Latinidad, tradición clásica y nova ratio en el Imperial Colegio de la Santa Cruz de Santiago Tlatelolco

Abstract

This article offers a new perspective on the Colegio de Santa Cruz in Tlatelolco. On the one hand, it studies hitherto inedited sources and manuscripts; on the other, it reinterprets some well-known facts. I will highlight the main purpose of the Colegio in Tlatelolco and the development of the courses taught there, particularly those based on the nova ratio nebrisensis. Indeed, for friars arriving to the New World, the example of the universities and colegios where they had studied themselves was the one they were most familiar with. The cornerstone of these studies were the pedagogical reforms by the Spanish humanist Elio Antonio de Nebrija, which they followed closely for their grammatical and didactic ideas. Nebrija was considered the main representative of the Spanish Catholic humanism favoured by the Crown. In this article, I will analyse traces of this nova ratio in the works of the friars and students of the Colegio in Tlatelolco.