Anahuac

When Cortés arrived in Mexico City – called Tenochtitlán at the time – in November 1519, it was the capital of the Aztec Empire. Situated on a plateau and enclosed by a chain of volcanoes to the south and a mountain ridge to the north, the city left the Spaniards spellbound with the beauty and magnificence of its buildings, rising from a myriad of natural and artificial islands separated by a network of canals. Indeed, it was described as the “Venice of the New World”. Their astonishment, however, was not enough dissuade the conquistadores from destroying the city two years later. The buildings were pulled down and the canals filled with their rubble; the gods fell and churches were built on the remains of their temples: simple colonial buildings that later gave way to Baroque churches – the Jesuits’ opulent sanctuaries competing with pagan temples in an attempt to dazzle and subdue.