The Aztec capital was one of the largest and most complex cities in the world: built on an island in the middle of a shallow lake, with a solid infrastructure to deal with water resources, its population reached around 150 thousand inhabitants. And yet, in 1521, at the height of its power, the imperial city surrendered to Hernán Cortés and his meager troops. It would seem that then Tenochtitlan died and the city of Mexico was born. Based on an original analysis of chronicles, maps, sculptures and architectural remains, Barbara E. Mundy shows in this work that the urban jewel of the Mexicas continued to shine in the city built by the Spanish conquerors - and that something of it still beats in the megalopolis of our days. The author not only highlights the role played by the indigenous peoples in the configuration of the New Spain capital, but also demonstrates that the Aztec elites, who maintained a great and subtle power even after the conquest, contributed to the construction - architecture, symbolic, social- of the new city.