Nezahualcoyotl (tlatoani)

Nezahualcoyotl
Bronze casting done of Nezahualcoyotl by Jesús Fructuoso Contreras in the Garden of the Triple Alliance located in the historic center of Mexico City.
Tlatoani of Texcoco
Reign	1429–1472
Predecessor	Ixtlilxochitl I
Successor	Nezahualpilli
Born	April 28, 1402 (1402-04-28) Texcoco
Died	June 4, 1472(1472-06-04) (aged 70) Texcoco
Spouse	Azcalxochitzin
Issue	Nezahualpilli
Father	Ixtlilxochitl I
Mother	Matlalcihuatzin

Nezahualcoyotl (Classical Nahuatl: Nezahualcoyōtl [nesawalˈkojoːtɬ], modern Nahuatl pronunciation^ⓘ) (April 28, 1402 – June 4, 1472) was a scholar, philosopher (tlamatini), warrior, architect, poet and ruler (tlatoani) of the city-state of Texcoco in pre-Columbian era Mexico. Unlike other high-profile Mexican figures from the century preceding Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire, Nezahualcoyotl was not fully Mexica; his father's people were the Acolhua, another Nahuan people settled in the eastern part of the Valley of Mexico, on the coast of Lake Texcoco. His mother, however, was the sister of Chimalpopoca, the Mexica king of Tenochtitlan.

He is best remembered for his poetry; for his Hamlet-like biography as a dethroned prince with a victorious return, leading to the fall of Azcapotzalco and the rise of the Aztec Triple Alliance; and for leading important infrastructure projects, both in Texcoco and Tenochtitlan.^[1] According to accounts by his descendants and biographers, Fernando de Alva Cortés Ixtlilxóchitl and Juan Bautista Pomar, he had an experience of an "Unknown, Unknowable Lord of Everywhere" to whom he built an entirely empty temple in which no blood sacrifices of any kind were allowed — not even those of animals. However, he allowed human sacrifices to continue in other temples.^[2]