Don Hernando de Alvarado Tezozomoc Portrait

Private commision

Hernando de Alvarado Tezozómoc was an Aztec historian, translator, and scribe of the early colonial period. As the seventh son of Diego de Alvarado Huanitzin (Tlatoani de Ecatepec, Governor of Mexico-Tenochtitlan and grandson of Emperor Axayacatl) and Francisca de Moctezuma (daughter of Emperor Motecuhzoma II), he was part of one of the most prestigious families in New Spain. This status allowed him to receive a hybrid education, both Mexica and European, which would serve as an important tool to navigate the changing political and social landscape he inhabited.

During his life, Tezozómoc played an important role as a Nahuatlato representative of the interests of the indigenous aristocracy, in a period where the authority, privilege and rights of this social class were in a state of constant deterioration in the face of the Spanish Crown and colonial authorities. Extremely proud of his ancestry, ethnicity, and history, and frustrated by the historical context in which he found himself, Tezozómoc would write the Cronica Mexicana and the Cronica Mexicayotl, fundamental texts of Mexica imperial history and written testimony of their cultural greatness.

The Cronica Mexicana is a document written in Spanish with a strong Nahuatl presence and is a semi-direct adaptation of a Mexica manuscript known academically as the Chronicle X, complemented by oral testimonies and pictorial documents to which we no longer have access. In 112 chapters, structured respecting the indigenous narrative tradition, Tezozómoc tells the story of the Mexica arrival to the Valley of Mexico, of its monarchs, milestones, events, wars and battles, political contexts, and religious rites, until the arrival of the Spanish.

For its part, the Cronica Mexicayotl is probably a literal transcription in Nahuatl of the Chronicle X, which also emphasizes dates and the genealogy of the Mexica aristocracy. Unfortunately, a large portion of this document is now lost, with only its first chapters surviving, those that handle the arrival to the Valley, preserved in the work of San Antón Muñón Chimalpahin, Chalca historian.

The epic prose of the Cronica Mexicana, particularly in the earliest chapters of the document, mixed with the great wealth of historical and ethnological detail of it's later chapters, all as told by a Mexica noble himself, make the manuscript a must-read for every lover and scholar of the Mesoamerican past.

"Behold, that here begins, it will be seen, here lies written, the most beautiful, most truthful account of it's renown; the story and history of the origin and foundation, of how the great city of Mexico Tenochtitlan began, in the midsts of the water, amongsts the sedges, amongst the reeds, the place were sedges whisper, where reeds whisper, the one that would become the head of each and every one of the altepetl in all parts of this recent New Spain; as they said it and recorded it in their stories, and drew it for us in their scrolls...

...and what they did, what they recorded in their writings and paintings, their fame, and the renown and memory that there is of them, in times to come will never be lost or forgotten; We will always keep it, those of us who are children, grandchildren, younger brothers, great-grandchildren, great-great-grandchildren, descendants, blood and color of yours; Those who live and are born will say it and name it, the children of the Mexicans, the children of the Tenochcas.”