San Cristóbal de la Laguna as a Trial Colonial City Prior to the Founding of Spanish American Settlements: The Influence of Convent Life on the City-Territory

Studies on colonial grid urban planning often use the latest examples of cities founded in penin-sular Spain towards the end of the 15th century as a basis for knowledge for new foundations in America. This study proposes that the city of San Cristóbal de la Laguna (1496) is configured as a final urban planning trial, an intermediate point in the Canary Islands, which adds value to the experiences of early colonial urban planning. This first model of a city-territory, not having a de-fensive character due to its insularity, developed a grid adapted to the terrain, organising a new social order inspired by the religious doctrine of the time, where religious architecture - mainly convents, but also churches, hermitages and hospitals - played a very prominent role in the origin and consolidation of the urban layout of the city. Comparing this case study with the first Ameri-can experiences: Santo Domingo (1502), the first island city, and Panama Viejo (1519), the first city on the mainland, all three of which are UNESCO World Heritage Sites, we have been able to verify the influence of this intermediate urban planning experiment on the evolutionary process of the early colonial model and confirm the role of convent foundations as articulating pieces of the territory.