104 • The deaTh of azTec TenochTiTLan, The Life of mexico ciTy
huaniTzin’s feaTheRwoRk
The featherwork created under Huanitzin’s patronage, The
Mass of Saint Gregory, is an extraordinary one; to make
it, indigenous artists took a black-and-white European
printed image that had been imported into New Spain—in
this case, an image of the vision of Christ that appeared to
Pope Gregory I (ca. 540–604)—and copied it using feath-
ers as their medium. 14 The work measures twenty-seven
inches high and twenty-two inches wide and has been
mounted on wood. As elaborated in texts and images, Pope
Gregory I was confronted by a person who did not believe
in the truth of the Transubstantiation, that is, that during
the Mass the host is converted into the body of Christ.
The pope responded by praying at an altar, at which point
a vision of Christ appeared to him. In this featherwork
image, the pope is at the altar with his back to the viewer,
flanked by two tonsured concelebrants; the accouterments
on the altar, such as the open book and the chalice in front
of him, show him to have been not just at prayer, but saying
the Mass. Behind the altar, we see the vision: the bleeding
Christ rises from a rectangular stone tomb, the crucifix
set behind him. Arrayed around the Christ are a set of
twenty or so images—the arma Christi, mnemonic devices
enabling the viewer to remember the events of the Passion
and the Resurrection.
Because of the beauty and technical refinement of this
work, it has been the object of intensive scrutiny. 15 Scholars
have found a close source for it in a print created by Isra-
hel van Meckenem around 1490 (figure 5.4); such copying
from print models was a conventional way that indigenous
artists made artworks for the new class of Catholic patrons
and to adorn churches. 16 But most have looked at its cen-
tral imagery in relation to its European printed source or
its meaning in relation to papal politics, particularly the
pope’s promulgation of the bull Sublimus Dei in 1537, a
bull that asserted in general terms the humanity of the
indigenous peoples of the New World. 17 My concern here
is the meaning of the work in relation both to Huanitzin’s
reign and to his spatial project for the city, and thus I will
bracket off the fascinating discussions among scholars of
European art about the meaning of the Gregorymass in its
European context. 18
The evidence connecting the featherwork both to Hua-
nitzin and to the city comes from its unusual and singular
frame; such a frame with text is not found in any European
printed source of the Gregorymass. It reads: “Paulo III
pontifici maxima en magna indiaru[m] urbe Mexico co[m]
posita d[omi]no Didaco goberna tore cura fr[atr]is Petri a
Gante minoritae ad 1539” ([For] Paul III, pope, in the great
city of the Indies, Mexico, this was composed [under] don
Diego [Huanitzin], [its] governor, under the care of Friar
Pedro de Gante, Franciscan, the year of our Lord, 1539). 19
Here, Huanitzin’s name occupies the bottom border, set
opposite the name of the pope, who has been assumed to
be the intended recipient of this Mexican-made gift, an
assumption underwriting the insertion of the initial “[for]”
into the translation, a word that does not appear in the
Latin text. The bottom line of text names Huanitzin as
having “composita” the work, rather than “created” it, likely
to signal his patronage rather than any original artistry.
Given that in 1539, the year of the work’s creation, the city
on the island had various intersecting identities (viceregal
capital, indigenous altepetl, Spanish ciudad) and its political
jurisdictions were still being sorted out, its name—what to
call this city—was an unsettled affair. Thus the particular
choice of words used to name it on a work associated withfiguRe 5.4. Israhel van Meckenem (German), The Mass of Saint
Gregory, engraving, ca. 1490. © Trustees of the British Museum.