Often colonial education occurred in economically active areas of the colonial setting, like in New Spain. After 1521 Spanish colonial administration was situated in the urban highland region of Central Mexico, where the religious and commercial centre of the former Aztec empire was located. European missionaries established their institutions nearby these administrative centres, like the Colegio de Santa Cruz Tlatelolco, an early Franciscan institute to educate the sons of the surviving and newly forming Nahua elites.

Autochton social life was organized around the so-called ‘altepelt’ (ethnic state). Spaniards relied on existent social entities, when e.g. organising forced labour. The indigenous Nahua and the Spanish colonisers had different ideas about the meaning of land. Missionaries followed-up on the relation of pre-existent social structures, religious ceremonies and landscape by collecting speeches, questioning representatives and learning the local language (Nahuatl). They reinterpreted e.g. places of worship and tried to reactivate the Aztec system of schooling, which related the maintenance of temples, religious education, and vocational training.

To explore the meaning of space in missionary education, I analyse Friar Bernardino de Sahagúns General History of the Things of New Spain (Florentine Codex, 1577/78). Sahagún was aware that among other the meaning of places was important for the success of the mission. In this paper I interpret Prologues and Interpolations of the Florentine Codex, where he outlined the difficulties of the mission. I discuss the notions he used, e.g. his words to explain the Nahua concepts to his Spanish audience, and his justification of the necessity to research on and to educate the local population. I aim to show that in this colonial setting the meaning of places had to be negotiated for an educational purpose.

The way Europeans dealt in early modern times with diversity forms part of the emerging modern universal thinking. The used source is seen as an example of the acquaintance with diversity. By choosing the 16^th century, I look at a timeframe where in most sources the New was still a question of perspective. There is no radical Other yet. Innovation and Experience are part of the discourse on the Americas. Exact sciences shall only institutionalise later, but one finds empirical efforts.

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