Mexico-Tenochtitlan. A Roman city in the New World

Abstract

The reconstruction process of what Mexico City would be was initiated after the Mexico-Tenochtitlan conquest in 1521, with the purpose of making it the Nueva España capital. Historiographic tradition assures that the new city’s layout was commissioned by Hernan Cortes to Alonso Garcia Bravo, who immediately started to create an urbanistic plan that, in general terms, coincided with the Renaissance urbanism. In addition, its reticular structure reused the previous indigenous layout and preserved some prehispanic constructions, specifically the ones that had not been destroyed by the Spaniards during the siege. Years later, the aforementioned plan was developed based on the ideas of Vitruvio and Leon Battista Alberti, during the government of Viceroy Antonio de Mendoza.

In the present essay, it is studied the first Mexico city’s layout in a new perspective that, in general terms, considers that its urban structure certainly reused elements of the original prehispanic layout, however, it was conceived by similar criteria as the ones in the establishment of Roman cities which original orthogonal layout would be subsequently reinterpreted in the Renaissance.