Nezahualcoyotl

Nezahualcoyotl (1402-1472) was the tlatoani, or ruler, of the city-state of Texcoco, one of the three members of the Aztec Triple Alliance alongside Tenochtitlan and Tlacopan. Beyond his political and military role, he is remembered as a noted poet and philosopher, with a body of verse traditionally attributed to him surviving in later transcriptions and celebrated as some of the finest surviving Nahuatl poetry. He is also credited with significant engineering achievements, including the construction of a dike across Lake Texcoco to control flooding and separate fresh from brackish water, along with aqueducts supplying Texcoco with fresh water, and with codifying a body of law for his city-state. He remains one of the most celebrated intellectual and cultural figures of pre-Columbian Mesoamerica.