Today, February 5th, is the 101st anniversary of the Mexican Constitution of 1917. As I have covered the history of the Mexican constitution before, I would like to observe this holiday with another Mexican matter.
I have been working on a digitization proposal, and–as I was drafting the narrative and compiling the details for it–I chanced upon this beautiful engraving of what I recognized almost immediately as the Pyramid of Niches from the pre-Hispanic city of El Tajín. It is located within the modern city of Papantla, Veracruz, Mexico. El Tajín is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
The gazette in which this engraving appeared was published on September 6, 1785 and was part of a compilation of gazettes concerning New Spain. One interesting detail about the title page of this compendium is the dedication to Don Matías de Gálvez, viceroy, governor, and captain general of New Spain. Before becoming viceroy of New Spain, Matías de Gálvez y Gallardo served as the Captain General of the Captaincy General of Guatemala, which was an administrative division of the Spanish Empire. The Captaincy General of Guatemala was also known as the Kingdom of Guatemala and was subordinate to that of the viceroyalty of New Spain. This region represents the modern-day countries of Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and the Mexican state of Chiapas. By the time this compendium was published, Matías de Gálvez had died and was succeeded by his son, Bernardo de Gálvez y Madrid. Bernardo de Gálvez y Madrid is a little-known hero of American history and the Revolutionary War and is one of only eight people to whom the United States has conferred honorary citizenship.
For those of you who can read Spanish and would like to see the architectural description of the Pyramid of Niches, below are the pages that include that text. The pages including the narrative are the three that follow the title page of July 12, 1785.
While we certainly serve legal practitioners, scholars of the humanities should consider the Law Library of Congress as another source for materials to complement their research. If you have not stopped by, we invite you to come and explore the wonders of the Law Library’s collection of legal gazettes.