After reading The Lettered City, an aspect that I’ve been mulling over in my head is the discussion of Neoplatonism specifically, and how this philosophy could be (and was) applied to the design of colonial cities. While I’m certainly no philosopher, I am a big Plato fan, so I did have an understanding of what Neoplatonism means. Still, I had never before made the connection or even considered it as a basis for urban design, but it makes sense. I find it fascinating in the role it played in shaping the worldview and future visions of Spanish colonists. As I understand it, Neoplatonism makes the claim that the physical world we inhabit is an imperfect and deeply flawed reflection of a higher,  potentially perfect reality that is realistically achievable.  I feel that this reading was quick to mention Neoplatonism as it relates to colonial city planning but was not super clear on what exactly is meant by Neoplatonism and it’s relationship with colonial ideals, primarily because the author mixed it in with the discussion of rationalism as a motivating factor and talked about the two philosophies as if they were one and the same.  I would like to use this blog post to try and concisely as possible describe how Neoplatonist philosophy connects to South American colonial city planning as far as I understand it. A driving idea behind Neoplatonism is that all things emanate from a single, perfect source, following this logic,  this process of emanation naturally creates a structure based entirely on a strict hierarchy. In this hierarchy, everything has a natural place in the universe, from the highest forms of divine beings to the material world. So from what I understood from the reading this philosophy of a hierarchical universe was effectively translated and scaled down into a hierarchical structuring of urban spaces. As such, South American colonial cities were designed with a clear central axis like a central plaza (aka plaza mayor), which would serve as the epicentre for political and religious activities. Surrounding the plaza were the most important buildings, such as the cathedral, government offices, and the residences of the elite. This epicentre embodies this Neoplatonist idea of a perfect source wherein which all “good” emanates. The centralization of these key institutions around the plaza as well as other aspects discussed in the reading like the regularity of the street grid are reflective of an idealized vision of social order and governance Higher levels are more perfect and closer to the source, while lower levels are more diverse and further removed from divine perfection. This also connects to the centre-periphery dynamic in that I expressed my fascination with in my first blog post, but I will save a more in-depth discussion of that for a future post.