Architectural Rhetoric and the Iconography of Authority in Colonial Mexico The Casa de Montejo Visual Culture in Early Modernity Series

This book investigates the Casa de Montejo and considers the role of the building?s Plateresque façade as a form of visual rhetoric that conveyed ideas about the individual and communal cultural identities in sixteenth-century Yucatán. C. Cody Barteet analyzes the façade within the complex colonial world in which it belongs, including in multicultural Yucatán and the transatlantic world. This contextualization allows for an examination of the architectural rhetoric of the façade, the design of which visualizes the contestations of autonomy and authority occurring among the colonial peoples.

Introduction; 1. The Casa de Montejo and Mérida; 2. The Plateresque Façade and Communal Identity in Spain; 3. The Montejo Façade and the Position of Adelantado; 4. Tihó-Mérida and the Casa de Montejo; 5. Gaspar Antonio Chi’s Heraldic Imagery and the Casa de Montejo Façade; Conclusion

C. Cody Barteet is Associate Professor of Art History at The University of Western Ontario, Canada.