A rare mid sixteenth-century Mexican land map in the collection of the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library provides the starting point for this Yale-sponsored symposium. Drawn by indigenous artists and probably commissioned by the Spanish colonial government, the map is one of the earliest depictions of New Spain. Symposium participants will treat a broad range of topics relevant to studies of the early colonial period in Central Mexico, including the changing politics of land usage, the role of women in society, and the place of religious institutions in the Nahua-Christian world. The symposium will also examine other related manuscripts from sixteenth-century Mexico and their social, cultural, and visual contexts.

Sponsored by the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, the Council on Latin American and Iberian Studies of the Yale Center of International and Area Studies, and the Department of the History of Art, Yale University.

The conference is free and open to the public, but advance registration is requested.