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As a whole, the pictures and texts of the three sections of the codex evoke not only traditionally Mesoamerican notions of social order, but also those imported from Spain, which became a source both of convergence as well as strain between the two societies. The Mesoamerican grid acts as the organizing principle of the manuscript and neatly overlaps with the one the first urban planners of New Spain had imported in books by thinkers such as Alberti. At the same time, the laws imposed by the lords of Mexico described throughout the first section of the Codex Mendoza are reflected in the notion of civility embodied in the Spanish concept of policía, upon which the character of New World societies would be measured and debated throughout the sixteenth century. The representation of space, which in Mexican manuscripts is traditionally two-dimensional, contrasts with the single point perspective imported from Europe by cosmopolitan friars, thus expanding the possibilities of representation of the natural world, both for the Nahua artist and the European observer. All of these matters are addressed in the following chapters.