Due antichi monumenti di architettura messicana (Rome, 1804): an expelled Mexican Jesuit puts El Tajin and Xochicalco before the architects of Europe

In 1804 a Jesuit expelled from New Spain published in Rome, in Italian and with plates, the first European book devoted to two Mesoamerican buildings. Pedro Jose Marquez worked at one remove, from two Mexico City printed reports of 1785 and 1791, converting American varas into Roman palms so that architects could compare. He argued from the fabric that the builders had science, and printed, as a Jesuit, that the burning of the indigenous books had destroyed the evidence.