Source: WTL© photo.
Notes: (1) Here is a close-up of the decorated goal or ring through which players of the ball game had to advance the hard rubber ball. Remember that this ring and the walls were all polychrome. What a stunning visual effect that must have created! (2) In his seminal book 1493; Uncovering the New Work Columbus Created, Charles C. Mann (2012), relates how fascinated Andrea Navagero was, when he witnessed the game as the Venetian ambassador to Seville in 1526. Navagero was a Renaissance scientist and historian, and he was witnessing an enactment of the game by Aztecs brought to Spain by Catholic officials to demonstrate how advanced, intelligent, and talented Mesoamerican people were. In addition to the players' skill, Navagero was stunned by the ball itself that was the size, more or less, of a person's fist and that bounced much more than European balls. Over the next decade other European intellectuals, such as Pietro Martire d'Anghiera and Gonzal Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés were equally fascinated by this ball and the material it was made of. The material, never known before in Europe, was rubber. Rubber did not truly become a major part of the Columbian Exchange until the 19th century, when Charles Goodyear and Thomas Hancock discovered and patented the process of vulcanization. For one particular economic and cultural effect of the exploitation of rubber in Latin America, see the pages on Manaus, Brazil: => Manaus. and => Amazon Page 9.