with the church at background The
Colegio was built by the
Franciscan order on the initiative of the President of the Audiencia
Sebastián Ramírez de Fuenleal, Bishop Don
Juan de Zumárraga, and Viceroy Don
Antonio de Mendoza on the site of an
Aztec school, for the sons of nobles (). It was inaugurated on January 6, 1536; however, it had been a functioning school since August 8, 1533. While Bishop of Santo Domingo, Ramírez de Fuenleal had encouraged the Franciscans to teach the sons of Aztecs grammar in their native
Nahuatl. Franciscan Arnaldo de Basccio began the task with considerable success, which gave support to the project of establishing an institute of higher learning. Ramírez de Fuenleal urged the crown to provide funds to establish and support such an institution. These schools for indigenous and mestizo boys taught basic literacy, but also singing, instruction in how to help with the mass, and sometimes manual labor. The primary education of indigenous girls was also a concern and schools were established in Mexico City, Texcoco and six other locations lasting only for a decade. But not until the establishment of the
Colegio de Santa Cruz were sons of indigenous men given higher education. Bishop Juan de Zumárraga was a supporter of the establishment of the
Colegio, but credited Fuenleal and the crown for the accomplishment. The establishment of such a school to train young men for the priesthood was highly controversial, with opposition especially coming from Dominican friars and articulated by the head of that order, Fray
Domingo Betanzos. Franciscan
Bernardino de Sahagún wrote a strong defense of the capacity of the Aztec, countering the opinions of those who doubted their ability not only to learn Latin grammar, but to speak, and compose in it. He went on to refute concerns about the possibility of the indigenous Mexicans spreading heresy. Betanzos in his opposition to the
Colegio said that Native Americans who knew Latin could expose the ignorance of the existing European priests, an argument that perhaps unwittingly did the same. The original purpose of the
Colegio was to educate a male indigenous priesthood, and so pupils were selected from the most prestigious families of the Aztec ruling class. These young men, often "
Indio Latinos", or hispanicized native populations, were taught to be literate in Nahuatl, Spanish and Latin, and received instruction in Latin in music, rhetoric, logic, and philosophy, and indigenous medicine. One student educated at the
Colegio was
Nahua botanist Martín de la Cruz, who wrote the
Libellus de Medicinalibus Indorum Herbis, an illustrated herbal. Actual instruction at the
Colegio was by two Franciscans at a time, aided by Aztec assistants.
Fray Juan de Torquemada also served as a teacher and administrator at the
Colegio. When recollecting historical and ethnographical information for the elaboration of the
Florentine Codex, Sahagún used his trilingual students to elicit information from the Aztec elders and to transcribe it in Spanish and Nahuatl and to illuminate the manuscripts. Opened with great fanfare, the ceremony was attended by Viceroy Mendoza, Bishop Juan de Zumárraga, and the President of the Audiencia, Sebastián Ramírez de Fuenleal with a great crowd to view the proceedings. Fray Alonso de Herrera preached the sermon at the opening Mass. Following the religious ceremony, there was a banquet hosted by Zumárraga for guests and the first pupils, chosen from the convent of San Francisco de México. Some important pupils trained at the school were
Antonio Valeriano, who was the most prominent of those who collaborated with Sahagún. Spanish judge Alonso de Zorita, author of
Life and Labor in Ancient Mexico: the Brief and Summary Relation of the Lords of New Spain was aided by the translations of Pablo Nazareno, a former pupil at the
Colegio. The Franciscans continued to teach at the
Colegio, but could not afford to keep up the building or other expenses, so they turned it over to the crown shortly after the
Colegio opened in 1536. In modern
Mexico City the
Plaza de las Tres Culturas, close to the location of the
Colegio, commemorates this particularly interesting part of the cultural history of Mexico. == Church of Santiago Tlatelolco ==