Early Spanish explorers compared the Aztec capital city, Tenochtitlán (now Mexico City) to the Italian city Venice, also a place of impressive buildings constructed on islands connected by canals. Favorably located for handling trade between East and West, the Venetian Republic became a major sea power and one of the most prosperous cities in Europe in the fifteenth century. This 1493 view of Venice from the “Nuremberg Chronicle,” an illustrated history of the earth from creation through the fifteenth century, depicts the palace of the doge (duke), St. Mark’s Basilica, the Campanile (bell tower), and other landmarks that still look much the same.