page_title: Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire
section_title: Cultural depictions of the Aztecs
hierarchical_section_title: Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire / Cultural depictions of the Aztecs
caption_attribution_description: English: Scene from Lorenzo Ferrero's opera La Conquista, a production of the Prague National Theatre from 2005
context_page_description: The Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire, also known as the Conquest of Mexico, was one of the primary events in the Spanish colonization of the Americas. There are multiple 16th-century narratives of the events by Spanish conquerors, their indigenous allies, and the defeated Aztecs. It was not solely a contest between a small contingent of Spaniards defeating the Aztec Empire but rather the creation of a coalition of Spanish invaders with tributaries to the Aztecs, and most especially the Aztecs' indigenous enemies and rivals. They combined forces to defeat the Mexica of Tenochtitlan over a two-year period. For the Spanish, the expedition to Mexico was part of a project of Spanish colonization of the New World after twenty-five years of permanent Spanish settlement and further exploration in the Caribbean.
  Following an earlier expedition to Yucatán led by Juan de Grijalva in 1518, Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés led an expedition to Mexico. Two years later, in 1519, Cortés and his retinue set sail for Mexico.
context_section_description: The Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire is the subject of an opera, La Conquista (2005) and of a set of six symphonic poems, La Nueva España (1992–99) by Italian composer Lorenzo Ferrero.
  Cortés's conquest has been depicted in numerous television documentaries. These include in an episode of Engineering an Empire as well as in the BBC series Heroes and Villains, with Cortés being portrayed by Brian McCardie.
  Captain from Castile (1947) is about early Cortés and the Aztec.
  The expedition was also partially included in the animated film The Road to El Dorado as the main characters Tulio and Miguel end up as stowaways on Hernán Cortés' fleet to Mexico. Here, Cortés is represented as a merciless and ambitious villain, leading a quest to find El Dorado, the legendary city of gold in the New World. Hernán Cortés is voiced by Jim Cummings.
  The aftermath of the Spanish conquest, including the Aztecs' struggle to preserve their cultural identity, is the subject of the Mexican feature film, The Other Conquest, directed by Salvador Carrasco.
  Historian Daniele Bolelli did an in-depth coverage of the Spanish conquest over four episodes of his "History on Fire" podcast.
  Mexican muralist Diego Rivera (1886–1957) painted History of Morelos, Conquest and Revolution on the walls of the Cortes Palace in Cuernavaca in 1929–1930.
caption: Scene from the opera La Conquista, 2005
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