Abstract

GARCIA REDONDO, José María. The Cartographic Process of Archbishop Lorenzana’s Parochial Reform: The Planimetric Proposals of José Antonio de Alzate and the Enlightened Recreation of Mexico City (1767-1772). Hist. mex. [online]. 2019, vol.68, n.3, pp.1001-1074. ISSN 2448-6531.  https://doi.org/10.24201/hm.v68i3.3810.

In 1772, Archbishop Lorenzana approved a new distribution of the parishes of Mexico City, which was captured in José Antonio de Alzate’s “Plan of Ymperial Mexico.” Since 1767, Alzate had been preparing different cartographic models in which he both contested and reflected the fabric of the city, its neighborhoods and its inhabitants. Nevertheless, the definitive version of the plan did not respect Alzate’s original project, signed 1769 and approved by Charles III. This design was the result of a hasty negotiation, rife with territorial and jurisdictional tensions, between the prelate and the city’s priests. Through an analysis of planimetric materials, both those that are strictly visual as well as those that are described in narrative sources, this article addresses the “cartographic process” in which the reform of Mexico City’s religious demarcations occurred. The parochial reform is studied from a spatial perspective, focused on successive phases of reorganization, cartographic studies and the impact of the Enlightenment on the image of the city. In particular, it emphasizes the coexistence of Enlightenment ideas with baroque conceptions that supplied an allegorical dimension to the city’s meaning, conceptualizing it as New Jerusalem.

Keywords : Alzate; Lorenzana; Mexico City; cartography; parishes; 18th century.

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