Source:WTL photo in the Plaza de las Tres Culturas, Mexico, D.F.
Image: The Templo de Santiago is in the background. In the foreground is the cloister of the Convent de Santiago de Tlatelolco. Construction was begun in 1535. The upper part of the convent walls was remodelled in the 18th century, but the outside of the convent retains the features of its 16th century origins (see: <= Tlatelolco #9a).
Comments: In this place Bernardino de Sahagún (1499-1590), a Franciscan friar, compiled and wrote two extremely important works of Latin American humanities: the Codex Florentino. He attended the great medieval University of Salamanca in Spain and took Catholic vows as a Franciscan friar in 1524. In 1529 he went to New Spain. In 1536, 1545-1550, and 1560-1585 he lived and taught at the Colegio de Santa Cruz in the convent you see in this picture. He died in the Convento de San Francisco in Mexico City. From 1547 to 1580 he worked on the twelve volumes of the Historia general de las cosas de Nueva España, which work in Náhuatl was completed in 1569, and contains the richest source of information about the mexica world before the Spanish conquest. In 1575-1577, Sahagún wrote a Spanish paraphrase of the work. In 1575-1580 he reformatted it in side-by-side Náhuatl and Spanish columns and added color illustrations. When this complete work reached a library in Florence, Italy, in 1588, it became known as the Codex Florentino.