Terrae Incognitae

The Journal of the Society for the History of Discoveries

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The Palace Façade and the Urban Form in the

Documenting of Hispanic America

C Cody Barteet

To cite this article: C Cody Barteet (2011) The Palace Façade and the Urban
Form in the Documenting of Hispanic America, Terrae Incognitae, 43:1, 3-23, DOI:
10.1179/008228811X12959685200661

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1179/008228811X12959685200661

Published online: 19 Jul 2013.

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 terrae incognitae, Vol. 43 No. 1, 2011, 3–23

The Palace Façade and the Urban

Form in the Documenting of Hispanic
America
C Cody Barteet
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University of Western Ontario, Canada

This essay examines the relationship between palace architecture and the
urban form in sixteenth-century Hispanic America. By analyzing period
plans, cartographic renderings, paintings, residences, and archival texts, a
direct relationship can be drawn between the architectural practices of
the early Spanish colonizers and the implementation of monarchical urban
policies. This article explores how individuals’ architectural patronage,
whether princely or individual, affected the formation of Las Leyes de Indias
(the Laws of the Indies) of 1573 and other urban policies, considering that
homes and palace façades were deeply encoded artifacts in European and
pre-contact cultures. I suggest that the architectural façade in the sixteenth-
century Hispanic world had some correlation to the evolution of the
early Spanish-American urban environments. Currently, we have not sought
to analyze such a dynamic interaction between the colonizers and the
monarchical state.

keywords colonial architecture, colonization, sixteenth-century Hispanic

America, urban planning

Analyses of the urban form in Hispanic America have sought primarily to uncover
the origins of the Spanish-American urban system and its supporting legislation.
Although this research has identified several possible influences upon Spanish
urbanism and accounted for the practicalities of the grid form used in frontier towns,
it has not revealed much about architecture’s role within the urban system. Despite
the diverse functions that architecture had in early modern Europe and pre-contact
America, there has been virtually no consideration of architecture within the
Hispanic American built environment. Much of the lack seems to stem from a
constructed understanding that American cities were created to suppress individual
and group identities through restrictions in zoning and in the decorative programs of

© The Society for the History of Discoveries 2011 DOI 10.1179/008228811X12959685200661

 4 C CODY BARTEET

façades. Thus, the impression is that sixteenth-century Hispanic Americans did not
adopt the same architectural patronage practices as their European counterparts or
the American indigenous populations. Moreover, current discussion of Hispanic
American architecture has been restricted almost exclusively to religious structures,
with limited consideration given to secular or residential architecture despite the clear
presence of consciously contrived messages sculpted onto non-religious façades.
Explorations of the extant palaces built by the conquistadores and their descendants
suggest that the architectural façade was used as a means to assert individual and
familial agendas. Although these structures are trivialized frequently as provincial
manifestations, not all displays of self-representation were created beyond the bound-
aries of the viceregal capitals and the monarchy’s symbolic presence. But there has
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been no questioning of the effects that these non-monarchical sanctioned structures

had on the formation of viceregal culture or more specifically on the development
of the built environment in the Hispanic world.1 Indeed, the urban policies instituted
by the Spanish imperial state and the viceregal government contain legislation that
clearly concerns zoning and façade design for the structures built by groups, institu-
tions, and individuals. However, the purposes behind such legislation have yet to be
fully considered.
Most often the sixteenth-century urban legislation, which appears in its complete
form as Las Leyes de Indias or the Laws of the Indies of 1573, is approached from
vantages that foster the mindset that this vast set of ordinances pertaining to urban
forms, governmental structure, etc., were crafted as means to create a stable and
vibrant Spanish culture on the American frontiers.2 The drafters of the policies
implemented these decrees to clarify monarchical, religious, public, economic, and
individual spaces that were based on practices that had been occurring since the
beginning of the colonization of the Americas. Thus, the spaces were the means
by which the Hispanic frontiers were mapped and laid claim to by the monarchy.
Clearly this was a motivation for creating the laws of 1573; however, there has been
no consideration of how the leyes were affected by the conquistadores’ efforts to
establish autonomy in colonies or by their building practices. In this essay, I consider
how individuals’ architectural patronage, whether princely or individual, affected the
formation of these policies, considering that homes and palace façades were deeply
encoded artifacts in European and pre-contact cultures. I contend that the architec-
tural façade of the sixteenth-century Hispanic world correlated to the evolution of
the early Spanish-American urban environments.

1
Indeed, we should discuss the works built by the colonizers who returned to Spain, which have associations
with American iconographical components like the main portal of the Archbishop’s Palace in Seville that has
maize imagery. Likewise, we could consider structures built in other Spanish colonial territories in the Pacific
and Asia to gain a more informed appreciation of Spanish building practices during the early modern period.
2
The full title of the Laws of the Indies of 1573 is Las Leyes de Indias: ordenanzas de descubrimiento,
nueva población y pacificación de las Indias (The Laws of the Indies: Ordinances for the Discovery, the New
Settlement, and the Pacification of the Indies).
 PALACE FAÇADE AND URBAN FORM IN HISPANIC AMERICA 5

The importance of place in pre-modern Latin America

The importance of place — whether manmade, abstract, metaphorical, mystical,
physical, or natural formations — is a complex subject in both pre-contact and
Hispanic cultures. For indigenous Americans, a place can be something as easily
identifiable as a mountain or a cave, but the cultural values attributed to that place
can be complex as the location becomes part of the larger concepts of meaning, for
example a cave’s reference to the womb or as a space/mystical portal to the spiritual
realm and cosmos.3 Most often these natural formations are emulated or marked by
architecture. There is a multitude of research illustrating the significance of architec-
ture in pre-contact traditions that has not been considered in viceregal studies despite
the awareness that many indigenous practices and traditions continued well into the
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colonial era. By relying upon certain suppositions established for pre-contact studies
(in conjunction with European analyses), it is possible to clarify more precisely the
significance of place and palatial architecture in the viceregal period.
In current understandings of pre-contact culture, the idea of place is connected
most often to an individual’s or a society’s association to the divine, whether as a
place of mediation and intercession or as a location that metaphorically symbolizes
a ruler’s divine right. The ideologies ascribed to place are referenced in classic Maya
palaces, which patrons envisioned as expressions of their prevailing socio-political
ordering as well as religious sites.4 At the Murciélagos Palace at Dos Pilas (c. 600–800)
the K’ul Ajaw (Sacred Lords) situated their palace on top of a subterranean cave
system and along the established processional axis of the site. As Arthur Demarest
rightly suggests, the architectural complex thus became a site where the Dos Pilas
dynasty sought to visualize their relationship with the divine while securing their
governing authority by physically and symbolically locating themselves within the
Mayan cosmological order.5 Similar Mayan practices continued through the post-
classic era (c. 1100 until contact) and well into the post-contact period. One colonial
example is the appropriation of the Roman arch into Yucatecan Mayan architectural
practices. The art historian Samuel Edgerton has traced how the arch, first used by
Franciscan friars to visually mark and define an open-air chapel’s sanctuary, was
absorbed into Mayan architectural traditions and imbued with non-European

3
Karen Bassie-Sweet, At the Edge of the World: Caves and Late Classic Maya World View (Norman, 1996);
James E. Brady, “Settlement Configuration and Cosmology: The Role of Caves at Dos Pilas,” American
Anthropology 99, no. 3 (1997), pp. 602–18; and Andrea J. Stone, Images from the Underworld: Naj Tunich and
the Tradition of Maya Cave Painting (Austin, 1995).
4
For references on Mesoamerican palaces, see the following recent anthologies: Jessica Joyce Christie, ed., Maya
Palaces and Elite Residences: An Interdisciplinary Approach (Austin, 2003); Christie and Patricia Sarro, eds,
Palaces and Power in the Americas: From Peru to the Northwest Coast (Austin, 2006); and Susan Toby Evans
and Joanne Pillsbury, eds, Palaces of the Ancient World: A Symposium at Dumbarton Oaks, 10th and 11th
October 1998 (Washington, DC, 2004).
5
Arthur A. Demarest, “Sacred and Profane Mountains of the Pasión: Contrasting Architectural Paths to Power,”
in Palaces and Power in the Americas: From Peru to the Northwest Coast, ed. Jessica Joyce Christie and Susan
Toby Evans (Austin, 2006), pp. 117–40.
 6 C CODY BARTEET

symbolisms.6 Many of the Yucatecan visitas churches were symbolically mapped

within the Mayan cosmological order, in which the arch/sanctuary became the inter-
section between the divine and the earthly realms.7 This was most commonly achieved
by building the sanctuary next to or directly over cenotes, which were seen as portals
to the mystical world.8 Some Mayan towns took this process even further by incor-
porating the sanctuary, marked by the arch, into the communal organization of the
cahob, which were aligned according to the cardinal directions and the space of their
sacred geography.9
The Maya were not the only American culture that expressed concerns for identi-
fying and marking important places. The Aztecs and the Incas as well had similar
practices that were present in the new Hispanic American culture. The Spanish
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colonizers and monastic groups undoubtedly recognized the importance that place
had for many indigenous Americans, whether a natural phenomenon or a man-made
structure, as demonstrated by their decision to erect a church over a cenote in
Yucatán and to found Mexico City over Tenochtitlán. The conquistadores’ adeptness
at identifying indigenous ideologically or religiously charged places is a product of
their own heritage. The settlers understood how a particular place metaphorically
expressed communal values. Spanish patrons and artists, like their Western European
contemporaries, realized how architecture was a vital tool for self-representation. In
Iberia, the act of self-representation took many forms. Urban spaces could contain
many important places that expressed shared values or individual interests. The
contrived manipulation of urban space is present in a seventeenth-century plan of
Andújar, Spain. Here, the only depictions of the built form are the city’s walls and
churches. The omission of any other structures was deliberate, illustrating, as Richard
L. Kagan notes, “the chronicler’s effort to represent Andújar as a holy community
wholly committed to the defense of the Church.”10 Many Spaniards’ and Spanish
institutions’ cultural agendas were driven by religious concerns. Indeed, an objective
of both the Reconquista (Reconquest) and American colonization was to convert,
respectively, the Iberian Muslims and the indigenous Americans to Christianity while
also stamping out heresies.

6
Samuel Y. Edgerton, Theaters of Conversion: Religious Architecture and Indian Artisans in Colonial Mexico
(Albuquerque, 2001), pp. 73–106. An open-air chapel (capilla abierta or capilla de indios) is an outdoor sanctu-
ary, frequently affixed to a church, that was used for religious services during the evangelization of colonial
Hispanic America.
7
Edgerton, Theaters of Conversion, p. 86. For discussions of the visitas systems within art historical analysis,
see Miguel Bretos, Arquitectura y arte sacro en Yucatán: 1545–1823 (Mérida, 1987); and Edgerton, Theaters of
Conversion, specifically referencing Chapter 3.
8
Edgerton, Theaters of Conversion, lists the following sites as having alignment with cenotes: Dzibilchaltún,
Cholul, Tabí, Tekit, Telchaquillo, Chikindzonot (Yucatec for “West Cenote”). At Yaxcaba, Mama, Maní, and
Teabo, the churches were built next to the cenotes, while at San Barnardino de Sisal (Valladolid) the church
was built on top of a cenote.
9
Edgerton, Theaters of Conversion, p. 97.
10
Richard Kagan, “Urbs and Civitas in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century Spain,” in Envisioning the City: Six
Studies in Urban Cartography (Chicago, 1998), p. 98.
 PALACE FAÇADE AND URBAN FORM IN HISPANIC AMERICA 7

Moving beyond religious ideas of space, individual or princely interests were

represented as well in architecture and urban planning. In the Andalusian city of
Granada, one of the last strongholds of Islamic caliphs who once controlled large
portions of the Iberian Peninsula, Charles V, the Holy Roman Emperor and King
of Spain (1500–1558), built a Renaissance palace (1527–1568) at the center of the
Alhambra, which was the royal palace complex of the last Nasrid emirates. Amid the
well manicured Arab gardens, Charles’ rigid palace rises above all other structures,
except the Iglesia de Santa María de la Alhambra (1518–1618) that was built atop the
original mosque (Figure 1). The new style of architecture and the buildings’ elevated
locations effectively indicate a new authority.
Other anecdotal evidence abounds, ranging from the Christianizing of the spaces
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of the Great Mosque in Córdoba beginning in the thirteenth century to the building
of the Escorial in the sixteenth century. In each instance, architecture was seen as a
means to express the prevailing intertwined ideologies of church and state, whether
referencing monarchs’ efforts to reclaim portions of Iberia from the Muslims or
symbolizing the rise of a powerful, global empire under Charles V’s son, Philip II.
In each instance, architecture was vital to shaping the space of the city or the
territory.
Curiously, our inclination has been to examine the building and urban practices of
Amerindians and Europeans as correlating to the divine, despite the fact that the
political and ideological agendas of the elite significantly contributed to the formation
of architecture in pre- and post-contact Americas. Our approaches to colonial urban-
ism need to consider analysis similar to that presented by Michael Smith about Aztec
cities. Smith argues that from founding ceremonies to identifying various private,
institutional, and public spaces of a city, political and economic agendas affected
the formation of pre-contact urban and building practices.11 This is not to suggest
that we should abandon all references and discussions to religious influences and
implications on the colonial city; after all, in the early modern era church and state
were intimately entwined, and their prevailing ideologies influenced the urban
environment.
Likewise, it is frequently easier to illustrate the religious investments of specific
spaces — hence my continual references to religious examples. The practicality is that
there are more references and images of religious structures than homes in colonial
documents and graphic renditions. In numerous colonial images, churches are
the only manmade structures depicted with any detail. Many of the maps in the
Relaciones Geográficas (c. 1578–1586), whether represented in Europeanized or
indigenous forms, illustrate the importance of the sacred spaces of a specific locale,
as in the town of Cholula, or among the hinterlands of a township, as in the

11
Michael E. Smith, Aztec City-State Capitals (Gainesville, 2008), particularly Chapters 1, 5, and 8. Similar noble
influences are present in the main plaza in Madrid. For more information see Jesus Escobar, The Plaza Mayor
and the Shaping of Madrid (Cambridge, 2003).
 8 C CODY BARTEET
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figure 1 Juan de Herrera, Juan de Orea, and Ambrosio de Vico: Iglesia de Santa Maria
dela Alhambra, 1518–1618, Granada, Spain; and Pedro and Luis Machuca: Palace of Charles
V, Alhambra, Granada, Spain, 1527–1568.
Photo: author
 PALACE FAÇADE AND URBAN FORM IN HISPANIC AMERICA 9

illustration of Cempoala (Zempoala), both in Mexico.12 The images, many of which

contain Nahuatl cartographic forms and language, effectively illustrate the cultural
syncretism that occurred in the colonies as well as indicate that the Spanish and the
Aztec had similar conceptions of the sanctity of space.
Here again, the effects of non-religious agendas on the conception of American
spaces are important. The actual mapping of numerous frontier locations had a
practical dimension. Although the maps of Cholula and Cempoala have a religious
focus, the reason for their creation is directly connected to the economic and political
agendas of the imperial state. For example, the Relaciones Geográficas were created
in response to Philip II’s efforts to document the territories of the ever-expanding
Spanish empire, both domestically and abroad. Although the Cempoala image is
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rendered in a Mexica format, its purpose is Renaissance in origin as a means of sys-

tematically mapping and labeling a place as an apparatus for documenting physical
ownership of land or, in other cases, forcefully claiming sovereignty over a colonial
territory.13 Space, then, becomes quantifiable as a commodity. The systematic
appropriation of the American frontiers follows Renaissance notions of instituting
European order onto the territories.14 In urban settings, the separation between state,
religious, public, and private spaces was achieved relatively simply through the
application of a checkerboard form or damero; that is why this was used on a large
scale in the Hispanic colonies. Through the process of using stakes and cords, land
was divided into solares (or urban plots), which were labeled on a grid-lined paper
that referenced the names and owners of each lot, often a form of ownership that was
reserved for the wealthy. Indeed, household ownership for the conquistadores
was directly connected to the claiming of a solar. Typically in Spain, land ownership
was the right of the hidalgos (noblemen). The derivation of the term “hidalgo” is
hijosdalgo de solar conocido, meaning sons of a known household. Thus, the term
itself places value on the idea of building a home. As expected, many hidalgos were

12
For reproductions of these maps, see http://www.lib.utexas.edu/benson/rg/rg_images2.html and http://www.lib.
utexas.edu/benson/rg/rg_images3.html. Additional images of Relaciones Geográficas can be found at http://
www.lib.utexas.edu/benson/rg/rg1.html. I am deliberately avoiding a prolonged discussion of the distinctions
between native and European mapping traditions. For further information on central Mexican indigenous
traditions, see Elizabeth Hill Boone, “Aztec Pictorial Histories: Records without Words,” in Writing Without
Words: Alternative Literacies in Mesoamerica and the Andes, ed. Elizabeth Hill Boone and Walter D.
Mignolo (Durham, 1994), pp. 50–76; and Amara L. Solari, “Circles of Creation: The Invention of Maya
Cartography in Early Colonial Yucatán,” The Art Bulletin 93, no. 3 (September 2010), pp. 154–68.
13
For information that analyzes Spanish mapping traditions, see Ricardo Padrón, “Mapping Plus Ultra: Carto-
graphy, Space, and Hispanic Modernity,” Representations 79 (Summer 2002), pp. 28–60. In his text Padrón is
working with the theoretical principles of Henri Lefebvre outlined in Lefebvre’s The Production of Space, trans.
Donald Nicholson-Smith (Cambridge, 1991), pp. 229–91. Additionally I am not addressing issues here of
the concepts of ownership between indigenous and European traditions, as ideas of land and land use vary
dramatically among the American cultures, and even among the different social strata of the Europeans.
14
Similar ideas are explicit in colonial English images. Although created several centuries later, an eighteenth-
century image of Savannah, Georgia, is indicative of this mentality. See Peter Gordon, A View of Savannah,
Georgia, As It Stood the 29th of March 1734, engraving, Library of Congress, Washington, DC. For a reproduc-
tion see http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/h?ammem/gmd:@field%28NUMBER+@band%28g3924s+pm001
305%29%29.
 10 C CODY BARTEET

among those who immigrated to the colonies in search for new lands, both urban lots
and the encomiendas (land grants) of the hinterlands, that they hoped would benefit
them economically.
Aside from the economic advantages of possessing a place, ownership of a solar
offered political possibilities. Owning a solar upon which a house was built (what-
ever one might define as a house) provided citizenship that allowed a conquistador
rights and positions in the local municipal government. Thus, it was important not
only to lay claim to an urban tract but also to build a house, which was the act that
secured citizenship. Indeed, the term hidalguía de pobladuría (nobility of settlement)
was used in Hispanic America to reference actually possessing a built house. Fre-
quently during the early phases of colonization many conquistadores moved freely
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from one frontier to the next in their quests for economic riches, adventure, etc. It
was commonplace for individuals to leave less advantageous colonization efforts for
those with more potential, resulting in much angst for expedition leaders, who them-
selves sought to abandon their enterprises. As Francisco de Montejo, the adelantado
(governor or captain general) of Yucatán, lamented in a letter to Charles V dated 10
August 1534:
In these provinces [Yucatán] there is not a single river, although there are lakes, and the
hills are of live rock, dry and waterless. The entire land is covered by thick bush and is
so stony that there is not a single square foot of soil. No gold has been discovered, nor
is there anything [else] from which advantage can be gained. The inhabitants are the most
abandoned and treacherous in all the lands discovered to this time . . . I know not where
to run, since over and above having expended all I possess in the service of Your
Majesty, I am in debt to the extent of 50,000 castellanos. These [funds], however, I con-
sider well employed in serving Your Majesty, than which, motivated by no other desire,
I have done naught else for twenty-one years. Even though my services may not merit
reward, and though my efforts have not been crowned with success, I supplicate that
Your Majesty be gracious and remedy my situation through granting me office elsewhere,
that I may serve you to better advantage and win recompense with which to pay back
that which I owe.15

15
Archivo General de Indias (hereafter AGI), Patronato, leg. 184, r. 25, b. 1. f. 2, Francisco de Montejo: varios
asuntos: Nueva España: refiere que la provincia de Yucatán es la más áspera y montañosa de aquél país, sus
habitantes de mala condición, y muy escasa de oro y demás metales, 1534-08-10, Salamanca de Campeche. The
Spanish text reads, “digo en todas estas probincias que por aqui se podian andar / y bisto todo no alle en toda
ella / un rio que nrrisse síno eran lagunas y todas las sierras que ay en esta tierra son de una peña bina y muy
sera sín agua ninguna y toda la tierra es un mo`te el mas espesso que un~ca sea visto y toda tan pedregosa
quen toda la tierra ay un palmo de tierra sin piedra / y un~ca en ella sea allado oro ninguno ni de donde se
pueda sacar abuqz epuesto toda la dehgencia qua sado menester ni cofa de que se pueda socar el menor probezo
del mundo / la gente della es la mas mala y des mas tearciones que aya en todo el descubierto que nu~ca an
muerto cristiano sino atracicion ni an dado guerra sino sobre pas / ninguna sa les pregu~taba si habia en la
tierra que no me defian que si / por haber me yr dalli rastra parte / y ninguna verdad en ellos alle en ninguna
cosa de qua~to me diceron y como ya la gente abisto que en la tierra no havia ninguna cosa de que si
pndiessen aproueshar.” English translations from Robert S. Chamberlain, The Conquest and Colonization of
Yucatán, 1517–1550 (Washington, DC, 1948), p. 165; and Inga Clendinnen, Ambivalent Conquests: Maya and
Spaniard in Yucatan, 1517–1570 (New York, 1987), p. 29.
 PALACE FAÇADE AND URBAN FORM IN HISPANIC AMERICA 11

Based on Montejo’s sentiments, it is not surprising to find decrees from local cabildos
(town governments and/or town halls) that ordered residents to build anything on
their solares that could constitute a house or risk having their plots confiscated.16
Mandates like these indicate that the governing bodies of Hispanic America clearly
recognized the importance of architecture in showing ownership.17 Likewise, so did
many other colonizers, and in some instances architecture was a vehicle through
which to celebrate their accomplishments, although many such structures are no
longer extant. In fact, Montejo constructed a highly decorated palace in Mérida,
Yucatán, soon after the Spanish conquest of the peninsula in the 1540s, which
undoubtedly was meant to express his successes and authority in Yucatán (Figure 2).
Montejo did so on a grand scale through the building’s façade, which is located in
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the center of Mérida, along the edges of the city’s plaza mayor (main square). The
building’s position reflects the construction practices that preceded the laws of 1573;
the leyes restricted residential access to the plaza, which was a coveted urban space
for the monarchical state. By recognizing monarchical ideologies affixed to the plaza
and the urban form, I suggest it is possible to draw parallels to the building
practices of nobles like Montejo and their effects on the crafting of the empire’s urban
legislation.

The idea of the urban form

Analyses of Hispanic American urbanism have revealed several influences upon
the colonial damero including ancient Roman urban design, Church doctrine and
philosophy, Italian Renaissance theories, and pre-contact indigenous urbanism.18 To
date, despite extensive research, the exact origins for the Spanish-American urban
system and its supporting legislation have not been definitively determined, suggest-
ing that no single model exists as the primary source for the damero. Nonetheless,
certain models have been privileged over others. Much like with indigenous built
environments in the Americas, the effects of religious ideologies on Hispanic urban
forms have taken precedence, with theological descriptions of the heavenly city of
New Jerusalem given particular emphasis. Descriptions of the city abound, ranging
from biblical references in the book of Revelations to the written works by the
Catalan Franciscan friar Francesc Eiximenis (1340–1409). Because its time frame
is relatively close to the American colonization, Eiximenis’ text discussing New
Jerusalem has received considerable attention. Recently, the art historian Jaime Lara

16
Valerie Fraser has documented in colonial Peru the difficulties town councils faced in mandating that homes
be built on urban lots. A decree in 1539 asked owners to build anything on their lots or their solares would be
confiscated (p. 71). For more information see Fraser, The Architecture of Conquest: Building the Viceroyalty
of Peru, 1535–1635 (Cambridge, 1990).
17
The potential exists for numerous societal justifications for the refusal of the colonizers to build houses in town,
ranging from class status to the day-to-day practices of living, or simply that many individuals desired to spend
time on their econmiendas.
18
It is relevant to note that one major difference between Roman castra and Spanish-American towns was the
castrum’s reliance upon two principal avenues — the cardo and the decamanus — to divide the city. Hispanic
American towns frequently had multiple gates entering the city that intersected at the main plaza’s corners.
 12 C CODY BARTEET
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figure 2 Casa de Montejo, Mérida, Yucatán, Mexico, c. 1542–1549.

Photo: author
 PALACE FAÇADE AND URBAN FORM IN HISPANIC AMERICA 13

dissected Eiximenis’ description of the heavenly city, considering its associations with
Hispanic American forms.19 There are numerous similarities between the Christian
and colonial forms, including the presence of a rectangular urban grid, divided
into city blocks, and major avenues leading to the main plaza.20 However, there
are numerous differences between Eiximenis’ heavenly city and Hispanic American
centers. First, the Catalan friar’s city center is described as not having a centralized
plaza that was reached from multiple avenues along the city’s borders, unlike many
American settlements. Eiximenis’ city was more similar to the Roman castrum, where
the settlement was divided into four quadrants by cardo- and decamanus-style ave-
nues that intersected at the center of the city. The anomaly of the non-centralized
main plaza does not negate Eiximenis’ description because there are many variations
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in the colonies; there are several coastal towns that do not have centralized plazas,
although most often this is a product of their settings. Likewise, Lara does not discuss
the differences in the location of the important religious and political structures. The
church, which Lara identifies as the most important structure in a town, is located at
the center of both the heavenly and the American cities at the principal intersection,
while in Eiximenis’ model the prince’s palace, the council house, and the residences
of the town founders were located beyond the center of the city, unlike American
cities. As discussed, the images of Andújar and Cholula clearly illustrate that religious
structures were vital to the urban, civic area, helping to foster the concept that
Spanish cities were wholly dedicated to God.21 But this supposition leaves no room
for governmental and residential palaces, which were equal, if not more important,
focal points of many Hispanic cities. Actually it is the location of the governing and
noble structures that is most different between the Christian model of New Jerusalem
and those of colonial American cities.
If for a moment we adopt a more complex line of inquiry, it is acceptable to assume
that theology was one of many avenues by which sixteenth-century Spaniards arrived
at the Hispanic American damero. If we accept this supposition, we can consider how
more vernacular or daily-life practices influenced the damero’s formation. Curiously,
the acts of living in a colonial city and their effects on urban form and policies can
be found in some scholarly works, although they are most often camouflaged behind
efforts to identify a definite model for the damero. The social elements addressed
include assessments of the zoning of state and religious urban spaces or efforts to
protect the colonizers or colonized from one another.22 In 1501, early in the colonial

19
Jaime Lara, City, Temple, Stage: Eschatological Architecture and Liturgical Theatrics in New Spain (Notre
Dame, 2004), p. 100.
20
Karen L. Rogers, “Checkerboard Grids: Principles and Practices of Spatial Order in the Americas and the
Making of Place in New Mexico” (PhD dissertation, Binghamton University, 2005), p. 19.
21
Lara, City, Temple, Stage, p. 91.
22
For discussions of Hispanic American urbanism see Dora P. Crouch, Daniel J. Garr, and Axel I. Mundigo,
Spanish City Planning in North America (Cambridge, 1982); Graziano Gasparini, “The Laws of the Indies:
The Spanish-American Grid Plan, the Urban Bureaucratic Form,” The New City 1 (Fall 1991), pp. 6–33;
Paul Rabinow, “Ordinance, Discipline, Regulation: Some Reflections on Urbanism,” Humanities in Society 5,
nos 3–4 (Summer and Fall 1982), pp. 267–78; Rogers, “Checkerboard Grids;” and Jaime Salcedo, Urban
Urbanismo Hispano-Americano, Siglos XIV, XVII y XVII: El modelo urbano aplicado a la América Español,
su génesis y su desarrollo teórico y práctico, 2nd edn (Santafé de Bogotá, 1996).
 14 C CODY BARTEET

enterprise, Queen Isabella instructed Nicolás de Ovando, the governor of the settle-
ment at Santo Domingo, to congregate the Spanish and the indigenous peoples into
towns.23 The objectives behind the cedula (decree) were complex, including ensuring
that the Spaniards were defensively congregated together, preventing the continued
extortion of indigenous subjects, and preventing infidelity to maintain the purity of
Spanish blood (sangre limpieza). Later in the sixteenth century, Isabella’s instructions
to Ovando were systematically expanded in the laws of 1573. In the laws, the impe-
rial state established the reducciones or “reduced” town models, in which indigenous
peoples were relocated to towns where churches were built to “indoctrinate [the
Indians to] live according to law.”24 Effectively, the reducciones established the
pueblos de Indios (Indian towns) that were monitored by the religious orders, main-
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ly the Franciscans, Dominicans, and Augustinians. Here again, the practicalities

behind the inception of the pueblos are complex because of the numerous extenuating
circumstances leading to their creation, including, among others, the continued
desire for the Spanish to congregate together, fears of infidelity, easier control and
monitoring of the indigenous peoples, and protection of the devastated indigenous
populations from the colonizers.
These policies reflect a desire for social ordering that is manifested physically by
defining actual spaces, for example as an urban settlement or symbolically in a
cartographic rendering. The desire to socially and physically regulate urban spaces
is explicitly apparent in the sixteenth-century legislation; among these, the most
well known cedula dates from 1513. In that year, King Ferdinand issued a set of
instrucciones (instructions) to Pedrarias Dávila relating to his enterprises in Panama.25
Dávila’s instructions have the word order used six times in reference to the social and
physical arrangement of the settlement. The passage reads:
They [towns] should start out ordered, in a manner in that having created the houses in
the lots, the town will look ordered, and so on in the space that was left for the plaza,
and the space where the church will be, and the order that was left for the streets, because
new places [or towns] that are made ordered from the beginning, without much labor and
expense, can be ordered, while other places [or towns] will never be ordered. (author’s
emphasis)26

23
AGI, Indiferente, 418, leg. 1, f. 39r–42r, Instrucción a frey Nicolás de Ovando, 1501-09-16, Granada.
24
Diego Encines and Alfronso García Gallo, eds, Cedulario Indiano, reapilado, 4 vols (Madrid, 1945–46), vol. 4,
p. 246. Their transcription of ordinance 149 (the reduction ordinance) reads, “Los Españoles a quien se enco-
mendaron los Indios, soliciten con mucho cuydado que los Inidos que les fueron encomendados, se reduzcan a
pueblos, y en ellos edifiquen iglesias para que sean doctrinados y vivan en policía.”
25
Pedrarias Dávila is alternatively spelled Pedro Árias de Ávila.
26
AGI, Patronato, leg. 26, r. 5, n. 2, f. 6v–7v, Poder, instrucción, ordenanzas a Pedrarias Dávila, 1513. This
information is reproduced in DII 39: 285; Encines and García Gallo, Cedulario Indiano, vol. 1, p. 63, and
vol. 4, pp. 251, 258; Gasparini, “The Laws of the Indies,” p. 8. For a transcription of the original text,
see Encines and García Gallo volume 4, as the original archival document is difficult to discern in parts. As
transcribed by Encines and García Gallo the text reads, “e sean de comienço dados por órden, de manera que
hechas las casas en los solares el pueblo parezca ordenado, assi en el lugar que dexaren para la plaça, como en
el lugar que houiere dejer la yglesis, como en la orden que tuvieren los tales pueblos y calles dellos: porque en
los lugares q˜ de nuevo se hacen, dando la orden en el comienço in ningun trabajo ni cota quedan ordenados,
y los otros jamas se ordenan” (vol. 4, p. 251, author’s emphasis). In each of the transcriptions there are subtle
changes in the text with regards to accents.
 PALACE FAÇADE AND URBAN FORM IN HISPANIC AMERICA 15

Unquestionably, there is an emphasis on establishing order, and this mindset contin-

ues into the Laws of the Indies where this passage, which becomes a part of the
Ordenanzas de población (settlement ordinances), is repeated three times. Curiously
though, the population size and the physical dimensions of a new city are never
explicitly stated, suggesting that the colonizers and the monarchy had a culturally
shared idea of what an ordered space looked like. Thus, a socially segregated space
with a defined physical order based on European cultural institutions became an
indicator of Spanish culture in the Americas. In other words, the urban environments
created in Hispanic America constituted Spanish attempts to establish order on the
frontiers through urban spaces that were conceived in European terms.
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The concept of location

Like the maps of the Relaciones Geográphicas, the damero was a pragmatic method
for the documentation of owned Spanish spaces. The distribution of solares was
not haphazard; indeed, it followed established social protocols that had existed since
antiquity. Like the Roman castrum, there was a systematic division of space within
the city, based on social standing, that transcended the pragmatics of identifying
private and institutional locations. Moving from the urban periphery to the central
plaza, the social nexus of the city changed. In Hispanic America the zócalo (plaza)
area was the dominion of the church, the imperial state, and the town’s founders,
typically the heads and the financiers of a colonizing expedition. Institutional moni-
toring of the urban core is explicitly understood in the Leyes de Indias, which stipu-
late that the main plaza must contain the principal church, the viceroy’s palace (if a
major center), and the cabildo, while the primary market and the homes of the city’s
founders were erected in the immediate proximity of the zócalo.27 The main square,
then, was the cultural and political heart of the city, a status that was visually
affirmed by the scale and architectural adornment of the buildings on the plaza’s
borders. Because of the morphing of the urban spaces based on social practices, the
urban form, particularly the main plaza, was infused with the body politic of the
monarchy; or more simply put, the urban forms were a metaphor for the king’s
presence on the remote American frontiers. As such, the damero reflects the influ-
ences of princely or noble ambitions, as it is a means to document land ownership
and identify state dominions.
To illustrate the effects of princely agendas on the urban form, the Royal Palace
of Mexico City will be considered.28 Conceptually, the palace was created as the

27
This information on spatial orientation is found in ordinances 124–127. For a transcription and translation of
the ordinances, see Crouch, Garr, and Mundigo, Spanish City Planning; Encines and García Gallo, Cedulario
Indiano; and Gasparini, “The Laws of the Indies.” There were subtle differences between the location of many
buildings, which were dependent on location, i.e., whether they were constructed in a coastal town or an inland
town. For information on coastal towns, see ordinances 119–123.
28
More concise portions of this discussion appear in C. Cody Barteet, “The Rhetoric of Authority: The Casa
de Montejo in Mérida, Yucatán,” RACAR: Revue d’art canadienne/Canadian Art Review 35, no. 2 (2010),
pp. 5–20.
 16 C CODY BARTEET

home for the monarch despite the fact that no sixteenth- or seventeenth-century king
ever traveled to Nueva España (New Spain). Practically then, the palace became the
Mexican viceroy’s home. Nonetheless, the building was conceived as a monarchical
residence and, as such, was a metaphor for the king’s presence in the colony. The
numerous pictorial representations of the Royal Palace demonstrate its imperial
purposes. Recently, Michael Schreffler analyzed many of the period reproductions of
the residence, noting the privileged position of the Royal Palace in the cityscapes of
Mexico City.29 The importance of the palace as a fixture of the city is explicit in the
late-seventeenth-century biombo (folding screen) now in the Museo Franz Mayer
(Mexico City) (Figure 3). In creating the image, the artist consciously altered Mexico
City’s skyline to emphasize the importance of the building’s presence in the city as
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well as the capital’s hinterlands by having the palace as the focal point of the biombo.
The encompassing nature of the screen, with both urban and landscape components,
is important because it symbolically illustrates the monarch’s authority, and that of
his viceroy, extending out of the capital to the whole of New Spain. This metaphor
was conveyed by creating a false view of the palace to illustrate the political author-
ity that resided within the building. Seemingly then, the palace, and presumably
all other council buildings of the American provinces, signified the presence of the
monarchy at the heart of Hispanic American urban spaces and political culture:
the plaza mayor. The Museo Franz Mayer biombo was created during the era when
the monarchy tightly controlled the spaces of the plazas; the laws of 1573 stipulate
that individuals could no longer build their homes on the plaza. Indeed, ordinance
127 stipulates that “on the plaza there should be no private lots, rather lots for the
building of the church and the royal houses and for public property and for stores
and trade houses, should be the first to be built.”30 The ordinance’s ostensible
purpose is to spur quick economic growth and to develop cultural stability; however,
I contend there are factors connected to the early conquistadores’ building practices
that undermined monarchical attempts to establish homogeneous and institutional-
ized urban spaces, which contributed to institutionalization of the ordinance.

The façade and its role in the Hispanic world

During the early modern era, the façade was an indispensable component of the
visual rhetoric used by Europe’s princes, nobility, and papacy to publically express
their agendas.31 The conquistadores and religious institutions employed the façade in
similar ways as their contemporaries: either to celebrate personal and political gains

29
Michael Schreffler, The Art of Allegiance: Visual Culture and Imperial Power in Baroque New Spain
(University Park, 2007), pp. 11–30.
30
Encines and García Gallo, Cedulario Indiano, 4, p. 243. As transcribed by Encines and García Gallo ordinance
127 reads, “En la plaça no se den solares para particulares donde para fabrica de la yglesia, y casas Reales,
y propios de la ciudad: y edifíquense tiendas y casas para trantes, y sea lo primero que se edifique [. . .].”
31
I am aware that I am not addressing indigenous practices although this would prove to be an equally
interesting line of inquiry.
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figure 3 The Very Nobel and Loyal City of Mexico City, biombo (folding screen), late seventeenth century, oil on canvas, 213 × 550 cm.
Photo with permission from Museo Franz Mayer, Mexico City
PALACE FAÇADE AND URBAN FORM IN HISPANIC AMERICA
17
 18 C CODY BARTEET

or to assist in promoting the evangelization mission of the friars. Indeed, the deliber-
ate manipulation of the biombo’s cityscape to focus on the façade of the royal palace
illustrates these conventions. The viceroy’s residential façade was indeed just that: a
false face that masked the monarch’s absence from the colonies. Nonetheless, the
implications behind the residence’s construction were conventional and followed
established practices. To mark and promote their achievements in Spain, the Catholic
monarchs Isabella and Ferdinand used the visual arts, establishing an art form known
as the “Isabelline Gothic.” The motivation behind their artistic and building patron-
age was clear: to assert their sovereignty. For art historian Jonathan Brown, the
Catholic monarchs patronized the decorative arts and architectural works to serve as
a visual metaphor to suggest their “hegemony over the [Spanish] nobles” while also
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“signal[ing] the dominant presence of the monarchy throughout the kingdom.”32

The clear manifestations of their ambitions are seen in the chapel complexes at
Granada and Miraflores where the sanctuaries are littered with coats of arms, wild
men, soldiers, saints, inscriptions, etc., creating a dazzling surface appearance. The
inscribed motivations behind their patronage were clear as it signaled the presence of
the monarchy throughout the Spanish world.33 In his architectural projects at the
Escorial and viceregal palace, Philip II, their great grandson, sought to elicit similar
motivations, which were also metaphorically present in the Relaciones Geográficas
and the Leyes de Indias. These later documents offer some clarity of the monarchy’s
vision of the colonies and the way urban space was used as a tool to maintain and
legitimize the monarchs. Indeed, their vision of the Hispanic American territories is
panoptic in approach, with the main plaza functioning as the central observatory.34
Thus, the central square, framed by the primary institutional entities of the town and
Church, served as a point from which these institutions could monitor all activity
within their confines and enforce monarchical law. As such, the grid system is gener-
ally seen to have created suppressive urban environments that were to function as
disciplinary spaces, built to contain and control social movement through the physical
control of urban space. But, as the Museo Franz Mayer biombo’s composition
illustrates, this panoptic vision extended beyond the urban boundaries well into
the hinterlands of Hispanic America. Likewise, the Relaciones Geográficas further
compounded this practice as the maps systematically charted the imperial state’s
dominions.
Curiously, if we examine a map from 1596 of New Spain’s capital (now in the
Archivo General de Indias, Seville), we see that tensions may have existed within the

32
Jonathan Brown, “Spain in the Age of Exploration: Crossroads of Artistic Culture,” in Circa 1492: Art in the
Age of Exploration, ed. Jay A. Levenson (Washington, DC, 1992), p. 42. Brown also notes that the style was
intended to show their “dynastic legitimacy and continuity” while also “displaying their [Ferdinand’s and
Isabella’s] zeal as defenders of the Christian faith” (p. 42).
33
As William Eisler has suggested, the political and dynastic implications of the Catholic monarchs’ chosen style
were so transparent that Charles V originally intended to employ the style in the construction of his burial
chapel at Granada. For more information see William Eisler, “Charles V and the Cathedral of Granada,”
Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 51, no. 2 (June 1992), p. 180.
34
Rabinow, “Ordinance, Discipline, Regulation;” and Salcedo, Urban Urbanismo Hispano-Americano, p. 62.
 PALACE FAÇADE AND URBAN FORM IN HISPANIC AMERICA 19

plaza of Mexico City.35 Although the structures (many of which are no longer extant)
and the map lack representational details, several residential façades (here Plateresque
façades; the Plateresque is a Spanish variant of the Renaissance idiom) are rendered
in the upper right and lower left corners of the plan with the same visual clarity as
the viceregal palace. The recording of the Plateresque buildings with the same atten-
tiveness as the royal palace indicates the importance of the façades as identifying not
only features of the colonial capital, but also the prestige and notoriety of their
patrons. Indeed, before the institution of the laws of 1573, the heads of colonization
enterprises built their homes on the borders or the immediate confines of the main
plaza. Other important extant sixteenth-century structures that predated the laws
included the homes of Diego de Colón (Columbus), Hernán Cortés, and Francisco de
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Montejo, all of which offer the opportunity to examine the correlation of the building
practices of the early conquistadores with the urban policies of the imperial state
(Figure 4).
Clearly, the term palace should be used loosely in describing the homes of both
Colón and Cortés, which are more like casa fuertes, or strong houses, than regal
palaces. Although both structures incorporate the idea of a Renaissance loggia into
their respective façades, the sheer mass and gravity of the buildings’ block forms
limit any suggestions of decorative sensibilities. Presumably, both buildings were

figure 4 Palacio de Cortés, Cuernavaca, Mexico, early sixteenth century.

Photo: Archivision

35
For a reproduction of the 1596 plan, see http://pares.mcu.es/ParesBusquedas/servlets/Control_servlet (catalogue
number, ES.41091.AGI/1.16418.17//MP-MEXICO,47).
 20 C CODY BARTEET

intended to signal the political authority of Colón’s son in Santo Domingo and Cortés’
in Cuernavaca. Indeed, Cortés’ palace was begun around 1526, a time when his
political authority was jeopardized by rival Spanish factions; thus, it can be inferred
that the strong militaristic presence of the palace was meant to imply the might of
his political authority based on models utilized by the Spanish monarchs that had
granted Cortés’ governorship. In this instance, Cortés used architecture to express his
political and social ambitions, exploiting the location of the urban form as his palace
dominates the political plaza of Cuernavaca, just as the Royal Palace did decades
later in Mexico City.
Other governors, however, adopted more refined modes of self-representation
and employed true decorative façades in their residences to promote their social and
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political agendas. Among these palaces is the home of Francisco de Montejo (see
Figure 2). Of the extant palaces that survive from the sixteenth century, the Casa de
Montejo is the most dynamic as it retains its original 1540s Plateresque façade. As
I have argued elsewhere, Montejo envisioned his residence’s façade as a vehicle to
promote his family’s social standing and political autonomy in Yucatán at a historical
moment when his authority was being systematically stripped by the Crown.36 For
the first two decades of the city’s Spanish history, Mérida’s zócalo was monitored
by the Casa de Montejo and not buildings of the empire. Montejo’s authority was
further illustrated by the residence’s balcony, a traditional location of authority in
Western culture and to an extent in pre-contact cultures. From the balcony of his
home, Montejo could observe all activities within the plaza and, if needed, enact
justice. Thus, from this powerful elevated position, both literally and figuratively, the
adelantado was framed by emblems of his office and social standing that proclaimed
his authority in Mérida as well the whole of Yucatán.

Conclusion
In the pre-Laws of the Indies era, then, the space of the urban landscape was a con-
tested site, where the institutional entities of the Crown, most often in the form of
the cabildo, and the Church coexisted alongside the homes of the conquering gover-
nors. The situation was further complicated by the conquistadores, who practiced
similar architectural patronage activities as their European counterparts: both groups
used the façade as a mode of self-representation. As we have seen, both prior to and
after colonial foundations, the Spanish crown used architecture and the arts as means
to signify its presence throughout its dominions; the chapels commissioned by the
Catholic monarchs and the palaces erected by Charles V and his son Philip II all

36
Barteet, “The Rhetoric of Authority;” Barteet, “Colonial Contradictions in the Casa de Montejo in Mérida,
Yucatán: Space, Society, and Self-Representation at the Edge of Viceregal Mexico” (PhD dissertation, Bingham-
ton University, 2007); and Barteet, “Exploring a Female Legacy: Beatriz Álvarez de Herrera and the Façade of
the Casa de Montejo,” Women and Art in Early Modern Latin America, ed. Kellen Kee McIntyre and Richard
E. Philips (Leiden, 2006), pp. 369–95.
 PALACE FAÇADE AND URBAN FORM IN HISPANIC AMERICA 21

express these sentiments. Both Charles V and Philip II enacted legislation in

Hispanic America to restrict public displays of individual self-representation that
could undermine monarchical authority or the supposed evangelic mission of the
colonization enterprise. In 1550, Charles V issued a decree stating that “houses
[should] be humble and that there be found on them no superfluities other than that
which is strictly necessary for their habitation and order.”37 Although the language
of this particular ordinance seems to have been directed towards religious houses, the
law, along with those before and after it, was clearly concerned with the decoration
of residential façades. Indeed, the ordinance was issued the year after the Montejo
façade was commissioned. Whether or not the drafters of the ordinance had the
façade of the Casa de Montejo in mind, they clearly were concerned with the rhetoric
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of architectural adornment and its potential to disrupt monarchical agendas.

Concerns relating to the social and political control of space, whether as a
commodity or as an extension of the sovereign state, continued well after 1550 and
manifest themselves in the Laws of the Indies. Within the Ordenanzas de población,
there are several ordinances that need to be reexamined, including the previously
cited ordinance 127 that restricted private access, i.e., non-monarchical sanctioned
ownership, to the plaza. The restriction of the space of Hispanic plazas was trouble-
some throughout the entire empire. In Spain, there are several examples of important
nobles building magnificent Renaissance palaces; some of the individuals, although
subject to the monarchs, had contentious relationships with them, and thus their
homes were an avenue through which they could express their autonomy. The resi-
dences of Colón, Cortés, and Montejo all follow these Spanish formulas for asserting
political and social standing. Ordinance 127 becomes the primary means by which to
prevent such problematic circumstances from occurring in new colonization efforts;
here these ordinances, as the bulk of the laws, are reactionary and not preemptive
efforts by the state. The ordenanza is a bureaucratic codification of the abstract idea
present in the Museo Franz Mayer biombo. Furthermore, the “divine” mission of
the monarchy was reinforced in the urban fabric of the city to clarify the monarch’s
divine sanction to govern the colonies.
Within the Ordenanzas de población, ordinances 119 and 125 illustrated the
status imposed upon state supported churches as institutional entities of the crown.
Ordinance 119 states that “For the temple of the main church, parish church, or
monastery, they will be appointed the first lots after the plaza and streets on this
island, they shall have an entire [lot or block] so that no other structures are near
by,” while ordinance 125 stipulates that “The temple [located in mediterraneos or the
territories] shall be placed on the plaza but stepped back from the plaza and so
that it shall be separated from [and] does not touch [or] become adjoined to other

37
Sebastián López Santiago, José de Mesa Figueroa, and Teresa Gisbert de Mesa, Historia General del Arte:
Arte Iberoamericano desde la colonización a la independencia (Madrid, 1989), vol. 3, p. 255. As transcribed by
Santiago et al., the text reads, “que las casas sean humildes y no aya en ellas superfluydades mas que quello
que forcosmaente es necesario para su habitación y horden.”
 22 C CODY BARTEET
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figure 5 Cathedral of San Ildefonso, Mérida, Yucatán, c. 1562–1599.

Photo: author
 PALACE FAÇADE AND URBAN FORM IN HISPANIC AMERICA 23

buildings, and all of its sides shall be seen so that it can be decorated better and have
more authority.”38 Like the Royal Palace, which was privileged in pictorial represen-
tations, the Church was honored in Hispanic America in legislation that mandated
the prominent placement of a church on the main plaza and through adornment that
referenced the Church’s status and mission in the Hispanic world.
Anecdotally the sentiments behind this ordinance are present in Mérida. Although
the building of Mérida’s cathedral San Ildefonso spans the formulation of the Laws
of the Indies, its form reflects the sentiments of the imperial state’s legislation. San
Ildefonso has a simple but large façade that commands the eastern side of the town’s
plaza (Figure 5). The adorned façade is capped by Philip II’s coat of arms, which is
the only sculptural form present on the plain façade. Clearly, because of its size, scale,
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and simplicity, the inscribed intent behind the façade is to signal the monarchical
state’s imposing presence in Mérida over all other competing institutions, groups, or
individuals like Francisco de Montejo.
Recognizing the inception of these legislative materials that restricted individual
access to the main plaza and restricted displays in façade design suggests that the
building practices of the conquistadores, such as Montejo, influenced monarchical
policies concerning the importance of place and visual rhetoric in viceregal cities. Like
the monarchy and their Iberian counterparts, the conquistadores aimed to establish
autonomy within the new landscapes of power in Hispanic America. Not surpris-
ingly, the façade became one tool for self-representation. To combat these poten-
tially threatening visualizations of political autonomy from the absent monarchy, the
imperial state instituted legislation that curtailed façade design and even restricted
individuals’ access to the heart of Hispanic American cities: the plaza mayor. Thus,
the palatial façades undoubtedly influenced the development of Hispanic American
urban policies.

Notes on contributor
C Cody Barteet is an assistant professor of art history, specializing in Colonial Latin
American architecture, with secondary interests in Renaissance and Baroque art. He
is currently working on a book-length project that examines the development of the
Plateresque in Hispanic American architecture.
Correspondence to: C Cody Barteet, Department of Visual Arts, The University of
Western Ontario, London, Ontario N6A 5B7, Canada. Email: cbarteet@uwo.ca

38
Encines and García Gallo, Cedulario Indiano, vol. 4, p. 243. Ordinance 119 reads, “Para el templo e la yglesia
mayor parochia o monasterio, se señalen solars los primeros despues las plaças y calles, y sean en isla entera,
demanera que ningun otro edificio se les arrime, sino el perteneciente a su comodidad y ornato.” Ordiance 125
reads, “El templo en lugares mediterraneos, no se ponga en la plaça, sino distante della, y en parte que este
seperado del edificio que a el se llegue, que no sea tocante a el, y que de todas partes sea visto, porque se pueda
ornar major, y tenga mas autoridad.” Additional translations of the 135 ordinances relating to the foundations
and organizations of towns are found in Crouch, Garr, and Mundigo, Spanish City Planning; and Gasparini,
“The Laws of the Indies.”