PLace-names in mexico-TenochTiTLan • 129peregrination before 1325, used from the outset to name the
island that Huitzilopochtli chose for them to settle. 3
But on the Trasmonte map, “Mexico” functions like an
adjective to the noun “ciudad,” and the latter was of equal
if not greater importance to the city’s Spanish residents,
who cared about such matters. “Ciudad” was a designation
conferred by the Spanish Crown, better than “villa” or the
less distinguished “pueblo.” “Ciudad” both confirmed urban
status and elevated a community to a place in the exclusive
network of ciudades of imperial Spain; additionally, King
Charles V had granted “la gran Cibdad” of Mexico a coat
of arms in June of 1529, adding a visual marker of its sta-
tus. 4 If “Mexico” spoke to a particular and local identity
of this place, “ciudad” spoke to its key position within an
increasingly global network of urban centers. Thus, the
royal Spanish cosmographer-chronicler Juan López de
Velasco would count in 1570 only nine “ciudades” within
the archbishopric of Mexico, most of them designated
as such because of their Spanish population; indigenous
communities, which may have been larger in area and more
populous than nearby Spanish ones, were nonetheless
often designated as “pueblos.” 5
As we zoom in closer to the Trasmonte map, we are con-
fronted with a spectacle of closeness and intimacy. We can
see buildings clearly, their sharp façades and bluish roofs,
the network of canals and aqueducts. But this is a fiction
of knowledge: although we can see buildings, the streets
are empty. The people, whose voices in Spanish or Nahuatl
once filled the air, are silent. The people, who produced the
spaces of this city both with their labor and through their
movements, are absent. Our gaze, instead, is held high
above the lived reality transpiring in the streets, the dis-
tance magnified by the time elapsed between Trasmonte’s
rendering and our viewing.figuRe 7.1. Juan Gómez de Trasmonte, “Forma y Levantado de la
Ciudad de México” (view of Mexico City), 1907 (based on 1628 map).
Lithograph; published by Francisco del Paso y Troncoso, Florence.