1556 [A View of Mexico City.] Untitled map of Mexico City.

This rare and important map of Tenochtitlan (Mexico City) is from Ramusio’s Navigatione et Viaggi volume 3, and is based on the original rendering of the city done by Cortes himself when he came up on the splendid metropolis. Similar versions of the map based on the original plan are to be found in a number of contemporaneous publications, including those by Bordone, Munster, du Pinet, and Porcacchi, to name a few. The city was founded by the Mexica (Aztecs) in 1325, who called it Tenochtitlan. They were one of the last indigenous people to migrate to this area after the fall of the Toltecs, and they eventually established a city on a small island on the western side of the lake. Mexica legend describes how their principal god, Huitzilopochtli, identified the position of the city on seeing an eagle perched on a cactus with a snake grasped firmly in its beak. When the Spanish arrived, the population of the city is estimated to have been as high as 300,000 inhabitants, making it much lar