What do the lives and careers of Pascal the Great and Moctezuma suggest about the importance of the leadership to a great civilization?

Moctezuma: Aztec Ruler. One, an idealised portrait painted long after Moctezuma’s death in 1519, reflects European fascination with the New World’s apparent mixture of native sophistication and savagery, showing him as the proud ruler of an exotic civilisation. Another painting, displayed towards the end of the exhibition, and similarly idealised, shows Moctezuma pledging allegiance to the conquistador Hernán Cortés, representing the Spanish crown.

"That’s the agenda, that’s the spin," says Dr Colin McEwan, head of the museum’s Americas section, who has curated the exhibition with support from leading Mexican academics. "The suggestion is that this handing over of power was taking place voluntarily - whereas the truth is that this was a violent conquest."

That theme of conflicting representations of the past runs through the exhibition that the museum hopes will be its winter blockbuster. It is a story of worlds in collision, of the Spanish conquest of Mexico in 1519-21, but it is also, McEwan says, an attempt to see one of history’s more enigmatic figures through the context of his own traditions and culture. It has contemporary relevance, too, as across South and Central America indigenous peoples and their concerns are increasingly contesting political agendas.