Book Review: The Death of Aztec Tenochtitlan, The Life of Mexico City by Barbara E. Mundy

Barbara E. Mundy’s multiple award-winning book is a landmark contribution to the understanding of the history of Mexico City. Challenging the extended idea that the physical destruction of Tenochtitlan and the overthrow of its leaders in 1521 constituted the “death” of the Aztec capital, Mundy offers an insightful and enthralling story about the endurance of native Tenochtitlan in the post-conquest period.

With a population of nearly 150,000, Tenochtitlan was one of the largest cities in the world at the beginning of the 16^th century. It was located on an island in the middle of lake Tetzcoco in the Central Valley of Mexico and was the center of a vast empire formed by a network of tributary states subdued during the military campaigns of the Triple Alliance, a political coalition established by the Mexica of Tenochtitlan, the Acolhua of Tetzcoco, and the Tepanec of Tlacopan in 1428. Multiple accounts, like Hernán Cortés’ Third Letter to the Emperor Charles V, claimed that this magnificent metropolis died after the wars of conquest and that, with the construction of buildings that represented the power of the Crown and the Church, Mexico City was born in its place. Mundy explains that the notion of cities as biological entities, deeply rooted in our understanding of Tenochtitlan’s history, was not only founded on early-modern ideas about the state but also on indigenous political philosophy, in which the ruler, the tlatoani, was perceived as a metonym of the state (3). However, like Charles Gibson, who underscored the continuities between Aztec social and political structures and the labor organization of the Valley during colonial times in his classical study The Aztec Under Spanish Rule (1964), Mundy rejects a periodization that posits an unequivocal break between the pre-Columbian and the colonial city. Instead, her study demonstrates that the making of the indigenous city was an ongoing process that encompassed the 16^th century.

The book’s compelling narration begins by exploring the engineering of Tenochtitlan by the Mexica and their efforts to transform the city-island into a populated and productive space. Since its establishment in 1325, and especially since the government of Itzcoatl (r. 1427-1440), Mexica rulers built massive works of environmental control that contributed to create an ideal setting for the altepetl, the socio-political community or city-state. Sovereigns were determined to control the first component of the Nahuatl word altepetl, that is atl, “water.” Through the construction of dikes and causeway systems, they protected the city and secured the supply of fresh water for its inhabitants. Mundy unveils the close connection between these works and the solidification of political power. Through sculpture, architecture, and performance, Mexica rulers linked themselves to the massive and transformative works that would create an ideal altepetl and embedded their own images as masters of nature in the built environment. The connection between water control and indigenous rule persisted in colonial times.

One of the major achievements of the book is the way the author recovers the agency of native subjects. In particular, Mundy underlines the crucial roles played by members of the indigenous elites in rethinking and reshaping the city during the colonial period. Men such as Juan Velázquez Tlacotzin, Diego de Alvarado Huanitzin, and Antonio Valeriano, who held positions in the colonial administration, envisioned the construction of buildings and carried out works central to everyday urban life. Juan Velázquez Tlacotzin, for example, directed the creation of a major market or tianguis, later replaced with the Tianguis of Mexico. Later, at the end of the 1530s, Huanitzin, an Indian governor who descended from the Mexica tlatoani Axayacatl, commissioned the construction of a tecpan, or government palace, facing the new commercial hub. As the embodiment of native authority, the tecpan gave “concrete and physical form in the changing city to the enduring presence of Mexica rulers” (112). In turn, Valeriano supported the construction of an urban aqueduct that conjured images reminiscent of ancient Tenochtitlan in the colonial city. Mundy shows that native knowledge remained crucial in efforts to control water in the city. Viceregal authorities listened to the advice of native lords and turned to ancient manuscripts to deal with the city’s water system and to find solutions to flooding.

The book also highlights the decisive influence of the Franciscan order in erasing and preserving the native capital. The Franciscans preserved the structure of the pre-Columbian city but ascribed new meanings to spaces, replacing local shrines with chapels and building churches in the four altepeme. In alliance with the native elite, they deliberately positioned the city within a global network of Christianity. For example, The Mass of Saint Gregory, a featherwork made under Huanitzin’s and the Franciscan priest Pedro de Gante’s patronage, offered “a vision of a decentered Christianity, with the Christ as equally present in Mexico as in Rome” (107).

Written from the perspective of an art historian, the study relies on Mundy’s rigorous and detailed analysis of a diverse set of sources: pictographic-alphabetic manuscripts, maps designed by native artists, featherworks, sculptures, and early colonial chronicles. Many of the artworks are reproduced with great care in this beautifully illustrated volume, now offered in paperback. Although clear argumentation makes this book accessible to a broad audience, it would have greatly benefited from a glossary, since Nahuatl terminology can be difficult to navigate for non-specialists. Regardless, The Death of Aztec Tenochtitlan, The Life of Mexico City represents an essential contribution for researchers and students across academic disciplines interested in the history and nature of Mexico City, colonial urbanism, pre-Columbian and colonial art, and ethnic and racial studies.