribal constant danger. Mariner's maps were often perfo-
savages. But once Cortes had entered Tenochtitlan, rated, so that they could be strung with weights,
he had encountered an organized state that might ready to be committed to the sea bottom if the ship
be seen as a civilized nation, with all the pre- were overtaken by pirates or enemies. Knowledge
rogatives civility accords. When Cortes audaciously about sea routes, ports, shoals, coastlines that these
seized the Aztec emperor and held him captive (for maps contained was necessary to the continuance
plotting an insurrection), he might have been seen of imperial power, and the royal bureaucracy
as violating, through the particular case of Moteuc- maintained a tight hold upon them. The same
zoma, the rights of a 'natural lord', one holding a secrecy attended land maps, particularly large-scale
'proper, natural and contractual' relationship with survey maps. While royal bureaucracies through-
his community.55 The conquistadores' actions were out Europe frequently sponsored surveys, the
still open to question many years later: 'Given that resultant maps were held close. The Escorial atlas,
these people had kings and lords', Las Casas would a survey of Spain sponsored by Charles's son, Philip
ask, 'with what right and in what good conscience II, was guarded in his library and to this day has
could they be despoiled of their states and never been fully published.
domains?'56 At the time, Cortes also realized that Just as a king would never willingly sign away
a lawless usurpation might well rankle with wealth and sustenance, he would never consent to
Charles, whose own royal power in Spain was give up his maps or the trade routes that they
concurrently under threat by Comuneros. represented. But Moteuczoma acted thus and
Cortes thus shrewdly wove his narrative to show thereby signalled his acquiescence. Moteuczoma
that Moteuczoma was indeed a 'natural lord' who then continued along his via dolorosa of abdication,
rightly represented his subjects. However, as Cortes as the letter tells it, to visit the final stations: he
presented it, Moteuczoma had not been unjustly asked his underlords to pledge fealty to Charles V,
usurped but had willingly abdicated both his own and finally, he signed over to the Spanish crown his
royal rights and those of the nation he represented received tribute. With these actions, Moteuczoma
in favour of the Spanish king. If we examine closely had reached the end: his fall was complete, and the
the part of the Second Letter where Moteuczoma's death-blow that smote him after the drama had
'abdication' takes place, we find that the map-gift is come to a close merely confirmed, rather than
a key moment. In what is probably Cortes's determined, his fate.
carefully scripted symbolic drama, performed only The maps that Charles received with the letter
in the letter for the benefit of the king, Cortes were proof of the truth of its narrative-and most
assigns five gestures to Moteuczoma. As Cortes tells importantly, proof of the willingness with which
it, Moteuczoma acceded to Cortes his gold mines Moteuczoma ceded power. When printed together
and then ordered that a farm be constructed for the to illustrate the Second Letter, they offered a similar
Spanish king. On a symbolic level, Cortes is message to a wider European audience: a nation,
showing him giving away his source of national both civil and barbarous, was now the lawful realm
wealth (gold) and means for sustenance (food). of a Hapsburg king.
And then, having signed away wealth and suste-
nance, Moteuczoma gave Cort6s the map of the What lessons are we to draw from this map? We
28 Gulf Coast. This gift proved to have a symbolic might see it as an example of Europe's colonization
of the New World. As the Aztec world was Mexico,trans. A. P. Maudslay (New York: Farrar, Straus
and Cudahy, 1956), 190.
steamrolled by the Spanish imperial crusade, so 3. Ola Apenes, following Federico G6omezde Orozco,
the initial Aztec map was first effaced by copying asserted that the map, on the basis of its style, could be
and engraving. Then its printed version was put to attributed to Martin Plinius, an engraver working in
Nuremberg between 1510 and 1536 (Ola Apenes, Mapas
the service of a rhetorical conquest, in Cortes's
antiguos del Valle de Mexico (Mexico: UNAM, Instituto de
Second Letter, as proof of a people's capitulation to Historia, 1947), 20). But the Nuremberg map could not
Charles's imperial right. But I also see it as showing have been teased out of the Second Letter alone. It
us the resiliency of Aztec self-conception, notwith- contains too many unique details. For instance, while
Cortes describes the giant market of Tlatelolco, only the
standing the effacement and reinscription that
map correctly locates it (as the 'Foru[m]') to the north
scores the map's face. For despite the gulf between (and slightly west) of the city centre. Cortes mentions the
the two cultures, the map, even in its bowdlerized aqueduct leading into the city but does not give its source;
in the map, we see it coming from the springs at
form, presented to Europe a record of Aztec civility
Chapultepec to the west. While Cortes mentions the
(viewed in the developed and ordered urban form) lake system, he does not describe the dike that controlled
that demanded recognition. In this light the map, as flooding; here it is shown running along the east side of
well as other Aztec artifacts, was not passive, the lake, looking as if it were made out of wicker. Cortes's
accounts of the causeways in the letter are likewise
subject to whatever interpretations its European summary-he mentions 'four artificial causeways'; in the
audience might wish to supply. Aztec self-under- map, the system is shown to be more complicated, with
standing, as manifest in the Nuremberg map, causeways linking the city with the shore at six different
points (Cortes, Lettersfrom Mexico (see note 1), 102). In
helped frame the European debate about the Aztecs other places the map is more summary than Cortes
by giving evidence of Aztec urbanity and, in himself. Cortes describes the causeway from Ixtapalapa,
consequence, proving its civility. By the end of noting in particular a second canal that joins with the
the sixteenth century, Europeans may have turned Ixtapalapa canal half a league from Tenochtitlan at the site
of a fortification (ibid, 82); these canals and their
away from recognizing any aspect of civility in the fortifications are shown schematically, albeit correctly,
Aztecs, but today in the map, which allows glimpses on the map.
of a profound vision that related the city to cosmos, 4. The ethnic group that populated Tenochtitlan was
the Culhua-Mexica. Led by Moteuczoma, they controlled
the complexity and the subtlety of the Aztec world
a loosely organized empire, which I refer to herein as the
view and its initial impact on Europe refuse to be 'Aztec' empire. The polities within the empire that the
overlooked. Culhua-Mexica controlled had other ethnic names and
are called by such herein.
ManuscriptsubmittedJuly 1997. Revisedtext receivedOctober 5. Domingo Chimalpahin, Historia Mexicana: A Short
1997. History of Ancient Mexico, trans. and ed. John B. Glass
(Contributions to the Ethnohistory of Mexico, no. 2;
Lincoln Center, Massachusetts, Conemex Associates,
1978), 9, 11.
NOTESAND REFERENCES 6. The best known map of Tenochtitlan, the Codex
1. Cortes's First Letter was never published and is now Mendoza folio 2, is discussed below. Another, the Plano
lost. His Second Letter describes the initial entry into en Papel de Maguey, shows only a fragment of the larger
Mexico, and his Third, its conquest. The Second Letter was metropolis. In addition to these two, a page of the
first published in Spanish in Seville in November 1522, Primeros Memoriales, also discussed below, contains a
and this edition contained no map. The Third Letter was plan of the city's ceremonial centre. Other indigenous
also first published in Spanish, appearing four months manuscripts portray Tenochtitlan in a highly schematic
later. In 1524 the Spanish edition of the Second Letter and form.
Third Letter were translated into Latin and published in 7. Benjamin Keen, The Aztec Image in WesternThought
Nuremberg; this is the first edition to contain a map. Two (New Brunswick, Rutgers, 1971), 67. See also Jean Michel
manuscript compilations of Cortes's letters also exist Massing, 'Map of Tenochtitlan and the Gulf of Mexico,' in
(Biblioteca Nacional, Madrid, MS 3020, and Osterreic- Circa 1492: Art in the Age of Exploration,ed. Jay Levenson
chische Nationalbibliothek, Vienna, MS 1600); neither (Washington and New Haven, National Gallery of Art and
contains maps. These are described by Anthony Pagden, Yale University Press, 1991), 572-73, who writes that 'the
'Translator's Introduction', in Hernan Cortes, Lettersfrom architecture is largely fanciful and accommodated to
Mexico,ed. and trans. Anthony Pagden (New Haven and familiar European conventions'; Manuel Toussaint, Fed-
London, Yale University Press, 1986), lii-lx. A facsimile of erico G6mez de Orozco and Justino Fernandez, Pianos de la
the Vienna manuscript has been published: Hernan Ciudadde Mdxico(XVI Congreso Intemacional de Planifica-
Cortes, Cartasde Relacidnde la Conquistade la Nueva Espana, ci6n y de la Habitaci6n; Mexico, Instituto de Investiga-
Codex VindobonensisS.N. 1600 (Codices selecti 2; Graz, ciones Esteticas de la Universidad Nacional Aut6noma,
Akademische Druck-u. Verlagsanstalt, 1960). For descrip- 1938), 98.
tions of the various editions of the letters see Henry 8. Donald Robertson, MexicanManuscriptPainting of the
Harrisse, Bibliotheca Americana Vetustissima (New York, Early ColonialPeriod:The MetropolitanSchools(New Haven,
1886). Yale University Press, 1959).
2. Bernal Diaz del Castillo, The Discoveryand Conquestof 9. See for instance, Jeanette Peterson, The Paradise 29
 Garden Murals of Malinalco (Austin, University of Texas Huitzilopochtli', Acts of the InternationalCongressof Amer-
Press, 1993). icanists, 18: 2 (London, 1913): 173-75. In the Nuremberg
10. On the continuities of native cultural patterns after map the eastern orientation of the temple has been
the conquest see James Lockhart, The Nahuas after the reversed, and it seems that in recopying the prototype, the
Conquest(Stanford, California, Stanford University Press, Nuremberg artist neglected to compensate for the mirror
1992). effect his copying would have on the temple precinct. This
11. See Barbara Mundy, The Mapping of New Spain kind of disorientation is common among later copies of
(Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1996), xiii-xiv, for the Nuremberg map.
a discussion of the European style of the map. 24. Bernardino de Sahagun, Historia Generalde las Cosas
12. On the topic of cosmic modelling see Richard de Nueva Espana (San Angel, Mexico, Consejo Nacional
Townsend, State and Cosmos in the Art of Tenochtitlan para la Cultura y las Artes, 1989), 1: 181-89 (book 2,
(Washington, D.C., Dumbarton Oaks, 1979); Johanna appendix); Bernardino de Sahagun, Florentine Codex:
Broda, David Carrasco, Eduardo Matos Moctezuma, The General History of the Things of New Spain, trans. Arthur
GreatTempleof Tenochtitlan:Centerand Peripheryin the Aztec Anderson and Charles Dibble (13 vols.; Santa Fe, School
World (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1987); of American Research and the University of Utah, 1950-
Eduardo Matos Moctezuma, 'The Templo Mayor of 1963), book 2: 165-80. Cortes, Lettersfrom Mexico(see note
Tenochtitlan: economics and ideology', in Ritual Human 1), 105-6; Dfaz del Castillo, Discoveryand Conquestof Mexico
Sacrificein Mesoamerica,ed. E. H. Boone (Washington, D.C., (see note 2), 408.
Dumbarton Oaks, 1984), 133-64. 25. Matos Moctezuma, 'Templo Mayor' (see note 12),
13. Eduardo Matos Moctezuma and Victor Rangel, El 148, 161. Sahagun, Historia General de las Cosasde Nueva
Templo Mayor de Tenochtitldn:Planos, cortesy perspectivas Espana (see note 24), 1: 181-89. Some parts of the bodies
(Mexico, Instituto Nacional de Antropologia e Historia, (such as limbs) were certainly distributed for ritual
1982); Eduardo Matos Moctezuma, ed., Trabajosarqueolo- cannibalism; the Aztec's disposal of the other body parts
gicos en el centro de la Ciudad de Mexico (Mexico, Instituto is still an unresolved question (Inga Clendinnen, Aztecs
Nacional de Antropologia e Historia, 1979). (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1991), 91).
14. Cortes, Lettersfrom Mexico(see note 1), 102. 26. CodexAzcatitlan/C6dice Azcatitlan,ed. Michel Graulich
15. Codex Boturini, in Antigiiedadesde Mexico, ed. Jose and Robert Barlow (Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de
Corona Nuniez (Mexico, Secretaria de Hacienda y Credito France, Societe des Americanistes, 1995).
Publico, 1964), 2: 7-29. 27. The Coatlicue statue was probably set at the top of
16. Historiade la nacion mexicana:reproduccidna todo color the Huitzilopochtli temple not the bottom. Cort6s also
del codicede 1576 (C6dice Aubin), ed. and trans. Charles mentions large idols in the precinct ('very much larger
Dibble (Madrid, Ediciones J. PorruiaTuranzas, 1963), fol. than the body of a big man'), but these were made of
3r. seed-studded dough (Cortes, Lettersfrom Mexico(see note
17. TheCodexMendoza,ed. Frances F. Berdan and Patricia 1), 107). Such 'idols' were rarely, if ever, illustrated in
Rieff Anawalt (Berkeley, Los Angeles and Oxford, Uni- conjunction with the central temple, and there is no
versity of California Press, 1992). reason why one would lack its head, as the figure pictured
18. On the cosmic modelling and mythology associated here does.
with the Templo Mayor see Broda et al., Great Templeof 28. H. B. Nicholson, 'Religion in pre-Hispanic central
Tenochtitlan(note 12); Matos Moctezuma, 'Templo Mayor' Mexico', Handbookof MiddleAmericanIndians, 10 (Austin,
(note 12); Elizabeth Hill Boone, ed., The Aztec Templo University of Texas Press, 1971), 395-446.
Mayor (Washington, D.C., Dumbarton Oaks, 1987). 29. In the precinct today, only one skull rack, a platform
19. Anthony Aveni, Skywatchersof AncientMexico(Austin decorated with 240 stone skulls (Temple B) lying to the
and London, University of Texas Press, 1980), 245-49. north of the temple, has been excavated. The area facing
20. Elizabeth Hill Boone, 'Templo Mayor research, the temple (the west) remains unexcavated, but it is likely
1521-1978', in Aztec TemploMayor (see note 18), 5-69. that a skull rack was built or conceived to exist here.
For one wholly imaginative reconstruction see Giovanni According to the 16th-century friar Sahagun's description
Battista Ramusio, Terzo Volvme delle Navigationi et Viaggi of the precinct, there were six tzompantlis,and the largest
(Venice, Givnti, 1556), fol. 309r. of them, the Hueitzompantli, stood in front of Huitzilo-
21. One of these portrayals, from the Codex Ixtlilxochitl, pochtli's temple (Sahagun, Historia Generalde las Cosasde
represents the twin pyramids of Texcoco; the rendering is Nueva Espana (see note 24), 1: 181-89).
similar enough to those of Tenochtitlan to indicate the 30. I am wary of using contemporary reconstructions of
conventional nature of the depiction. the precinct to corroborate the Cortes map, since in many
22. Bemardino de Sahagfn, Primeros Memoriales (The instances these reconstructions have been drawn out of
Civilization of the American Indian Series, vol. 200, part 1; the Cortes map.
Norman, University of Oklahoma Press, 1993). Thelma 31. Cecelia F. Klein, 'Post-classic Mexican death imagery
Sullivan et al. in their commentary on this manuscript as a sign of cyclic completion', in Death and the Afterlifein
raise the possibility that the Primeros Memoriales picture Pre-ColumbianAmerica, ed. E. P. Benson (Washington,
may be showing the temple precinct of another central D.C., Dumbarton Oaks, 1975), 69-85.
Mexican town. While this is possible, most scholars have 32. Codex Fejervary-Mayer:M 12014 City of Liverpool
accepted it to be that of Tenochtitlan. See Thelma Museums, ed. C. A. Burland (Codices selecti XXVI; Graz,
Sullivan, PrimerosMemoriales:Paleographyof Nahuatl Text Akademische Druck-u. Verlagsanstalt, 1971). See the
and English Translation,rev. and ed. H. B. Nicholson et al. interpretation supplied by Eduard Seler, Comentariosal
(The Civilization of the American Indian Series, vol. 200, C6diceBorgia,trans. Mariana Frenk (3 vols.; Mexico: Fondo
part 2; Norman, University of Oklahoma Press, 1997), de Cultura Econ6mica, 1988); and in Eduard Seler, Codex
117-20, nn. 1-10. Fejervary-Mayer (Berlin and London, Duke of Loubat,
23. Alfred P. Maudslay, 'A note on the position and 1901-1902).
extent of the Great Temple enclosure of Tenochtitlan, and 33. The trees seen in the centre may be a pine grove
30 the position, structure and orientation of the teocalli of mentioned by Peter Martyr as being near the great temple
(Peter Martyr D'Anghera, De OrbeNovo, trans. Francis A. 47. Cecelia Klein, 'Wild woman in colonial Mexico', in
MacNutt (New York and London, 1912), 2: 133). Reframingthe Renaissance,ed. C. Farago (New Haven, Yale
34. This interlude is described in Nigel Davies, The Aztecs University Press, 1995), 244-63.
(Norman, University of Oklahoma Press, 1980), 41-42. 48. For the urban ordinances promulgated by Philip I in
35. Frances Karttunen, An AnalyticalDictionaryof Nahuatl 1573 see Colecci6n de documents ineditos, relativos al
(Austin, University of Texas Press, 1983), 40. descubrimiento, conquista y organizaci6n de las antiguas
36. Francisco de Garay describes the dike as 'construida posesiones espanolas de America y Oceania, sacados de los
de piedra y barro y coronado con un fuerte muro de archivosdel reino,y muy especialmentedel de Indias .. ., ed. J.
mamposterfa' [constructed of stone and clay and crowned F. Pacheco, F. de Cardenas, L. Torres de Mendoza
with a strong wall of rubble masonry], in El Vallede Mexico,
(Madrid, 1864-1886), 24: 172-84. An English translation
ApuntesHistoricossobresu Hidrographia(Mexico, Secretaria is to be found in Zelia Nuttall, 'Royal ordinances
de Fomento, 1888), 13; Pintura del Gobernador,Alcaldesy
concerning the laying out of new towns', Hispanic
Regidoresde Mexico: 'CddiceOsuna' (Madrid, Ministerio de American Historical Review, 4 (1921): 743-53; 5 (1922):
Educaci6n y Ciencia, 1973); Charles Gibson, The Aztecs
249-54. Although codified in 1573, these ordinances
under Spanish Rule (Stanford, Stanford University Press,
came after decades of Spanish attempts, begun even
1964), 225.
37. Cortes, Lettersfrom Mexico (see note 1), 68. before the conquest of Mexico, to impose civic order on
38. Italian-German artistic connections are well estab- New World cities by means of urban planning. Erwin
lished. Jacopo de' Barbari, who created a well-known map Palm argues that the plan of Tenochtitlan was to influence
of his natal city Venice in 1500, died in Flanders eleven Durer; see Erwin Walter Palm, 'Tenochtitlan y la ciudad
years later; Schulz proposes that he may have worked in ideal de Duirer', Journal de la Societedes Americanistes,n.s.,
Nuremberg (Jiirgen Schulz, 'Jacopo de' Barbari's view of 40 (1951), 59-66.
Venice: map making, city views, and moralized geography 49. The Latin gloss on the map describes the houses as
before the year 1500', TheArt Bulletin, 60: 3 (1978): 426). pleasure houses; Bernal Diaz confirms that these were
39. Cortes, Lettersfrom Mexico(see note 1), 174. houses of kept women (Diaz del Castillo, Discoveryand
40. Ibid., 94. Conquest(see note 2), 214). See also Appendix 2 of this
41. The Gulf Coast map also includes areas of what is paper, no. 4.
now the United States. Kenneth Nebenzahl attributes 50. Cortes, Lettersfrom Mexico(see note 1), 108.
them to reports from the ill-fated Garay expedition (Atlas 51. See Peggy K. Liss, Mexico under Spain, 1521-1556:
of Columbus and the Great Discoveries (Chicago, Rand Societyand the Originsof Nationality (Chicago and London,
McNally, 1990), 76). University of Chicago Press, 1984), 36-38.
42. In other instances, Cortes recognized the consum- 52. On Cortes's larger motives in the letter see J. H.
mate skill of native mapmakers and used maps by their Elliott, 'Cortes, Velazquez and Charles V', in Cortes, Letters
hands, not his own (Cortes, Lettersfrom Mexico(see note 1), from Mexico(see note 1), xi-xxxvii.
192, 340, 344). 53. Ibid., xxvii.
43. Martyr, De OrbeNovo (see note 33), 2: 198-99, 201. 54. The flag may be intended to mark Tlacopan, later
44. Cortes, Lettersfrom Mexico (see note 1), 499, n.99. known as Tacuba, where Cortes beat a retreat after being
Peter Martyr says that the goods he saw, including maps, routed from Tenochtitlan on Noche Triste (Cortes, Letters
had been brought back to Europe by Cortes's secretary
from Mexico (see note 1), 139). It was from here he
Juan de Ribera, who arrived in Seville around 8
launched an attack on Tenochtitlan, described in his Third
November 1522 carrying a copy of Cortes's third letter.
Letter (ibid., 187).
This is inconsistent with what Cortes himself says about
55. Liss, Mexicounder Spain (see note 51), 26.
the map of Tenochtitlan, which he specifically notes
56. Bartolome de las Casas, Historia de las Indias, ed.
accompanied his second letter of 1520. Martyr, however,
could easily have been seeing accumulated materials from Agustin Millares Carlo (Mexico, Fondo de Cultura
the New World along with those that Ribera had brought. Economica, 1986), 2: 467.
45. Charles left Spain in May of 1520, first to claim his 57. An incomplete version of the Venetian edition may
crown as Holy Roman Emperor in Aachen and then to have led Armstrong to assert that this edition was without
proceed to Worms for its Diet, which convened in a map (Lilian Armstrong, 'Benedetto Bordone, miniator,
January, 1521. On his travels see Karl Brandi, TheEmperor and cartography in early sixteenth-century Venice', Imago
Charles V, trans. C.V. Wedgewood (London, Jonathan Mundi, 48 (1996): 83). Rare complete examples, however,
Cape, 1968), 123-32. show the Venetian edition to have a map, based on the
46. Jonathan Zophy, ed., The Holy Roman Empire: A Nuremberg map but with glosses in Italian. This Italian
DictionaryHandbook (Westport, Connecticut, Greenwood map was likely to have been the template for those by
Press, 1980), 343. Bordone and Ramusio.

31
 Appendix 1: Important 16th and Early 17th Century Publications of Versions of the 1524
Nuremberg Map of Tenochtitlan
Author Title Place Printer Years Folio/Page
HemrnanCortes Praeclara Ferdinadi. Cortesii de Nuremberg Frederick Peypus Feb. 1524 betw.ii
Noua maris Oceani Hyspania Arthimesus; Pietro and iii
Narratio ... Savorgnani, trans.
Hemran Cortes La preclara Narratione di Venice Bernardino de Viano Aug. 1524 before
Ferdinando Cortese della Nuoua sig. Al
Hispagna del Mare Oceano ... A. de Nicolini Aug. 152457
Benedetto Bordone Libro di Benedetto Bordone: Venice Nicolo d'Aristotile 1528 10r
Nel qual si ragiona da tutte l'isole del
mondo ...
Isolario de Benedetto Bordone: " " 1534 10r
Nel qual si ragiona da tutte l'isole del
mondo ... Paolo Manuzio 1547 10r
Francesco di Leno 156-? 10r
Giovanni Battista Terzo Volvme delle Navigationi et Venice Givnti 1556 309v
Ramusio Viaggi " 1565 307v
Delle Navagationi et Viaggi Raccolte " 1606 258r
Da M. Gio. Battista Ramvsio
Antoine du Pinet Planz, Povrtraitz, et descriptions de Lyon Ian D'Ogerolles 1564 p. 297
plvsievrs villes et forteresses, tant de
l'Evrope, Asie, & Afrique, que des
Indes, & terres neuues
Tommaso Porcacchi L'isole piv famose del mondo Venice Simon Galignani and 1572 p. 105
descritte da Tomaso Porcacchi da Girolamo Porro 1576 p. 157
Castiglione
Heredi di Simon 1590 p. 157
Galignani 1605 p. 157
Padua Paolo et Francesco 1620 p. 157
Galignani Fratelli
Georg Braun and Civitates Orbis Terrarum, Liber Cologne Braun and Hogenberg 1576 pl. 58
Franz Hogenberg Primvs II I
1581-82 pl. 58
II II
1612 pl. 58

Appendix 2: Inscriptions on the 1524 Nuremberg Map of Tenochtitlan

1. Ex istofluuio conducutagud in ciuitatem 10. Idol Lapideu[m]
From here a stream of water flows into the city Stone idol
2. Atacuba 11. Dom[us] D. Muteezuma
Tacuba House of Don Moteuczoma
3. ViridarniD. Muteezuma 12. Capitasacrificatoru[m]
Gardens of Don Moteuczoma Sacrificial heads
4. Domus aduoluptased. Muteezuma 13. Dom[us] a[n]ialui[m]
Pleasure-houses of Don Moteuczoma House of the animals (zoo)
5. Foru[m] 14. Istapalapa
Plaza Ixtapalapa
6. Templumubi sacrificant 15. Templu[m] ubi orant
Temple where sacrifices are made Temple of worship
7. TEMIXTITAN 16. Aggeresad tutelam domoru[m] a Lacusfluctiuz
Tenochtitlan Dike to protect the houses from lake tides
8. CapitaSacrificatoru
[m] 17. Telqua
Sacrificial heads Texcoco
9. Platea
Street

32
 Cartographie de la capitale azteque: le plan de Tenochtitlan de Nuremberg, 1524
Le plan de Tenochtitlan publie avec l'edition latine des lettres de Hernan Cortes (Nuremberg, 1524) fut la
premiere image presentee aux Europeens de la ville de Culhua-Mexica, la capitale de l'empire azteque. On
ignore la source de ce plan grave sur bois. L'auteur demontre qu'il etait base sur un plan indigene de la ville.
Lorsqu'il fut publie en Europe, ce plan, accompagne de la carte de la cote du Golfe du Mexique, en plus de sa
valeur de document, assuma egalement un role symbolique pour soutenir que la conquete de l'empire
amerindien par Cortes (et donc par l'Espagne) etait un acte justifie.

Eine Karteder Azteken-Metropole:

der NurnbergerPlan von Tenochtitlanvon 1524. Seine Quellenund seine
Interpretationsmdglichkeiten
Der Plan von Tenochtitlan, der zusammen mit der lateinischen Version der Briefe des Hernan Cortes 1524 in
Her
Niirnberg publiziert wurde, war die erste Darstellung der Stadt der Culhua-Mexica, der Hauptstadt des
Aztekenreiches, die in Europa zur Verfiigung stand. Die Vorlage dieser Holzschnittkarte ist unbekannt und die
Autorin legt dar, dalf sie auf einer einheimischen Karte der Stadt basiert. Mit der Publikation des Stadtplans
und der zugehorigen Karte des Golfs von Mexiko in Europa sollte-neben der zweifellos dokumentarischen
Absicht-auf einer mehr symbolischen Ebene auch die Eroberung des indianischen Reiches durch Cortes
(und damit Spanien) legitimiert werden.

'Gateway' Sites on the Web

Devoted to the History of Cartography
The history of cartography can fairly claim to be one of the best organised subjects on the World Wide Web. Literally
hundreds of sites could be individually mentioned f or images relevant to the study of early maps. However, in a
situation that is so dynamic that any attempt to tie down the Web behemoth is out of date no sooner than written (let alone
printed), and where the subject's most prolific index site is significantly updated everyday, the only sensible advice to give
here is to point to the 'gateway' sites. These are sites which can be relied upon to provide the best current route into a
ceaselessly-changingwired world-in much the same way as knowing where your radioweatherprogrammeis while not
knowing what tomorrow'sweather will be like.
Thereare two of these gateways,each linked to the other at multiplepoints. From either, you should be able to find
everythingon the Web of value to earlymaps.It is perhapsno coincidencethatboth sites are managedby librarians,whose
metier is the organisationof informationand the routes to it.

1. The Historyof Cartographysite: < http://www.ihrinfo.ac.uk/maps/ >

This is run by the BritishLibrary'sMap Librarian,Tony Campbell,who seeks to provideintroductoryinformationon all
aspects of the subjectwhile recognisingthat many of the answers to questions-about fellowships,exhibitions,journals
(includingImagoMundfs own homepage),conferencesand lectures,societies,librarycollections,for example-are stillto
be found elsewhere than on the Web.

2. 'Oddens's Bookmarks' site: < http://kartoserver.frw.ruu.nll/html/staff/oddens/oddens.htm >

This is managed by the indefatigable Roelof Oddens, Utrecht University's Map Librarian.It comprises, at the time of writing,
almost 5000 links to sites involving both historical and modern mapping and has become an indispensable part of our
discipline. The easiest way of accessing its varied historical information is via the History of Cartography homepage, under
'Internet Resources-Web Links'.

33