Stylistic principles of the Sixteenth-century mexican architecture

Abstract

Introduction: What is currently known as Mexico City in the Mexican Republic, was known as the Valley of Mexico in the first century of the viceroyalty of New Spain, constituted by the areas conquered through treaties, alliances and marriages between the first conquerors and the indigenous nobility. Methodology: Based on architecture scholars such as Manuel Toussaint, Georges Kubler, Estrada Estrada and Santiago Sebastián, We are concerned with showing how the philosophical climate - upon the arrival of the Spaniards - was a product of scholastic thought that highlighted the symbolic value of the work of art, rather than aesthetic. Results: The canons issued by the Council of Trent defined the emphasis on the didactic and theological function of architecture, for which several biblical paradigms were used. Discussion: The basis of these builders were the treatise writers: Vitruvius, Alberti, Serlius and Vignola imported to America from Seville. As an example, we will point out some of the conventual monuments characteristic of the proto-Renaissance that had been inspired, for its decorative samples, by the ornamental style of anti-classical character that had existed since Greco-Latin antiquity. Conclusions: In this space a conventual architecture emerged that was the antecedent of all viceregal architecture.