Examining a Map of Tenochtitlan (Interpretation and Analysis)

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Map of Tenochtitlan
Map of Tenochtitlan
Source: History Today
Today, I want to take a step away from the idea of the ideal city in art and touch on another way civic spaces are depicted. When you hear the word art, a map might not be the first thing that comes to mind. However, maps are important pieces of visual culture and often reveal how their creators view the world.

This map dates from 1524 and depicts the Aztec city of Tenochtitlan (modern day Mexico City). While modern people tend to think of maps as tools to help them travel from point A to point B, this map would be more or less useless to a traveler trying to find there was around the city. This is very deliberate. Tenochtitlan was destroyed three years before the map was published; besides which, it was designed for a European audience, comprised of people who would probably never come anywhere near Central America. According to History Today, “[this] was the first image seen in Europe of Tenochtitlan, presented under the Habsburg imperial flag. It has been suggested that this, originally, was based on an indigenous map of the city and thus reflects the inhabitants’ own view of it, before being adapted into a woodcut by European craftsmen. Despite being highly stylized, the general design reflects what is known of the layout of Tenochtitlan.”

Map of the Aztec Migration from Aztlan to Chapultapec
Map of the Aztec Migration from Aztlan to Chapultapec
Source: Wikipedia

Given this context, the map takes on special significance. It is a visual symbol of a massive paradigm shift — begun in 1492 — that forced Europeans to reconsider their ideas about the world and their place in it. The depiction of Tenochtitlan, reimagined as a Western city with European houses and fortresses, is an attempt to reconcile ideas and assumptions about the so-called “New World” with preexisting Western ideas about how cities should look and function.

This phenomenon is also observable in the 1704 Gemelli map depicting the Aztec Migration from Aztlan to Chapultapec. Here, the artist (Giovanni Francesco Gemelli Careri) borrows the structure of pre-Columbian imagery and repurposes it to cater to Western sensibilities (notice that all the people depicted here are Caucasian). As in the Map of Tenochtitlan, there is an attempt here to use art to translate pre-Columbian culture into a symbolic language more compatible with contemporary European mindsets.

Disclaimer: I’m not an art historian or an expert on this topic. The above is my opinion, based on my interpretation of my foreknowledge of art and history. If I’ve done any additional research, I’ll note it above.

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