>>39659052>>39659052The images already show this, but here's cortes talking about the noble homes in Itzapalpa, a somewhat but not particularly large city
>the city has several new houses, which.. are equal to the better class of houses in Spain.. large and well constructed, in the stone work, the carpentry, the floors, and the various appendages necessary to render a house complete.. There are also many upper and lower rooms.. gardens, abounding in trees and odoriferous flowers; also pools of fresh water.. with stairs leading to the bottom>"There is also a very extensive kitchen garden attached... and over it a belvidere with beautiful corridors and halls; and within the garden a large square pond of fresh water, having its walls formed of handsome hewn stone.. adjacent to it.. a promenade, consisting of a tiled pavement so broad that four persons can walk on it abreast, and four hundred paces square.. enclosed on one side towards the wall of the garden by canes, intermingled with vergas, and on the other.. by shrubs and sweet-scented plants. The pond contains a great variety of fish and water-fowl.. so numerous that they often cover the surface of the waterAnd Bernal diaz:
>We now entered the town of Iztapalapan... we were... quartered in palaces, of large dimensions, surrounded by spacious courts, and built of hewn stone, cedar and other sweet-scented wood. All the apartments were hung round with cotton cloths>we paid a visit to the gardens adjoining these... which were really astonishing, and I could not gratify my desire.. by walking about in them and contemplating the numbers of trees which spread around the most delicious odours; the rose bushes, the different flower beds, and the fruit trees which stood along the paths. There... a basin of sweet water, which was connected with the lake by means of a small canal. It was constructed of stone of various colours, and decorated with numerous figures, and was wide enough to hold their largest canoes1/2
