What did the spanish think of the aztec architecture?
What did the spanish think of the aztecs homes/building/ church
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- That's kind of a broad question. The Spanish were a broad group. If you mean on first contact, the journals tell us that they were impressed by the size and splendor of the work, comparing it to Old World palaces and even in some cases praising them as better than anything they had ever encountered in the Old World. They were also appalled by the perceived heathenism and sacrificial purposes of a lot of the temples and buildings
- Not much...They buried the most impressive temples, and built their own churches right on top of them. An Aztec temple was uncovered right on the ground of the National Cathedral, in Mexico City. Gaudeloupe church, I think, was built upon a place sacred to the Aztecs. Very often, a church built under a 'hill' will be over a buried pyramid. They also drained the lake where the Aztec's Mexico City was built (then called Tenochtitlan) and wrecked the canals; replacing the canals with roads.
- When the Spanish conquistadors first saw the city on the lake that was Tenochtitlan (and is now Mexico City) they were so impressed that they called it 'The Venice of the Americas'. 'They thought they were in some enchanted vision, they thought they were in a dream'** when they saw the city of Tenochtitlan. The city had a population of around 200,000 (massive for those days) and the many buildings and temples must have been admired by the Spanish. What they weren't happy about was the use of the awesome temples for blood sacrifices.
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