Nezahualcóyotl, Garden of the Triple Alliance

Depicted here as a warrior, Nezahualcóyotl (1402-1472), as king of his people in Texcoco, was known as a wise poet-king, who created what has been called an Athens of the western world, a Meso-American intellectual center. This pre-Hispanic ruler designed a code of laws, encouraged scholarship and the cultivation of the arts, and was himself an architect and poet. Sadly the library he established did not survive the Spanish conquest. But today a number of poems are attributed to him.
		The sculptor has given his representation of the leader something of the spiritual yearning seen in his poems.
Still, the subject of this garden, which also includes sculptures of Izcoatl and Totoquihuatzin, is the Triple Alliance, a political and military confederation of Tenochtitlan, Texcoco and Tlacopan (Tacuba). The sculptor has embued his Nezahualcóyotl with appropriate power and physical presence.
		Izcoatl, Garden of the Triple Alliance Jesús F. Contreras 1888-89
		Totoquihuatzin, Garden of the Triple Alliance Jesús F. Contreras 1888-89

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