Page 573 - Art In The Age Of Exploration (Great Section on Chinese Art Ming Dynasty)

This map of Tenochtitlan was included in a book
on the conquest of Mexico published by Friedrich
Peypus in Nuremberg in March 1524. The text
consists of a Latin translation, by Pietro Savor-
gnani, of Hernan Cortes' second and third letters
from Mexico together with the De rebus, et Insu-
lis noviter repertis by Peter Martyr d'Anghiera;
the large woodcut of Tenochtitlan, the Aztec city,
is based on a drawing supposedly made at Cortes'
behest. The conquistador was deeply impressed by
the Aztec capital, built on a lake and approached
by four artificial causeways. The main streets
were wide and straight and the town had many
squares "where trading is done, and markets are
held continuously...; each kind of merchandise
is sold in its own street without any mixture
whatsoever," something about which the Aztecs
were evidently very particular. Cortes described
the variety of produce at great length. At the
center of the city was the Great Temple, which he
described as being "so large that within the pre-
406 cincts, which are surrounded by a very high wall,
of some five hundred inhabitants could
a town
accounts first published
illustrates,
is known from
Christoph Weiditz by Francisco Lopez de Gomara in 1552 and by Juan easily be built." The anonymous woodcut record-
ing the city shows the central square
(Temixtitan
Strasbourg, c. I5oo?-i559 de Torquemada in 1615. Torquemada indicated or Tenochtitlan) surrounded by the enclosure
AZTECS PLAYING TLACHTLI that this game was played by teams of two or known as the coatepantli (snake wall), with the
three players who hit the ball with their buttocks, temples in which human sacrifices were held
1529 the aim being to bounce it through a stone ring on (Templum ubi sacrificant), and even the tzom-
from the Trachtenbuch a wall. In his History of the Conquest of Mexico pantli or skull-rack altar where the heads of the
manuscript (1552) Lopez de Gomara gave an exhaustive sacrificed (capita sacrificatorum) were placed.
3
each fol. 19.8 x 15 (y /4 x f/s) description, specifying the particular type of ball The architecture is largely fanciful and accommo-
references: Hampe 1927, esp. 79, pis. xm-xiv; Cline used (ullamalixtli) and explaining that "the game
1969, 75-76, ill. p. 74; Honour in Cleveland 1975, dated to familiar European conventions, but the
59-61, fig. 48; Colin 1988, 340-344 (esp. 343~344J is not played for points, but only for the final vic- large pyramid and two towers probably represent
tory, which goes to the side that knocks the ball the two shrines atop the Great Temple dedicated
Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nuremberg, against the opponents' wall or over it." "Stones to Huitzilopochtli and Tlaloc on their giant pyra-
Hs 22.494 resembling millstones are set into the side walls, midal base. The headless idol (idol lapideum) is
with holes cut through them, hardly big enough more symbolic than real and alludes to Cortes'
Christoph Weiditz is best known as a medallist, in to allow passage for the ball. The player who destruction of the Aztec deities (for the Great
which medium he portrayed both Charles v and shoots the ball through them (which rarely hap- Temple, see Matos Moctezuma 1988). The Aztec
Hernan Cortes. He is known as well for the Trach- pens, because it would be a difficult thing to do ruler had various residences in and around
tenbuch, his famous costume book. This manu- even if one threw the ball by hand) wins the game Tenochtitlan. In some of his houses he kept birds
script includes eleven representations of Aztecs, and, by ancient law and custom of the players, also and animals (domus animalium) in cages made of
two of them on double pages. Weiditz was, in fact, wins the capes of all the spectators" (Lopez de strong, well-joined timber: "in most of them
the first European to portray native Americans; Gomara 1964, 145-146; for the ball game, see were large numbers of lions, tigers, wolves, foxes,
he sketched these Aztecs in Barcelona in 1529, also Duran 1971, 312-319, pi. 34). J.M.M. and cats of various kinds" (Cortes 1986, 102-111).
more precisely before March 22, the date the Built as an island and with an inner ceremonial
Mexicans left for Seville. The Aztecs he saw had enclosure, Tenochtitlan was well defended. It has
been brought back by Cortes in 1528, when he indeed been proposed (Palm 1951) that the 1524
returned to Spain to justify himself before the woodcut was used by Albrecht Diirer for his
emperor. Weiditz carefully recorded their appear- 407 scheme for an ideal city published in his treatise
ance, showing some of them juggling and playing MAP OF TENOCHTITLAN AND on fortifications (Etliche underricht, zu Befesti-
games like tlachtli and patolli. The ball game was THE GULF OF MEXICO gung der stett, Schloss, und flecken [Nuremberg,
explained in an inscription by Weiditz: "In this 1527], fol. E.ir). This town plan is perhaps the
way the Indians play with the inflated ball, with from H. Cortes, Praeclara de Nova maris Oceani most original part of Diirer's treatise. The town
their buttocks without raising their hands from Hyspania Narratio... (Nuremberg, 1524) itself is built in the form of a square; it is also
the ground; they also have a hard leather over hand colored woodcut fortified and clearly organized quarter by quarter.
their buttocks to receive the impact of the ball; 31 X 46.5 (l2 /8 X l8 /4) The connections with Tenochtitlan, however, are
2
l
they are also wearing similar leather gloves/' references: Toussaint 1938, 93-105, fig. 13; Palm rather general, and no direct dependence can be
Because he was unfamiliar with rubber, Weiditz 1951, 59-66, fig. 9; Marquina 1960, 25-26, fig. i; proved. In any case Diirer could have arrived at
assumed from the ball's elasticity that it was in- Nuremberg 1971, 360 no. 653, ///. p. 358; Budde his scheme simply by adapting the regular sym-
flated; in fact, it would have been made of solid 1982, 173—182, fig. 262; Nebenzahl 1990, 74-76 metrical layout of the Greek military camp, as
rubber. The game of tlachtli, which the drawing Newberry Library, Chicago described by Polybius, to a centralized city plan.

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