1748 Cuevas 'Valle de Mexico' Book and Map on flood control in Mexico City

An essential, groundbreaking work of Mexican geography, this is Joseph Francisco Cuevas Aguirre y Espinosa's foundational 1748 study of the drainage of the region around Mexico City. It is the earliest systematic study of flooding endemic to the Mexican capital. The work contains the first printed version of Carlos Sigüenza y Gongora's map of the area encompassing 90 miles surrounding Mexico City, the first printed map of the region not derived from the 1524 Cortez map, and the first map of the region produced by a Mexican. It has long been recognized for its importance - even the 19th-century bookseller and bibliophile Henry Stevens proclaimed, 'This book is of the utmost typographical and historical importance' both in terms of its content and its superb production. The work is also significant for being printed by a woman, Rosa Maria Teresa de Poveda (c. 1710 - 1755), the widow of deceased printer Jose Bernardo de Hogal.

Mexico City and the Desagüe

When the Spanish encountered the Aztec city of Tenochitlán, they found a Venice-like city situated on a network of interconnected islands on Lake Texcoco. The Aztecs understood the local watershed and built their city to accommodate it, with dikes, causeways, and floating agricultural islands - chinampas. The earliest maps of the city, arising from this period, show the initial insular city with causeways and bridges linking it to the lands around it. Cortez destroyed this indigenous city and its dikes during his conquest. In rebuilding the city, the Spanish failed to restore the Aztec water management system despite aggressive expansion. Instead, they instituted massive landfill projects building directly atop the lakebed. Heavy rainfall thus led to seepage, floods, and unstable foundations. Over and over, the floods caught the colonials unprepared, toppling buildings and threatening the ruin of the city. This is a problem that persists in Mexico City to this day.

Authorities of the period instituted a long-standing, costly engineering project known as the Desagüe to control Mexico's central lake system. This included multiple generally failed water management projects, including a 1553 attempt to drain Texcoco. In 1748, Joseph Francisco Cuevas Aguirre y Espinosa, a lawyer and city Regidor, began compiling a register and assessment of the various surveys and mitigation projects in order to present recommendations to resolve the water woes. The present work is Cuevas' report on the project and his recommendations.

The Map

Cuevas' work included a remarkable map. Produced near the end of the 17th century by the Mexican polymath Carlos de Sigüenza y Gongora, this was the first map of Mexico City and its vicinity not based on the 1524 Cortez map and the first produced by a Mexican. Sigüenza, the first Mexican geographer of modern science, had been unable to publish a printed map during his lifetime, and the c. 1691 original of this map exists only in manuscript. This 1748 version, engraved by Antonio Moreno, is the first printed iteration of the map. The map was informed mainly by his studies of a remarkable primary source on precolonial Mexican history, the manuscripts of Fernando de Alva Cortés Ixtlilxóchitl (c. 1568 - 1648), a nobleman of partial Aztec descent whose forbear had been a tlatoque (Nahuatl, meaning Chief or Lord) of Texcoco. Sigüenza, as a former Jesuit, may also have benefited from Jesuit geographic relations of the previous century, but if so, such sources have not come to light. Regarding the present work, Sigüenza knew the region well, and this native understanding, combined with access to the Ixtlilxóchitl manuscripts, inform the map.

A Closer Look

The east-oriented map centers on the Laguna de Texcoco, with Mexico City west of the lake. Dikes walling off the lake from the city and its suburbs are illustrated. The Peñól de los Baños, formerly an island, dominates the lake's western shore. The map details rivers flowing to and from Texcoco, both from the surrounding mountains and other nearby lakes of Chalco, Zumpango, Xaltocan, and Oculman, as well as the bodies of water formed by the Pachuca avenues. Seasonal changes in these are indicated. In the upper right (southeast) is the volcano Popocatéptl. This, and the other mountains on the map, are shown pictorially. Cuevas included the map to illustrate the 17th-century positions of the rivers and lakes, especially the positioning of the early dikes and earthworks. Also, he intended for the map to confirm early reports of the city having been situated on Texcoco itself. Judging by Cuevas' text, the map presented areas under modern improvement that the colonials themselves, evidently, had forgotten were once inundated:

the aforementioned D. Carlos de Sigüenza shows us clearly... that last century, that the hills of Penol, which they call the Marquis, and the hills of Los Baños were in the lagoon, and between these now and the shore are twenty-two caballerías of land... to the north, the waters contained by the Guadalupe causeway... are now dry for a distance of half a league, up to the estate of the Indians of Santiago, which D. Blas López de Arragón rents. The entire aforementioned property, instead of streams, grows grass

A Fine Work from an Illustrious Press

Cuevas' report is elegantly and attractively printed; not only the copperplate but the body of the work, including the two-color printed title page, elevate the work from the status of a simple governmental report. It came from the presses of Joseph Bernardo de Hogal, since 1727, the chief printer of Mexico City. Its publication in 1748 was at the height of the period during which the shop was run, not by de Hogal but by his widow, Rosa Maria Teresa de Poveda (c. 1710 - 1755). The competence with which the shop was run suggests that throughout the marriage, Rosa Maria was likely its active manager - a not uncommon situation. The production of works of this quality under her leadership indicates that she as capable, if not more so, than her deceased husband.

Publication History and Census

The book is scarce. We see 40 holdings in various institutions but very limited market history.