Summary

Cortés enjoyed the Mexican ball game alongside Cuauhtémoc. Six years later, Cortés executed Cuauhtémoc. The author recalls visiting a convent said to be haunted by the ghost of Cortés. A description of a tennis ball from 1611 follows.

When Montalto became Pope Sixtus V, he gave the Boleyn ball to his sister Camilla. Camilla left the ball in rooms occupied by a man who was Caravaggio’s first employer in Rome.

The author recalls seeing a replica of a ship from which Cortés and his men first saw the island of Hispaniola. On his first morning in Mexico, Cortés met with the Aztec emperor Moctezuma who offered expensive gifts to the King of Spain in return for Cortés and his men leaving, but Malinalli (lover and translator to Cortés) did not translate...