effort was to render the buildings strong in case of an uprising, and with this view stone and masonry work was the rule, and towers could be erected at each corner, which assisted to give them an imposing appearance. The pains bestowed on architectural embellishments, wherein churches and convents afterward took the lead, proved a salutary example to the community, to judge from Cortés' enthusiastic assurance to the emperor that within a few years the city would take the first rank in the world for population and fine edifices.[1]
The general himself built two fine houses on the sites of the old and new palaces of Montezuma, located respectively in the western and south-eastern parts of the ancient square.[2] They were constructed with great strength, particularly the south-eastern, which contained more than one interior court, and was protected by a projecting tower at each corner, and liberally provided with embrasures and loop-holes. Seven thousand beams are said to have been employed in the construction.[3] Strength was not the only object of these centrally located houses, but also profit, the lower story of one at least being divided into shops,
- ↑ 'De hoy en cinco años será la mas noble y pupulosa ciudad que haya en lo poblado del mundo, y de mejores edificios.' Cartas, 310. 'Niuna città in Spagna per si gran tratto l'ha migliore ne piu gráde.' Anon. Conqueror, in Ramusio, Viaggi, 111. 309. He extols particularly the later Dominican convent.
- ↑ See vol. i. chap. xvi. In the royal cédula of July 1529, granting to Cortés these sites, the new palace is described as bounded by the square and the Iztapalapan road, and (south and east) by the streets of Gonzalez de Trujillo and Martin Lopez, the shipwright. The old palace is bounded by the new street of Tacuba, and that leading to San Francisco, and (westward) by the houses of Rangel, Farfán, Terrazas, and Zamudio. Icazbalceta, Col. Doc., ii. 28-9; Pacheco and Cárdenas, Col. Doc., xiii. 213-14. The new palace-site was sold by Cortés' son to the government on January 29, 1562, and the viceregal palace rose upon it. The old palace, bounded to the side and rear by the streets of Plateros and La Profesa, or San José el Real, served up to that time for government purposes. Ramirez, Noticias de Mex., in Monumentos Domin. Esp., MS., No. 6, 309 et seq.; Carbajal Espinosa, Hist. Mex., ii. 221-2. The Iztapalapan road was afterward called del Reloj. Calle de la Celada, leading to the rear of the new palace, southward, was so called from an ambush during the siege. Alaman, Disert., ii. 203-12, 257-8. Humboldt, Essai Pol., i. 190, misleads Prescott and others about the location of the old palace, and places the new where the old really stood.
- ↑ 'Que vna viga de cedro tenga ciento y veynte pies de largo, y doze de gordo. quadrada.' Gomara, Hist. Mex., 235.
