*Ø* Blogmanac November 8, 1519 | Moctezuma's fall
How the Venice of the New World fell to just 400 Spanish invaders
Gazing on such wonderful sights, we did not know what to say, nor whether what appeared before us was real, for on one side, on the land, there were great cities, and in the lake, so many more ... and in front of us stood the great City of Mexico, and we – we did not even number four hundred soldiers!
Diaz, one of Cortés’s men
It was the year that Italy saw the death, on May 2nd, of Leonardo da Vinci, followed shortly by his countrywoman Lucrezia Borgia on June 24th. In Rome, Germany’s Martin Luther was gazing on new works by Michaelangelo and Raphael adorning the Pope’s palace, while answering charges that he had called the pontiff “fallible”. Meanwhile, off the coast of Italy, Mediterranean traders sailed in fear of the notorious North African pirate, Aruj al-Din Barbarossa.
At the time, in England, the ink was scarcely dry on Thomas More’s Utopia (1516), while elsewhere in Europe, King Charles of Spain was being elected Emperor Charles II of the Holy Roman Empire. Meanwhile, across the big pond, the new Governor of Panama was no doubt explaining to his superiors in Spain why in January he had beheaded Vaco Nunez de Balboa, the explorer and conquistador.
To the east, Persia’s great empire now rivalled that of the Ottomans, and in Switzerland, Protestant reformer Ulrich Zwingli was busy banning the sale of Roman Catholic indulgences. On September 20, Portugal’s intrepid navigator, Ferdinand Magellan embarked to circumnavigate the globe, while over in Venice, Italy, rich citizens enjoying the full flush of the Renaissance were revelling in the works of the likes of Bellini and Giorgione, and the city was glory of Europe.
Tenochtitlán, Mexico’s great city of the world
Across the Atlantic Ocean, the great Aztec capital, Tenochtitlán, sited where Mexico City stands today, was the Venice of the New World, criss-crossed as it was with canals, with many aqueducts and markets, and a grand lake featuring floating gardens. According to early Spanish accounts, it was unlike the European cities they knew, but more like the ones they had seen in romantic books, as it was not crowded and dirty. The population of the lake city was some 90,000 people at a time when London’s numbered about 40,000 and only 65,000 people lived in Paris. Tenochtitlán’s craftsmen, such as its fine goldsmiths, were a match for those in Europe, and the grandeur of the city’s pyramids rivalled that of the Egyptian wonders ...
Omens of the arrival of Cortés
The expedition of Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés arrived at Tenochtitlán after nine months of fighting indigenous people and trudging across rough country, on up to the high Mexican plateau. So determined was their leader to find treasure that he had ordered his men to burn their boats in the harbour, ominously fulfilling a ten-year-old Aztec prophecy that a fire in the night sky would be a portent of doom. However, there are some reports that a spectacular heavenly light shone for a year before the arrival of the conquistadors ...
Read on at the new article at the Scriptorium on Moctezuma's fall: Tenochtitlán and the arrival of Cortés.
My ISP has been down for 24 hours, so i had a break from the Almanac ezine today, but I managed to get this article up, because I didn't need to go online to make the page, and because I find the subject so fascinating. It's the first in a series of articles I'm putting together about European imperialism, which I'm calling Greed, gold and God. I hope you enjoy these true tales. On November 16, I'll put something here about how Pizarro and 168 men defeated 80,000 Inca warriors one lazy afternoon in 1532.
Tenochtitlán and the arrival of Cortés
How the Venice of the New World fell to just 400 Spanish invaders
Gazing on such wonderful sights, we did not know what to say, nor whether what appeared before us was real, for on one side, on the land, there were great cities, and in the lake, so many more ... and in front of us stood the great City of Mexico, and we – we did not even number four hundred soldiers!
Diaz, one of Cortés’s men
It was the year that Italy saw the death, on May 2nd, of Leonardo da Vinci, followed shortly by his countrywoman Lucrezia Borgia on June 24th. In Rome, Germany’s Martin Luther was gazing on new works by Michaelangelo and Raphael adorning the Pope’s palace, while answering charges that he had called the pontiff “fallible”. Meanwhile, off the coast of Italy, Mediterranean traders sailed in fear of the notorious North African pirate, Aruj al-Din Barbarossa.
At the time, in England, the ink was scarcely dry on Thomas More’s Utopia (1516), while elsewhere in Europe, King Charles of Spain was being elected Emperor Charles II of the Holy Roman Empire. Meanwhile, across the big pond, the new Governor of Panama was no doubt explaining to his superiors in Spain why in January he had beheaded Vaco Nunez de Balboa, the explorer and conquistador.
To the east, Persia’s great empire now rivalled that of the Ottomans, and in Switzerland, Protestant reformer Ulrich Zwingli was busy banning the sale of Roman Catholic indulgences. On September 20, Portugal’s intrepid navigator, Ferdinand Magellan embarked to circumnavigate the globe, while over in Venice, Italy, rich citizens enjoying the full flush of the Renaissance were revelling in the works of the likes of Bellini and Giorgione, and the city was glory of Europe.
Tenochtitlán, Mexico’s great city of the world
Across the Atlantic Ocean, the great Aztec capital, Tenochtitlán, sited where Mexico City stands today, was the Venice of the New World, criss-crossed as it was with canals, with many aqueducts and markets, and a grand lake featuring floating gardens. According to early Spanish accounts, it was unlike the European cities they knew, but more like the ones they had seen in romantic books, as it was not crowded and dirty. The population of the lake city was some 90,000 people at a time when London’s numbered about 40,000 and only 65,000 people lived in Paris. Tenochtitlán’s craftsmen, such as its fine goldsmiths, were a match for those in Europe, and the grandeur of the city’s pyramids rivalled that of the Egyptian wonders ...
Omens of the arrival of Cortés
The expedition of Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés arrived at Tenochtitlán after nine months of fighting indigenous people and trudging across rough country, on up to the high Mexican plateau. So determined was their leader to find treasure that he had ordered his men to burn their boats in the harbour, ominously fulfilling a ten-year-old Aztec prophecy that a fire in the night sky would be a portent of doom. However, there are some reports that a spectacular heavenly light shone for a year before the arrival of the conquistadors ...
Read on at the new article at the Scriptorium on Moctezuma's fall: Tenochtitlán and the arrival of Cortés.
My ISP has been down for 24 hours, so i had a break from the Almanac ezine today, but I managed to get this article up, because I didn't need to go online to make the page, and because I find the subject so fascinating. It's the first in a series of articles I'm putting together about European imperialism, which I'm calling Greed, gold and God. I hope you enjoy these true tales. On November 16, I'll put something here about how Pizarro and 168 men defeated 80,000 Inca warriors one lazy afternoon in 1532.
Pip Wilson posted item above at 8:46 PM | Permalink
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