The Sixteenth Century: Monastic Architecture in the New World

The Sixteenth-Century: The Age of the Convento

Córdoba, Andalucía (Spain), La Mezquita, cupolaSpain became the bastion of Catholic Europe in 1492 when King Ferdinand (1452-1516) of Aragón and Queen Isabella (1474-1504) of Castile conquered Granada, the last remaining Islamic stronghold in the Iberian Peninsula, completing “La Reconquista” (the Reconquest), an intermittent conflict of over seven hundred years. Also in 1492, contracted and funded by Isabella and Ferdinand, Christopher Columbus (1451-1506) made his first, historic voyage to the New World, the majority of which would securely be in Spanish hands within half a century. In 1521 the Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés (1484-1547) took control of the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan, sounding the definitive death knell to the dominant Mesoamerican culture. Thus, for three centuries, motivations of God, gold, and glory determined Spain’s hegemony over its New World territories, until the early years of the nineteenth century when the Napoleonic Wars precipitated its imperial unraveling.

Though far less heralded, another seminal event that took place in 1492 was the publishing of both a Castilian dictionary and the Grámatica de la lengua castellana. Compiled by scholar Antonio de Nebrija (1441-1522), these helped standardize Castilian as the lingua franca of Spain at the time of its unification and start of its imperial expansion. “Language has always been the perfect instrument of Empire”, wrote the author in the prologue to his Grámatica.

The King’s New Subjects

Many in Spain considered the discovery of the Americas as the greatest single event in human history after the birth of Christ, the reason being that this vast territory was teeming with potentially imminent Christian converts. The fact that these native souls had never heard of Christ, much less rejected his teachings, prompted a profound philosophical discourse over issues of natural slavery versus Christian equality. Brought to a climax in Valladolid, Spain, in 1550, two well respected Dominican theoreticians of opposing viewpoints met face to face. Philosopher and magistrate Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda (1494-1573) and Bartolomé de las Casas (1484-1566), the recently appointed Bishop of the Mexican state of Chiapas (after whom its beautiful capital city is named), rigorously debated the nature of human evolution before a jury of theologians.

Ek' Balam, Yucatán, La acrópolis, El tronoAdvocating that hierarchy and not equality is society’s natural state, Sepúlveda was eager to secure the rights to publish a dissertation he had written on ‘just war’. In his diatribes at Valladolid, he upheld the Aristotelian tenet of natural slavery, leaning heavily on the Christian corollary once thought to have been written by Saint Thomas Aquinas (1225?-1274) but actually authored by Tolomeo di Lucca (?-1326/7) known as De Regimine Principum. This document asserted that some men are innately defective of reasoning powers and therefore better suited to servile work, just as it maintained the antediluvian notion that climate and constellations were largely responsible for racial inequalities.

Sepúlveda also raised the teachings of “the Ostian”, Enrico da Susa (?-1271), who had claimed that the Pope had authority not only over all Christians but also over all non-Christians, with the result that non-Christians’ territories were therefore forfeit, even if held prior to the arrival of Christ, a most convenient result for any invading Christian force. Although the theological debate at Valladolid was inconclusive, with the authorities ultimately failing to render a verdict, Aristotelian and Thomist principles had nevertheless been effectively challenged by Las Casas’ humanity, reason, and his upholding of St. Paul’s premise that people of all generations, race and language are to be included as predestined members of the mystical Body of Christ. This was in line with the papal position espoused in Pope Paul III’s Bull of 1537, the Sublimis Deus.

Actopan, Hidalgo, San Nicolás de Tolentino, second story upper convento mural, St. Paul with sword & scripture“The serene confidence with which it is stated {in the Bull} that all men are capable of receiving the teaching of the faith and that they should not lose their freedom or their possessions, surpasses any notion founded on experience, for it applies both to the Indians already discovered and to ‘all peoples who from now onward may come to the notice of Christians’ ”(Zavala, Silvio. The Defense of Human Rights in Latin America: Sixteenth to Eighteenth Centuries, Unesco, Belgium, 1964, p. 42)

King Charles V (1519-1556) was also sympathetic to his many new and unforeseen vassals, and claimed it unlawful to purchase, sell or barter any indigenous person whether in times of peace or war. This was reflected in the New Laws of 1542 which proscribed that Amerindians be enslaved, decreeing them free persons who must be both adequately paid for their labor and fairly taxed on their earnings. It is, in fact, impressive to consider both Church and Crown’s progressive stance towards the Amerindians in the mid-16th century. Still, wealthy Creole landowners, eager to perpetuate native peonage, were virulently antagonistic to the New Laws, which were also meant to eventually challenge the hereditary system of encomienda grants.

Most of these encomienda owners, or encomenderos, were ex-conquistadors to whom vast latifundia had been granted for their military service during the Conquest. Known for their ruthless disrespect towards the native peoples, their perpetual defiance of the Crown spawned the often-repeated refrain that has tellingly endured in Mexico’s compendium of maxims: “Se obedece pero no se cumple (One obeys but does not comply)”. Thus, lofty ideals, humanitarian rhetoric, and regal pronouncements from afar failed to be effectively enforced across the Atlantic.

Cortes’ Choices

Veracruz, Veracruz, Fuerte San Juan UlúaHaving sacked the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan but then deciding to rebuild it as the governmental seat of New Spain, Cortés destroyed the greatest of all pagan cities while maintaining its physical location as a symbol for future political and religious authority. The result of its reconstruction was that sprawling native settlements emanated out from a nucleus designated for the city’s Spanish population and centered about the razed “Templo Mayor” (Main Pyramid Temple), beside which the first cathedral was to be built. The plan or “traza” for this civic center was designed in 1523-24 by Alonso García Bravo (1490-1561), the maestro de obrass who had constructed Cortés’ first fort upon his landing at Veracruz. Wide, symmetrical streets in a grid-like, regular pattern set the model for New Spain’s urban centers. Later in the century European visitors to Mexico City would be amazed by its great size, congruous proportions, and lack of fortified defenses.

Cortés made a second canny decision. For the upcoming mission of converting the Amerindians, in his fourth letter to Charles V he requested that the King send to New Spain religious regulars rather than seculars, i.e., mendicant friars belonging to a monastic order rather than ordained priests associated with a diocese. In Cortes’ prescient view, only such men had the fortitude for such a challenging task. With the King’s consent, a group of twelve apostolic missionaries of the Franciscan order arrived in Mexico City in 1524, followed in 1526 by twelve members of the Order of Friars Preachers (i.e., the Dominicans) and in 1533 by seven Augustinians. They were all preceded by the King’s relative and fellow Flemish countryman, the distinguished Franciscan lay priest Pedro de Gante (1486-1572), who arrived in Mexico City in 1523 with two fellow Flemish friars, Juan de Tecto and Juan de Aora, to begin the religious education of the natives.

Ozumba, México, La Purísima Concepción, portería West mural detail, Flemish Franciscan Pedro de Gante, Juan de Auro & Juan de Tecto“{…} considering the matter more fully, it appears to me that your Holy Majesty should provide other means whereby the natives of these parts may be more speedily converted and instructed in our Holy Catholic Faith. And it seems to me that the manner in which this should be done is that Your Holy Majesty should send to these parts many religious persons, as I have already said, who would be most zealous in the conversion of these people, and that they should build houses and monasteries in the provinces which we think most appropriate {…} for the natives of these parts had in their time religious persons administering their rites and ceremonies who were so severe in the observance of both chastity and honesty that if any one of them was held by anyone to have transgressed he was put to death.” (Cortés, Hernán. Letters from Mexico, translated and edited by Anthony Pagden, Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 1986, pps. 332-333)

In the year of his arrival Gante founded the first educational center of the New World, in Texcoco, just to the East of Mexico City. Two years later, in 1525, Martín de Valencia (circa 1474-1534), leader of the Franciscan twelve, organized another school in the capital. Valencia is immortalized in depictions of this period as the priest to whom a victorious Cortés kneeled in deference and whose habits he kissed before an astonished group of Aztec caciques (ref. lateral portería mural of La Purísima Concepción in Ozumba, México). Upon Valencia’s death in Santa Catarina Ayotzingo, his body was transported for burial to nearby Tlalmanalco where its presence spawned much devotion and likely engendered the building of the town’s remarkable open chapel, one of Mexico’s greatest colonial monuments.

Tlalmanalco, México, San Luis Obispo, capilla abierta, portería, central & chancel archesIn 1531 another Franciscan, fray Alonso de Escalona (1496-1584), established a school a hundred kilometers to the Northeast of Mexico City in Tlaxcala, the city-state which had been the foremost Spanish ally in the defeat of the Aztecs. Nevertheless, it was Gante whose scholastic contributions were foremost. He famously set up his second school for the education of Amerindian children behind San José de los Naturales, the capilla de indios he had built in the heart of Mexico City and on whose site rests the present-day Baroque church of San Francisco. Aside from Christianity, young apprentices were taught the practical and mechanical arts that would be needed in the building anew of their country. Never returning to his Flemish homeland, Pedro de Gante trained thousands of native artisans over a forty-year period. Apparently his love, devotion and concern for them knew no bounds. Upon sensing his forthcoming demise, he is said to have pleaded with Charles V to send over other friars specifically from Flanders so that the natives would not miss him too much after his passing.

Well documented is how pre-Hispanic craftsmanship drew admiration on the part of the Spaniards. Their abilities derived from centuries of expertise in stone carving and is evident throughout the pre-Colombian period, from Olmec to Aztec artifacts, as well as at large complexes like Palenque (Chiapas), Chichén Iztá (Yucatán), and Teotihuacan (México). What Gante and his cohorts inaugurated represents an extraordinary story in human history and architecture, namely the harnessing of an artistic skill-set inherent to the Amerindian and its redirection to fulfill Christian requirements. These included, for instance, instruction in assembling the Roman arch and achieving painting perspective so as to assemble and adorn the monastic foundations meant to expedite mass conversion and organize religious life.

Tizimín, Yucatán, Los Tres Reyes, convento and turretIt should be noted that the word convento is often used in lieu of the word “monastery” or friary when discussing such early colonial structures in New Spain. Derived from the Latin “con” and “venire”, meaning to “come together”, a convento commonly describes a religious compound inhabited by either a society of women or, as in the case of Mexico, men. These conventos were visually conceived by the friars who oversaw their construction, delegating the labor to the local indigenous. Although the word convento is suggestive of the entire architectural complex, at times it refers only the friars’ living quarters. Just as the frontier missions of the eighteenth-century followed the paths of the padres, the conventos reflected 16th century routes of evangelization.

“Surprisingly independent of Spain in the campaign of conversion, the Mexican friars were equally independent in their architecture. Their buildings are never replicas of buildings in Spain, nor often clear provincial echoes, any more than renaissance churches in Spain are replicas or echoes of renaissance churches in Italy.” (The Churches of Sixteenth-Century Mexico: Atrios, Posas, Open Chapels, and other studies by John McAndrew, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1965, p. 130)

Anticipating the End Times

Most of these early monasteries resemble medieval fortresses, hence the term Templo-fortaleza which was extensively used in the 1954 publication La Arquitectura de México en el siglo XVI written by Pablo de Gante, not to be confused with the aforementioned priest Pedro. In describing this “monastic-military” style, de Gante indicates that medieval bastions of a similar look were built in Provence, France, in the twelfth century to repel assaults by members of the heretic Albigensian sect, also known as the Cathars. Most conspicuous is the citadel aspect of certain Franciscan conventos in the state of Puebla, such as those at Tepeaca and nearby Cuautinchán which display chemins-de-ronde as part of their defensive arsenal.

“Because of the peculiar features which all these conventos of the 16th century have in common and due to the equally particular circumstances that influenced their construction, monastic architecture of this time displays characteristics so distinctive and notable that they should well be considered part of a separate architectural style. We have therefore classified it accordingly under the title Monastic-Military.” {…} We call this architecture monastic because it only applies to churches and conventos of the religious orders, and military because it presents many aspects of medieval fortifications.” (Gante, Pablo C. La arquitectura de México en el siglo XVI, Editorial Porrua, S.A., México, D.F., 1954, pps. 72 {and} 83 personal translations)

Tecamachalco, Puebla, Asunción de Nuestra Señora, sotocoro webbing mural, Four Horsemen of the ApocalypseNotwithstanding, large-scale aggression on the part of unconverted Amerindians was uncommon. The one noteworthy exception was the uprising of the Caxcan tribe in Nueva Galicia, present-day Jalisco, a conflict which came to be known as the Mixtón War (1540-42), destabilized the region for a number of years, and claimed the life of legendary Spanish conquistador and Cortés’ right-hand man, Pedro de Alvarado (circa 1485-1541).

The most imposing feature of the Templo-fortaleza is the merlon which lines the roofs of monastic foundations from church parapets to atrial walls to posa chapels, and which in toto is referred to as crenellation or battlement. These solid, vertical blocks, systematically placed between corresponding embrasures, elicit a martial sensibility of the Middle Ages. One is hard-pressed to find any church in Spain which is crenellated, or castellated, and equally so to encounter a Spanish castle that is not, begging the question of against precisely what were these pointed pillars meant to protect. If the militaristic appearance of the Templo-fortaleza served a more symbolic than practical purpose, a tenable notion is that these bastions were meant to defend the Christian Church itself, i.e., the concept of the Church as citadel of the True Faith. For such a formidable purpose, in the merlon the New World friars selected an evocative and effective medieval archetype.

Izúcar de Matamoros, Puebla, Santo Domingo, apse merlonsThe materialization of the “Monastic-Military” church fortress coincides with a fascinating if elusive discourse regarding a particular strain of biblical mysticism and evangelizing fervor notably prevalent in representatives of the first monastic order to arrive in New Spain, namely the Seraphic. Disciples of the mystic Francis of Assisi (? - 1226), patron saint of Italy, Franciscans were mendicant (at times discalced) preachers wholly devoted to the Rule of Poverty. The twelve apostolic Franciscans who arrived in Mexico City in 1524 were zealous, seasoned friars devoted to preaching, penance and poverty.

Propelling their apostolic ardor and monastic militantism was a chiliastic Christianity derived from the Book of Revelation (namely, the Apocalypse) and once fostered by the Italian Cistercian monk and near contemporary of Francis, Gioacchino da Fiore (circa 1135-1202), in whose third Trinitarian age the Mexican friars were certain to be living. The Joachimites promulgated that this third and final epoch (that of the Holy Ghost) was to culminate in the Second Coming of Christ and the Final Judgment, after which the saved believers would live peaceably and eternally in a New Jerusalem. It may thus be reasoned that the conception realized by Valencia and his cohorts of the Templo-fortaleza originated within the context of this prophetic and fast-approaching cosmic conflict.

No eminent New World Franciscan was more dogmatic in his Joachimite millenarianism than Gerónimo de Mendieta (1525-1604), as revealed through the chronicle he penned on early evangelization in New Spain, Historia eclesiástica Indiana (unpublished until 1870). Called an “apocalyptic elitist” by John Leddy Phelan in his The Millennial Kingdom of the Franciscans in the New World (1970, p. 74), Mendieta was influential in his steadfast conviction that the natives were the most pure, gentle, and docile of souls, naturally predisposed to receiving Divine Grace through Apostolic Poverty, through whom a terrestrial paradise would indeed be created as the world neared its end. For these oracular Franciscans the significance of their time and place in history was manifest in the messianic events for which they were preparing.

“In this time period there was a prevailing notion that the American Indians were probably the descendants of the tribes of Israel. Apocalyspe 7:4-9 states that the lost tribes would reappear on the day of the Final Judgment. For this reason, if the indigenous were truly those lost tribes, such a discovery would serve as convincing evidence that, in fact, the world was about to end”. (Aguilar-Moreno, Manuel. Utopía de Piedra: El Arte Tequítqui de México, Editorial Conexión Gráfica, S.A. de C.V., Guadalajara, 2005, p. 63 (personal translation)

Charo, Michoacán, San Miguel, East wall cloister mural, Augustinian hermits (La Thebaida agustina)The Augustinians were also messianic in their hermeneutic. Their empyrean vision was a New Thebaid, in deference to the desert basin located along the upper Nile where Christian anchorites went to live in seclusion in the 3rd and 4th centuries. The corresponding Mexican region which the Augustinians designated for this new kingdom of God was the state of Michoacán in which they heavily invested.

Along the East wall of the ambulatory of their cloister at San Miguel Arcángel, Charo (Michoacán), is a deteriorated yet splendid mural cycle of “La Thebaida agustina” which displays coteries of hermits at Thagaste (present-day Algeria) where St. Augustine (354-430) was born, less than fifty miles from the city of Hippo Regius whose bishop he was appointed circa 395. The representation of “La Thebaida agustina” was to adorn most 16th century Augustinian foundations.

The unprecedented circumstances that predicated the rapid conversion of millions of Amerindians by a handful of friars an ocean’s distance away required pontifical facilitation. In 1522, the Papacy issued the Omnímoda, a decree without which the great Conversion could not have been legitimized. It granted the Regular Clergy the exceptional right to administer the Seven Sacraments, from Baptism to Extreme Unction.Xometla, México, San Miguel Arcángel, baptistery mural, Franciscan friar baptizing a catechumen And baptize they did. One of the Franciscan twelve known to the indigenous as Motolinía (“the poor one” in Náhuatl), Toribio de Benevente (1482-1568), claimed to have personally baptized 300,000 Aztecs. An estimated nine million were converted as early as 1543.

“The few converted the multitude. Fray Martín de Valencia {...} asserted that each had baptized over 100,000 Indians. On one day 15,000 Aztecs were reported to have been baptized by two friars who would have gone on to baptize more had they not become so tired that they were no longer able to lift their arms.” (Early, James. The Colonial Architecture of Mexico, First Southern Methodist University Press, Dallas, 2001, p. 13)

The Early Structures

Zacatlán de las Manzanas, Puebla, SS Pedro & Pablo, basilica naveTypically, a 16th century Mexican monastery is an immense complex, enclosed within a square or rectangular-shaped wall with gates on three sides accessing the atrio within. The church façade faces West towards the setting sun whereas its apse, usually rounded but occasionally squared, faces East towards Christ’s birthplace. Thick, rubble masonry walls outline a single-aisled nave, with the exceptions of at least nine extant foundations worth citing that were built with three naves like Roman basilicas: three Franciscan in the state of Puebla, SS Pedro y Pablo in Zacatlán de las Manzanas, San Andrés Hueytlalpan, and Santiago Apóstol, Tecali (the last one in a state of picturesque ruins); Franciscan San Bartolomé Tepetitlán in Hidalgo; three Dominican conventos in the state of Oaxaca, San Juan Mixtepec, San Juan Teposcolula, and Santiago Matamoros in Cuilápam de Guerrero (this final one in reference to its open chapel); the Dominican foundation at Chiapas de Corzo (Chiapas), and the Augustinian monastery of San Juan Evangelista Culhuacán in Mexico City, whose ruined church nave preserves the column bases of its original basilica form.

Inside these conventual churches, a sanctuary (also called a presbytery or chancel) where Mass was to be held is located in the apse at the far East end of the nave, behind a so-called chancel arch. A decorative doorway leads from one end of the sanctuary to the sacristy. The semicircular walls of the apse may showcase murals, executed by tlacuilos and completed in secco rather than in the fresco process commonly used in 15th and 16th century Italy. In only a few cases a period, “high” altar or retablo is located at the back end of the apse. Only a handful were constructed in New Spain in the fifteen hundreds. Even less are extant, at Franciscan Xochimilco, Huejotzingo, Cuautinchán, Huaquechula, and Tecali where two coetaneous retablos were salvaged and moved to the nearby eighteenth-century parish church. A number of other conventos display presbytery altars from later centuries.

Huejotzingo, Puebla, San Miguel Arcángel, sanctuary high altarMurals may also line the walls of the church nave, the portería, anteportería, the walks and testeras of the cloister, and normally occupy horizontally delimited spatial belts between an upper frieze and lower dado within which they brim with grotesques and intermittent, diminutive images of saints. No longer in fashion after the 16th century, nave and sanctuary murals were replaced by gilded retablos. The murals were whitewashed, a process which unwittingly yet fortunately helped preserve many beautiful images rediscovered in the twentieth century.

The most remarkable, previously undocumented murals to be resurrected (in the 1950s) are those along the nave walls of the Augustinian convento of San Miguel Ixmiquilpan (Hidalgo), which depict autochthonous warriors dressed as eagles, jaguars and coyotes locked in mortal combat. Although the iconography may never be fully deciphered, the imagery is generally interpreted to portray converted Chichimec natives repelling an attack by their still unconverted counterparts. Whether an actual historic event, morally instructive allegory, or both, these fantastic, tlacuilo composed scenes portray the Manichean dualism of good versus evil, an artistic if not literary interpretation of psychomachia, the struggle between body and soul.

Murals are still found in abundance in the monastic complexes of central, Western and Southern Mexico. Originally executed in grisaille, in the following century color was added to many of them that had not been whitewashed, especially to those in church cloisters. The ones appearing along lower cloister walks and testeras catered to the catechumens who were allowed to circulate about this level, and therefore tend to depict fundamentally instructive New Testament themes such as the Nativity, the Miracles, and the Passion. Along second story walks, where only cenobites were permitted to amble, more esoteric religious themes may be found pertaining specifically to the order in residence, such as the Miracle of the Rosary at Dominican Tetela del Volcán (Morelos), the Mass of Saint Gregory at Franciscan Cholula (Puebla) and Tepeapulco (Hidalgo) and the prophetic Old Testament scene of Moses and the Bronzed Serpent at Augustinian Metztitlán (Hidalgo).
The most complete cycle of Old Testament scenes was uncovered in the apse of the Franciscan conventual church of Los Todos Santos in Zempoala (Hidalgo) and include motifs such as David and Goliath, Moses and the Tablets, and Daniel and the Fiery Furnace.

Ixmiquilpan, Hidalgo, San Miguel Arcángel, nave mural, Chichimec battle sceneA stunning two-tiered processional grisaille mural with red highlights occupies the three walls of the capilla abierta of the Dominican monastery of San Juan Teitipac (Oaxaca). At Augustinian Malinalco (México), the entire lower cloister walks of the convento of El Divino Salvador are a tour-de-force of native flora, fauna and animals -- an elaborate paradisiacal garden of delights. From what endures, it would seem the Augustinians were the most committed to mural decoration, producing an extensive repertoire of images throughout their foundations.

Upon entering the nave from the main portal of the monastic church, immediately to the right is a small structure known as a baptistry which houses one or more Baptismal fonts. Because of the importance of their function, particularly in light of the 16th century Conversion of New Spain, fonts are among the oldest and most significant artifacts to be found within the church. They are often splendidly carved, outstanding works of art, like those at Acatzingo, Aztecameca, Charapán, Ciudad Hidalgo, Santiago Mezquititlán, Oxtotipac, Tecali, Zinacantepec, and Zacualpan de Amilpas, to name but a few.

Nave ceilings were either barrel vaulted or ribbed vaulted. Wood ceilings hardly survive, but among those that do are some paragons of Mudéjar, consisting either of coffered artesonado panels or more complex alfarje varieties of interlaced arabesque patterns (most notably at Los Santos Reyes, Huatlatlahuaca, Puebla, and La Asunción de Nuestra Señora, Tlaxcala city). Because these early churches did not conform to a Latin cross floorplan, they display neither transepts nor cupolas, both of which abounded in the next two centuries. Just inside the main portal at the extreme West end one finds the choir loft which is reached by a stairwell (at times a caracol) at the base of either bell tower, rests upon a wide sotocoro arch bridging the width of the nave, and faces back towards the presbytery at the opposite terminus.

Malinalco, México, El Divino Señor, lower cloister walkEquidistantly affixed to both sides of the nave walls are matching stoups containing Holy Water so that congregants could make the Sign of the Cross upon entering church. On the North side of the nave a door opens out to the atrio whereas on the South wall another leads to the cloister, which is almost always two-storied. Whereas the South wall of the nave coincides with the North wall of the lower cloister ambulatory, at times one finds vertically carved, recessed slits used as a form of primitive stone confessionals by the penitent within the church to the friar inside the cloister (Culhuacán, Huejotzingo, Malinalco, and Yanhuitlán). Off of the cloister walks (normally barrel vaulted and groin vaulted at the corners) are the Sala de Profundisrefectory, kitchen, latrine, any storage facilities, and commonly a huerta where vegetables and fruit trees were cultivated. One may also access the cloister via an anteportería located just behind the portería, an arcaded structure which normally adjoins the South side of the church façade and which consists of as many as six arches (San Francisco Tepeapulco, Hidalgo) to as few as two (San Juan Evangelista Tararameo, Michoacán).

The church façade is often three tiered. The lower level is centered by an imposing main portal, framed by sculptures of holy figures such as SS Peter and Paul, and sometimes outlined by an alfiz which may extend to the second story and at times encase the central choir loft window. The wooden doors are capped by an archivolt made of voussoirs and framed by an entablature and architrave running the width of the side columns or pilasters, whose capitals and imposts in turn support the archivolt’s springers. The second story may also displays sculptural grouping usually around the choir loft window. The third tier may conform to the lower levels, be in the form of a gable, or consist of an espadaña should the church have no bell-tower(s).

Decoration of exterior surface areas was consistent with pre-Cortesian carvings, generally shallow and sharply chiseled, which in the intense Mexican sun yielded the shimmering effect that served to elevate the Spanish architectural term plateresque to dominance within the context of 16th century Mexican façades. Though plateresque façades could be richly ornamented, like the intricate workings of chased silver from which its name derives, they are sober relative to Baroque ornateness of the subsequent two centuries.

Charapán, Michoacán, San Antonio, baptismal font“The term Plateresque means ‘silversmith-like’ but does not specify a metalwork origin; it is descriptive only of appearances, occurring first to Cristóbal de Vilallón in 1539 to describe the Gothic cathedral of Leon. {…} Plateresque ornament is ‘adjectival’. It fits loosely upon the structure it adorns. No clear necessity determines location, context, or scale.” (Kubler, George and Soria, Martin. Art and Architecture in Spain and Portugal and Their American Dominions: 1500-1800, Penguin Books, Inc., Baltimore, 1959, p. 2)

New Design Models

The convento introduced unique adaptations based on its time and place. For instance, many freestanding open chapels (capilla abiertas) survive. Originally referred to as capillas de indios, they are often but not always situated just to the North of the church, running adjacent to the East end of the atrial wall. Ocassionally a capilla abierta is found recessed directly into the church façade (Acolman, Huaquechula, Tlahuelilpan, Tochimilco, Yanhuitlán), if not incorporated into the portería (Zinacantepec, Calimaya, Tarímbaro, Tzintzuntzán, Cuitzeo, Erongarícuaro, Atlihuetzía). At times built prior to the church itself, these chapels replaced temporary thatched roof huts known as xacales or ramadas which were used to protect the outdoor placement of aras. Situating an altar and liturgical appurtenances under the open chapel friars could simultaneously give the Sacraments to multitudes of novitiates.

Tlahuelilpa, Hidalgo, San Francisco, façade, open chapelsA new-world architectural invention, open chapel were a direct response to countless catechumens requiring immediate spiritual immersion. They also represent a deft accommodation on the part the Christian religious from indoor to outdoor worship, as the indigenous were used to being addressed in the open from teocallis by their own priests. Certain capilla abierta features are truly remarkable: the breadth of the vault of the one at Actopan (Hidalgo), wider than all church vaults in Spain save for Gerona’s (Catalonia), the bold, sophisticated geometry of Teposcolula’s (Oaxaca), the early murals within Tizatlán’s (Tlaxcala), and the allover intricate carvings at Tlalmanalco (México). Whereas the axis of nearly every free-standing capilla abierta is perpendicular to that of the main church, the open chapel known as the Capilla Real is a fascinating exception.

Located in what was the important pre-Colonial capital of Cholula, just West of the city of Puebla, the Capilla Real’s axis parallels that of its conventual church, San Gabriel, with its naves (long since occluded) opening out onto the atrio. The Capilla’s nine brick barrel vaults collapsed circa 1581, although its eighteenth-century mosque-like rebuilding resulted in what remains the single greatest concentration of domes in the New World. The structure echoed that of the lost San José de los Naturales in Mexico City, the very first open chapel to ever have ever been built just a handful of years after the Conquest. The project of Pedro de Gante, San José had seven naves but was never meant to have been domed as was the Capilla Real of Cholula prior to its toppling.

“Even though it collapsed, this chapel was one of the notable vaulting feats of the sixteenth-century in Mexico. A huge space, 170 by 190 feet, it was covered with thin-shelled lightweight vaults, each only two bricks thick. As these were carried by arches on widely spaced slender columns which made the minimum of interior obstruction, no other vaulted structure of sixteenth-century Mexico could show anything like so low a ratio of solid to void.” (McAndrew, John. The Open-Air Churches of Sixteenth-Century Mexico: Atrios, Posas, Open Chapels and other Studies, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1965, p. 405)

Prato, Toscana (Italy), Duomo façade pulpit for display of the Holy Girdle of the Virgin ImmaculatePulpits found on the exterior naves of European Gothic cathedrals may be considered formal antecedents to the Mexican capilla abierta. The ones at Prato in Italy, or at Nôtre Dame in Saint-Lô, France, allowed for sermons to be delivered to hundreds of outdoor congregants. Nevertheless, no matter how rapidly Christianity spread throughout Europe, it is important to emphasize that its evolution began surreptitiously as a persecuted cult. This therefore precluded the implementation of conspicuous structural aids to evangelization, whereas in New Spain immediate and mass conversion was consummated by a victorious power which mandated the construction of the auxiliary buildings in question.

Another unique addition to fifteen hundreds Mexican Christian architecture is the posa chapel (capilla posa). A small, domed chapel placed in each corner of the atrio, it abuts the atrial wall on two sides whereas its other two remain open. Capilla posas were used as rest areas during religious ceremonies (the verb “posar” in Spanish meaning “to set”, or “sit”) where processions of the faithful could stop to pray. Generally speaking, one would exit from the West-facing main portal, turn right and pass by each posa chapel, starting with the Northeast one and ending at the one in the atrio’s Southwest corner before reentering the church.

It is possible that the concept of the posa chapel aligned with that of the narthex in paleo Cristian and byzantine churches, as a designated, porticoed space reserved for the religious instruction of catechumens. Conspicuous structures affixed to the entrance of the church with wide entrance arches, many Medieval Spanish narthexes resemble the larger-sized capilla posa of New Spain, like those at the Franciscan conventos of Huejotzingo and Calpan, near each other in the state of Puebla and sufficiently significant to be named individually after a holy event or saint. Despite consistencies in climate, native populations, and timeframe of evangelization, the conventual adjuncts of both the open and posa chapel are nearly exclusive to Mexico, rarely if ever seen in Spanish or Portuguese South America.

The Holy Cross

Tlahuelilpa, Hidalgo, San Francisco, roof cross, crossingAlso prevalent in colonial Mexico is the stone-carved atrial cross, usually placed in front of the church façade and often of startling scale, beauty and intaglio intricacy. Many have disappeared over the centuries, victims of theft, vandalism or carelessness, leaving behind only the bases on which they were set. Nonetheless, excellent examples survive, concentrated in the states of Michoacán, México, Puebla, Tlaxcala and Hidalgo. No one has delved more deeply into the topic than Richard Perry, author of numerous books on Colonial Mexico. In meticulously describing and masterfully reproducing his own illustrative drawings of practically every Mexican stone cross of significance, atrial or otherwise, Perry successfully advances a large, important and largely unaddressed body of work.

“While the image and iconography of the cross was predominantly Christian after the Spanish conquest, there were important attributes of the cross motif in the indigenous cultures of the Americas -- a fact that contributed to the early acceptance and even veneration of the Christian cross there, if not necessarily its full religious significance”. (Perry, Richard D. Mexican Stone Crosses: A Pictorial Guide, Espadaña Press, Santa Barbara, California, 2011, p. 13)

In fact, the cross was a particularly efficient conduit for cultural syncretism at the time of contact between Spaniards and Amerindians. The Christian cross and its four cardinal points was conceptually expanded to embrace the Amerindian axis mundi, the Mesoamerican World Tree or multi-directional religious calendar which affiliated concepts of time and space with the vertical path of an above-below-ground world in what resembled a quincunx, recreated by the monastics in the manner of a square (if not rectangular) atrio with a cross at its center. The more ornate and image filled stone crosses of the 16th century are adorned with reliefs of the Instruments of the Passion of Christ (the Arma Christi), such as the Chalice, the Column, Lance, Ladder, Rooster, the Thirty Silver Coins, Juda’s head, Malchus’ ear, the Sudarium (Veronica Veil's), skulls and bones, and numerous others organized in varying configurations along the front and back of the head, neck, arms, shaft, foot and base of the cross.

Huaquechula, Puebla, atrial cross, front crossingOften a Crown of Thorns is carved at the front-side intersection of the cross’ shaft and arms, within which (rarely) appears the image of Christ’s face. Most uncommon is when Jesus’ sculpted arms and hands are seen projecting out along the very arms of the cross, as in the cases at Zoquizoquipan (Hidalgo), Huaquechula (Puebla), and Tepetomatitlan (Tlaxcala), although the second, more stylized example, likely belongs to the 17th or 18th century. Often three of the five crucifixion wounds of Our Savior are chiseled along the arms and foot of the cross, around which droplets of blood are incised. The imagery connotes another crucial cultural correlation, a sanguinary syncretism between the Aztec ritual of human sacrifice and the Passion of Christ.

In Manuel Aguilar’s publication, Utopía de Piedra, the chapter dedicated to strategies of evangelization identifies attributes of religious and ritualistic commonality between the Spaniards and the autochthonous, and describes how the friars took advantage of such coincidental interrelationships in converting the Amerindians. They mostly accomplished this by construing and promoting the premise of a preexistent, developmental connectedness between the theologies of the two races. For instance, like Christians, Aztecs shared the powerful belief in eternal life, and also held certain rites that resembled Baptism and Confession. While overtly denouncing similarities between Christian sacraments and pagan practices as the insidious work of the Devil, nevertheless, depending on the circumstances, the monastics subtly exploited parallel developments to more seamlessly guide Spanish Catholicism to supremacy over Amerindian polytheism.

The Efficacy of Language

Prior to his invasion of Mexico, Hernán Cortés gained valuable information concerning his Aztec nemesis through translators. Jerónimo de Aguilar, one of two survivors of a 1511 Spanish shipwreck Yucatán coast and its aftermath on the Yucatán peninsula, was rescued by Cortés in 1519. During his eight years on the peninsula, de Aguilar learned Maya. In a remarkable tale of adaptation, de Aquilar’s fellow castaway, Gonzalo Guerrero, went native and, pierced, tattooed, married with children and already deemed a cacique, decided to remain amongst his adopted indigenous family rather than rejoin his Spanish countrymen. Soon after picking up de Aguilar Cortés added another instrumental Amerindian to his company, the bilingual Maya-Náhuatl woman famously known as La Malinche. Thus, through de Aguilar and La Malinche the first linguistic link (via Maya) was forged between Aztec Náhuatl and Spanish Castilian. For Cortés this would prove crucial.

Yuriria, Guanajuato, San Pablo, nave transept & presbytery ribbed vaultsDuring their spiritual conquest of Mexico, the early missionaries’ most important achievement was also one of language. Mastering some of the indigenous tongues were numerous cenobites who quickly became grammarian polyglots. These included: Andrés de Olmos (circa 1485-1571), Pedro de Gante (1480-1572), Jacobo de Testera (1470-1543), Toribio de Benevente (1482-1568), Francisco Jiménez, Andrés de Córdoba, Francisco de Toral (1502-1571), Antonio de Segovia (1485-1570), Jacopo Daciano (circa 1484-1566), Juan de San Miguel, Alonso de Escalona, Juan Bautista Valenzuela (1504-1567), Alonso de Molina (1513/4-1579), Domingo de la Anunciación (1510-1591), Bernadino de Sahagún (1499-1590) and Jerónimo de Mendieta (1525-1604). They set aside the task of teaching Spanish to the Amerindians and instead transliterated the often-unintelligible aural sounds of the indigenous vernacular into a phonetically construed language written in Roman letters. They then began compiling dictionaries and grammars to educate the natives in their own languages by way of the written word accompanied by visual associations. Then used to teach them Christianity, these early pictorial texts were named Testerian Catechisms after the friar Jacobo de Testera.

In order to compose these didactic documents, the friars had to familiarize themselves with pre-Hispanic values, anthologize their data, and then ascribe the appropriate words to the intended interpretations of larger concepts such as God, Devil, Hell, Soul, Sin, Saint, etc. The resulting religious writings included the Doctrinas (which generally incorporated the Lord’s Prayer, the Creed, the Seven Sacraments, the Ten Commandments, the Articles of the Faith, the Seven Deadly Sins and the Seven Virtues), Confessional manuals, Catechisms and the Pláticas, as well as other biblical, historical or theological verses. The exigency for such publications became the catalyst for Mexico City establishing its first printing press as early as 1539, prior to any in Madrid.

In his book Nahua and Maya Catholicisms: Texts and Religion in Colonial Mexico and Yucatan (2013), Mark Christensen details how friars learned to glottalize sounds that were nonexistent in Spanish, transcribing them into written native orthographies all the while coupling indigenous terms with Spanish ones and introducing so-called “loanwords” when needed. In a description of a translated Náhuatl Testerian Catechism, Christensen reveals how the Mayan word “tlaxcalli”, meaning “tortilla”, was selected rather than the Spanish loanword “pan” (bread), yielding the unique phraseology to the Lord’s Prayer, “give us our tortillas that we need daily” (page 110). Needless to say, a far-reaching monastic building campaign, much less the religious conversion of a continent, would have been unimaginable had the mendicants not succeeded in their ambitious linguistic strategy. The Spanish religious surely proved what British novelist Edward Bulwer-Lytton (1803-1873) would concede three centuries later, namely that “the pen is mightier than the sword”.

Prodigious Production

Tepoztlán, Morelos, La Natividad de Nuestra Señora, façade alfiz angels upholding placardBy 1559, missionaries in New Spain numbered over eight hundred, with almost half of them Franciscan and the other half pretty evenly split between the Dominicans and Augustinians. Franciscan Huejotzingo, Dominican Tepoztlán, and Augustinian Acolman are often highlighted by academics as the emblematic monastic structures of each respective order. Close to Mexico City and therefore easily accessible, all three are early in date and replete with fine examples of the architectural features most germane to the Conversion: open and posa chapels, atril crosses, superb façades, naves, cloisters, rib and barrel vaulting, mural painting and, in the case of Huejotzingo, one of the two finest altarpieces of 16th century New Spain. The sheer number of conventos established by these three orders still standing today is impressive.

“The amount of work that these orders did was truly fantastic. By the end of the sixteenth century, only seventy-five years after the Conquest, there were four hundred monasteries built by these brotherhoods, scattered throughout New Spain. Almost half of them had been built by the Franciscans, with the Dominicans and Augustinians close to a tie for second place, followed by the Carmelites and Jesuits still far in the rear.” (Sanford, Trent Elwood. The Story of Architecture in Mexico, W.W. Norton & Co., Inc., New York, 1947, p. 156)

Steeped in an aura of stillness and timelessness, these conventos are amongst the most majestic and holy of buildings, each preserving its own identity, so to speak, and offering its own personally salient features. Most warrant multiple visits just to make sure nothing of significance has been missed. Too challenging in an introduction to delve into individual descriptions, following is a list of one hundred foundations, fifty Franciscan, twenty-five Dominican and as many Augustinian which merit mentioning. Except where noted, each is in relatively good condition and still in use today at least for specific Mass celebrations. They are recorded in alphabetical order by the Mexican state (in parenthesis) where they reside.

Alfajayucan, Hidalgo, San Martín, façadeFranciscan Conventos: San Luis Obispo, Calkiní (Campeche), San Bernardino de Sena, Xochimilco (D.F. ), San Francisco de Asís, Tepeji del Río (Hidalgo), Los Todos Santos, Zempoala (Hidalgo), San Francisco de Asís, Tepeapulco (Hidalgo), San Martín, Alfajayucan (Hidalgo), San Francisco, Tlahuelilpan Hidalgo), San José, Tula de Allende (Hidalgo), Santiago, Atotonilco Tula (Hidalgo), San Mateo, Huichapan (Hidalgo), San Miguel Arcángel, Zinacantepec (México), San Francisco, Texcoco (México), La Asunción de Nuestra Señora, Milpa Alta (México), Corpus Cristi, Tlalnepantla (México), SS Pedro & Pablo, Jilotepec (México), La Concepción de Nuestra Señora, Otumba (México), San Juan Bautista (excluding the church itself), Metepec (México), San Luis Obispo, Tlalmanalco (México), San Luis Obispo, Huexotla (México), San Miguel Arcángel, Coatlinchán (México), La Purísima Concepción, Ozumba (México), San Francisco de Asís, Tzintzuntzán (Michoacán), San José, Ciudad Hidalgo (originally Taximaroa, Michoacán), La Asunción de Nuestra Señora, Erongarícuaro (Michoacán), San Francisco, Morelia (Michoacán), San Juan Bautista, Zinapécuaro (Michoacán), La Asunción de Nuestra Señora, Cuernavaca (Morelos; raised to the status of cathedral in 1891), Santiago el Mayor, Jiutepec (Morelos), San Miguel Arcángel, Huejotzingo, (Puebla), San Andrés, Calpan ([bbPuebla), SS Pedro y Pablo, Zacatlán de las Manzanas (Puebla), La Magdalena, Quecholac (Puebla), San Juan Evangelista, Acatzingo (Puebla), San Juan Bautista, Cuautinchán (Puebla), San Francisco de Asís, Tepeaca (Puebla), La Asunción de Nuestra Señora, Tecamachalco (Puebla), Santiago Apóstol (in ruins), Tecali (Puebla), San Francisco (in ruins), Totimehuacán (Puebla), San Gabriel, Cholula (Puebla), San Andrés, Cholula (Puebla), San Martín, Huaquechula (Puebla), La Asunción de Nuestra Señora, Tochimilco (Puebla), San Francisco de Asís, Atlixco (Puebla), La Asunción de Nuestra Señora, Tlaxcala (Tlaxcala), San Francisco, Tepeyanco (Tlaxcala), La Concepción (in ruins), Santa María Atlihuetzía (Tlaxcala), SS Simón y Judas, Calpulalpan (Tlaxcala), San Antonio de Padua, Izamal (Yucatán), San Miguel Arcángel, Maní (Yucatán), San Bernardino de Siena, Sisal (suburb of Valladolid, Yucatán[/b), Santa Clara de Asís, Dzitzantún (Yucatán).

Etla, Oaxaca, San Pedro ApóstalDominican Conventos: La Asunción de Nuestra Señora, Chapultenango (Chiapas), San Agustín, Tapalapa (Chiapas), San Vicente (in ruins), Copanaguastla (Chiapas), San Miguel, Copainalá (Chiapas), Santo Domingo (in partial ruins), Tecpatán (Chiapas), San Agustín, Tlalpan (D.F., ceded by the Franciscans, circa 1580), Santa María Magdalena, Tepetlaoxtoc (México), La Asunción de Nuestra Señora, Amecameca (México), La Natividad de Nuestra Señora, Tepoztlán (Morelos), La Asunción, Yautepec (Morelos), Santo Domingo, Oaxtepec (Morelos), San Francisco de Asís, Tlalquitenango (Morelos; ceded by the Franciscans, 1570), San Vicente Ferrer, Chimalhuacán-Chalco (Morelos), San Juan Bautista, Tetela del Volcán (Morelos), Santo Domingo, Oaxaca (Oaxaca), Santo Domingo, Yanhuitlán (Oaxaca), San Juan Bautista, Coixtlahuaca (Oaxaca), Santiago Matamoros, Cuilápam de Guerrero (Oaxaca), SS Pedro y Pablo, Teposcolula (Oaxaca(), San Pedro Apóstol, Etla (Oaxaca), Santa María la Asunción, Tlaxiaco (Oaxaca), San Miguel Arcángel, Achiutla (Oaxaca), Santiago, Tejupan (Oaxaca), San Sebastián, Teitipac (Oaxaca), Santo Domingo, Izúcar de Matamoros (Puebla).

Augustinian Conventos: San Juan Evangelista (in partial ruins), Culhuacán (D.F.), San Pablo, Yuriria (once called Yuririapúndaro, Guanajuato), San Andrés Apóstol, Epazoyucan (Hidalgo), San Pedro Apóstol, Villa Tezontepec (Hidalgo), Los Santos Reyes, Metztitlán (Hidalgo), San Agustín, Atotonilco el Grande (Hidalgo), Nuestra Señora de Loreto, (Hidalgo), San Agustín, Huejutla de Reyes (Hidalgo), San Antonio, Singuilucan (Hidalgo), San Nicolás de Tolentino, Actopan (Hidalgo), San Miguel, Ixmiquilpan (Hidalgo), Los Santos Reyes, Tutotepec (Hidalgo), Epazoyucan, Hidalgo, San AndrésSan Agustín, Acolman (México; ceded by the Franciscans, 1539), El Divino Salvador, Malinalco (México), Santa María Magdalena, Cuitzeo (Michoacán), San Miguel Arcángel, Charo (Michoacán), San Juan Bautista, Tiripetío (Michoacán), San Juan Bautista, Yecapixtla (Morelos), San Guillermo, Totolapan (Morelos), San Mateo Evangelista, Atlatlahuacan (Morelos), San Juan Bautista, Tlayacapán (Morelos), La Concepción, Zacualpan de Amilpas (Morelos), San Augstín, Jonacatepec (Morelos), Santiago Apóstol, Ocuituco (Morelos), Los Santos Reyes, Huatlatlahuaca (Puebla; ceded by the Franciscans, 1567).

Upon their arrival, the Franciscans quickly dispersed over central Mexico, from the states immediately surrounding the capital Northwest into Michoacán, Jalisco (then known as Nueva Galicia), Sombrerete in the present-day state of Zacatecas, and Tepic (Nyarit) where they founded the church of La Cruz de Zacate late in the century. In 1545 eight mendicants led by Luis de Villalpando arrived in the city of Campeche, the first Spanish capital of the Yucatán peninsula, in which each and every 16th century friary was to be Franciscan. Because of its geographic remoteness, unique Maya culture, and particular resistance to conquest and conversion, scholars often address the socio-political, religious history of the Yucatán separately from the rest of the country.

Guided by the ascetic mendicant Domingo de Betanzos (circa 1480-1549) and arriving two years after the Franciscans, the Black Friars turned their attention to the still unevangelized South and established a series of conventos from Southern Puebla and Morelos through Oaxaca and Chiapas all the way to present-day Antigua Guatemala. Seven Augustinian friars arrived in Mexico City in 1533. Lead by Francisco de la Cruz (1529-1578), known as El Venerado, some of their greatest architecture is located in the states of Michoacán, Morelos, and particularly Hidalgo where they built a string of conventos all the way up the Sierra Alta to the Huasteca Potosina. Truly remarkable is the utter remoteness of some of these foundations, like San Agustín Xilitla, Los Santos Reyes Tutotepec, or the far-flung a href="https://www.colonialmexico.net/glossary#visita">visita of Metztitlán at San Agustín Tlacolula.

Yecapixtla, Morelos, San Juan Bautista, façade, rose window“The expansion of the Dominicans was limited and conditioned by that of the Franciscans. The situation of the Augustinians was more delicate, for their predecessors had taken possession of all New Spain, strongly in some areas, more weakly in others. They had to squeeze their missions into the gaps left by the Franciscans and Dominicans, which is the reason why the geographical limits of their apostolate were much less sharply defined.” (Ricard, Robert. The Spiritual Conquest of Mexico, An Essay on the Apostolate and the Evangelizing Methods of the Mendicant Orders in New Spain: 1523-1572, translated by Lesley Byrd Simpson, University of California Press, Berkeley, Los Angeles, London, 1966, pps. 68-69)

Slight Variations

Although compositionally uniform, subtle distinctions do exist in the architectural tendencies of the three brotherhoods. For instance, the Dominicans never built open chapels of more than one story. The Augustinians barrel vaulted their monastery naves and only introduced ribbed vaulting in the presbytery, save for the singularity of San Pablo Yuriria (Guanajuato) where a transept is present and they ribbed vaulted both it and the sanctuary. The only two examples of cloisters ambulatories with Gothic ogival arches are found in the lower cloister walks at Augustinian Actopan and Ixmiquilpan (both foundations designed by the same friar and located along the same route in the Mezquital Valley of Hidalgo), whereas arguably the two most beautiful cloister fountains in New Spain are at Augustinian Ocuituco (Morelos) and San Agustín Morelia (Michoacán), both with multiple heraldic Hapsburg lions, although sadly deteriorated in the case of the latter.

Singuilucan, Hidalgo, San Antonio, convento cloister cisternA Franciscan friary is more apt to include a cistern, also referred to as a caja de agua or an aljibe. In the exemplar case of Tepeapulco (Hidalgo), the structure is separate from the current state of the convento, whereas at Tecali (Puebla) and Villa Morelos (once Huango, Michoacán) the cisterns are located within the monastic complex. At Singuilucan, an Augustinian foundation, an caja de agua occupies the entire cloister space within its first-floor ambulatories. The recently excavated, partially reconstituted cistern at Franciscan Tlatelolco in Mexico City is certainly the oldest of the New World. In a number of Franciscan monasteries one finds the exterior door of the nave’s North portal to be of particular interest for its thematically specific, uniquely carved, or heavily adorned appearance (Huejotzingo, Xochimilco, Texcoco, Cuernavaca, Huaquechula, Puebla, Tlalnepantla and Tecamachalco). Not the main, West facing one, this portal is called a porciúncula door, named after “La Porziuncola”, the small church in Assisi, Italy (also called the chapel of Santa Maria degli Angeli), which Saint Francis rebuilt and beside which he passed.

Numerous variables hinder the attribution of an outright architectural style to any of the three orders. Certainly, the Franciscans tended to be the most restrained, or spartan in their approach. In the 1920s, when composing his Spanish-Colonial Architecture in Mexico (translated into Spanish in 1934), the Boston urban planner and newspaper writer Sylvester Baxter used the words "Franciscan Primitive” to describe how the structures built by the Seraphic Order reflected the austere Vow of Poverty to which its mendicants adhered. If the Franciscans were more Medieval in their building style (the cusped, ogee arch of the Isabelline Gothic may frequently be found in their conventos), then it can loosely be claimed that the Dominicans adopted more classicizing elements from the Italian Renaissance whereas, even more generally, the Augustinians -- austere in their teaching yet grand in their building – had a more Mannerist, even decorative touch. Much later in the century (1572) the Society of Jesus arrived in Mexico and introduced a building style that would largely come to be identified with the Baroque in New Spain.

New World Architects

With few exceptions there were no professional architects working in Mexico during this period. As discussed, the friars themselves were the engineers and maestros de obras of the day. The Franciscans Juan de Alameda and Juan de Zumárraga (1468-1548), both of whom had extensive knowledge of ecclesiastic European architecture, arrived together in Mexico in 1528. The former is very probably responsible for the layout of the first (if not also for the current) Franciscan convento at Huetjotzingo (Puebla), as well as for those at Huaquechula (Puebla) and Tula de Allende (Hidalgo). Juan de Zumárraga had the distinction of becoming the first archbishop of Mexico City and oversaw (between 1524 and 1532) the building of the capital city’s original cathedral which was quickly superseded by a new structure. Francisco Becerra (1545-1605) designed the massive Franciscan convento in Cuernavaca (begun as early as 1525) and contributed to the plans for the cathedral of Puebla before traveling on to Peru where he realized the construction of both Lima and Cuzco’s cathedrals.

Tecali, Puebla, Santiago Apóstol, façade, main portalThe Renaissance church façade of the ruined convento at Tecali (Puebla) is likely the work of Claudio de Arciniega (circa 1526-1592) who became the most acclaimed professional architect in 16th century Mexico for his classically influenced work on the cathedrals of both Mexico City and Puebla. Friar Diego de Chávez y Alvarado (1508-1573), relative of the above-mentioned Pedro de Alvarado, oversaw the lay-out and construction of the sumptuous Augustinian convento in Yuriria (Guanajuato), erected by his fellow Extremaduran, the maestro de obras Pedro del Toro. The two may have also collaborated at nearby Cuitzeo (Michoacán), where del Toro is accredited as the maestro mayor of the convento of Santa María Magdalena. Both Yuriria and Cuitzeo date between 1555 and 1579.

The cloister stairwell of the Augustinian priory at Actopan preserves the most splendid conventual staircase in New Spain, laid out by father Andrés de Mata (?-1574) and completed by friar Martín de Aceibedo. Mata’s purported time in Italy is reflected in the elegant, classical order of Actopan’s façade and the coffered archivolts of its main portal. Still, no one knows who was behind the building of San Agustín Acolman (México), ceded early in its development (1539) by the Franciscans to the Augustinians, whose façade is the most European looking of all central Mexican monasteries.

Coixtlahuaca, Oaxaca, San Juan Bautista, West façade, top tier, upper relief, Holy Ghost within frameFray Francisco Marín (? - 1559) designed three sumptuous Oaxacan conventos: Yanhuitlán, Teposcolula, and Coixtlahuaca, the paradigm of Dominican architectural grandeur in the New World. In addition, Marín likely drew up the plans for the first friary of Santo Domingo in Oaxaca City. As Robert Mullen writes in his Dominican Architecture in Sixteenth-Century Oaxaca (1975), Marín secured an impressive eight commissions between the decade 1546 to 1556, for which reason “the man must have possessed extraordinary talents” (p. 126). Hernando Toribio de Alcaraz (circa 1500-after 1575) was one of the first professional architects to work in Mexico. Not to be confused with his South American namesake, also an architect, he is best remembered for overseeing the construction of the never completed cathedral of Pátzcuaro (Michoacán), the visionary if impractical concept of Michoacán’s Bishop Vasco de Quiroga (1477/8-1565).

“Don Vasco began the construction of the cathedral in the 1540s. It was to be built on a grand scale with five naves in the shape of a human hand, imitating the design of Saint Peter’s Church in Rome. The main altar was to be built in the center of the building. At the time, Juan de Medina de Rincón stated that Quiroga’s intention was to provide a space where each of the distinct native populations, along with the Spanish Christians, could concurrently listen to the ‘good news’ preached in their own language”. (Verástique, Bernardino. Michoacán and Eden: Vasco de Quiroga and the Evangelization of Western Mexico, University of Texas Press, Austin, 2000, p. 94)

The Pueblo-Hospital

Vasco de Quiroga was ordained Bishop of Michoacán in 1538 by Archbishop Zumárraga as the right man to correct the wrongs perpetuated against the local indigenous by Nuño de Gúzman (circa 1490-1558), the tyrannical ex-governor of adjacent Nueva Galicia. Qurioga’s legacy is imperishable among the Tarascan. Indians who still refer to him nearly five centuries later as “tata”, i.e., “benevolent father” in colloquial Mexican Spanish. Highly protective of the Amerindians, at Santa Fe de la Laguna (Michoacán) Quiroga replicated his own model of the Pueblo-Hospital community which he had first established at Santa Fe de México in 1532. The word designated for these compounds was Guatápera (sometimes spelled Huatápera) from the native Tarascan language of Purépecha meaning “house of the virgins”.

Zacán, Michoacán, San Pedro, yurishioNot a hospital in today’s sense, Santa Fe was a protective and productive community, predating by some two hundred and fifty years the utopian social organization of the phalanstery, as outlined by the French philosopher Charles Fourier (1772-1837). In Michoacán, the Amerindian congregations lived, worked, were schooled, fed and cared for in designated quarters surrounding a hospital chapel, in Purépecha called an yurishio and today commonly referred to as an hospitalito (little hospital). This hospital chapel was dedicated to the Virgin Mary normally in the name of La Concepción and managed by a native confradía.

“There were six hours a day of common and obligatory labor. After the harvest, the members received whatever they needed for their year’s supply, the shares being strictly equal. The rest was destined for the hospital and the community, as much as they needed. What remained was set aside for the poor, or against famine, drought, or any other calamity.” (Ricard, Robert. The Spiritual Conquest of Mexico, An Essay on the Apostolate and the Evangelizing Methods of the Mendicant Orders in New Spain: 1523-1572, translated by Lesley Byrd Simpson, University of California Press, Berkeley, Los Angeles, London, 1966, p. 60)

Both Quiroga and Zumárraga were influenced by the Dutch scholar, theologian, and “Prince of the Humanists”, Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam (1466-1536) and his belief that humanism must serve and enlighten religion. They were also guided by the social ideals of Erasmus’ friend, the British statesman and philosopher Thomas More (1478-1535; beheaded by King Henry VIII), a copy of whose 1516 publication Utopia Quiroga borrowed from Zumárraga upon his arrival in Mexico. The Franciscan and Augustinian missionaries who arrived in Michoacán adopted Quiroga’s utopian model of the Pueblo-Hospital compound, with the independent Franciscan province of SS Pedro & Pablo established by mid-century and an Augustinian province of San Nicolás de Tolentino in 1603.

Angahuan, Michoacán, Santiago Apóstol, hospitalito, portal alfizThe architecture of the hospital chapel, conforms to that of most ecclesiastic buildings of this time in West-central Mexico. Plateresque and Mudéjar motifs are evident in façades but in a modified form and on a smaller scale than at the monastic churches of Central and Southern Mexico. Examples of this so-called “pidgin” plateresque are found throughout Michoacán and parts of neighboring Jalisco, while the most outstanding structures of the Pueblo-Hospital system are at Angahuan and Uruapan (both Michoacán) and Acámbaro just over the state border in Guanajuato.

Distinctive Devotions

In the 16th several Mexican religious cults emerged which led to the building of pilgrimage sanctuaries. Some of these sites endure as individual shrines erected to worship a particular entity. For instance, the sanctuary of Sacromonte in Amecameca (México) was raised at the site of the cave where Martín de Valencia used to retreat and pray; the church of the Santo Cristo de los Plateros (Zacatecas) where the Santo Niño “Hacedor de Milagros” (Miracle Maker) is revered; and Chalma (México) where millions of pilgrims annually go to worship El Señor de Chalma, a synthesis of Christ and of the pre-Hispanic being Ostocteolt.

San Juan de los Lagos, Jalisco, Nuestra Señora de San Juan de los Lagos, façade, top tier sculpture, Our Lady of St. John of the LakesMarian cults are ardently persevered in the form of Nuestra Señora de los Lagos at San Juan de los Lagos (Jalisco), Nuestra Señora de los Remedios in Naucalpan (México), Nuestra Señora de Zapopan (a suburb of Guadalajara, Jalisco), Nuestra Señora de Ocotlán (in the outskirts of Tlaxcala city), and by far the most famous, Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe in Mexico City.
It was in December of 1531 that Our Lady of Guadalupe appeared no less than four times to the indigenous novitiate Juan Diego (1474-1548; canonized in 2002 as San Juan Diego Cuauhltatoatzin), addressing him in his native Náhuatl, requesting that a church be built on Tepeyac Hill in her honor, and ultimately vouchsafing proof of her existence and apparitions in the form of her self-image miraculously impressed on Juan Diego’s “tilma” (cloak) before the very eyes of Archbishop Zumárraga.

As compelling as these venerations are, either they did not commence in the fifteen hundreds or, if they did, the surviving architecture they spawned was not realized during the course of the century. For instance, the Capilla de Indios is the only church in the Villa de Guadalupe which dates from the 16th century, although the present structure is largely a mid-17th century rebuilding. Curious, therefore, is the lapse between the time of the stated appearance of Our Lady of Guadalupe to Juan Diego and the rise of the famous Mexican cult, which from the mid sixteen hundreds to the present has produced such a myriad of churches, retablos and paintings. What is known is that both the details of the apparition and the attribution of its date were only crystallized in writing in 1648 when the Oratorian priest Miguel Sánchez (1594-1674) published his Image of the Virgin Mary of God and Guadalupe, Miraculously Appearing in Mexico City. From this point forward the creed secured a visual, artistic format through which it could be disseminated.

Some Secular Structures

Even truer than in the subsequent two centuries, few secular buildings rival the majesty of their coeval religious counterparts. The island fortress of San Juan de Ulúa at Veracruz was one of the first edifices the Spanish built on Mexican terra firma. The bastion is impressive with its ramparts and sentry boxes rising up over the waters of the Gulf of Mexico. Nonetheless, it represents an 18th century reconstruction. More dramatic is the incredible aqueduct which friar Francisco de Tembleque had built between 1541 and 1557 in order to transport water from Zempoala (Hidalgo) to Otumba (México), both Franciscan strongholds. Forty-five kilometers long and higher than the Roman aqueduct in Segovia, Spain, it had 156 arches of which 67 remain over the Papalote ravine just Southeast of Zempoala.

Mérida, Yucatán, Casa de Montejo, façade, balcony detailConstructed by and for the conquistador of Yucatán, Francisco Montejo y Alvarez (1479-1553), the two-story Casa de Montejo in Mérida’s zócalo was completed by 1549 and later occupied by Montejo’s son, Francisco de Montejo y León (1502-1565), known as “el Mozo” (“Junior”). The most splendid secular building in all 16th century Mexico, its façade is plateresque , although the lower level tends to the more sedate, classical, and European, whereas the upper is freer and less stylistically dependent. Within recessed roundel s at the midpoints of the portal’s pilasters are two faces believed to depict “el Mozo” (right) and Catalina (left), the two children of Montejo senior. Directly above them in the entablature are two other heads, likely those of Montejo the father (left) and his wife Beatriz Alvarez de Herrera (right), daughter of the influential banker who helped finance his colonizing campaign.

Also situated in the entablature, directly above the midpoint of the main portal, is a bearded man, possibly the stone incarnation of the anonymous maestro mayor of the Casa. Crouching beneath the weight of a corbel covered in carved heads, he upholds the second story balcony. Particularly noticeable are the two massive Spanish halberdiers in the pilasters above, armored and stomping on the faces of defeated Indians. Beside them and standing on bases atop the first story entablature are wild men dressed in sheepskin and handling clubs -- an amusing if not menacing spectacle whose origin derives from any number of 15th century palaces in Spain.

Another fascinating example of secular architecture can be found in the heart of Puebla city. Built as a private residence for the administrator of the cathedral, the ex-Oaxacan parish priest don Tomás de la Plaza y Goes (1519-1587), the Casa del Deán and its bold Renaissance façade was designed by the aforementioned Francisco de Becerra who helped lay out the plans for the city’s cathedral a block away. While much of the Casa del Deán was gutted in the 1950s, some of the fresco murals which de la Plaza funded have survived, are preserved in salons within, and represent remarkable tlacuilo work of Medieval themes, unique in Mexican.

In the first room, called the Salon of the Sibyls, twelve prophetesses ride sidesaddle and foretell the Arrival, Passion, and Death of Christ. The individual events in the life of Our Savior which the sibyls prefigure are emblazoned within medallions above. For instance, the sibyl Eritrea presages the Annunciation, the one called Camia divines the Birth of Jesus, and Europa augurs the Flight into Egypt. Suggestive of religious spectacles in New Spain and possibly influenced by Flemish tapestries, the murals meld the pagan world of Apollo (where the sibyls originated) with the specific Christian events they portend.

Puebla, Puebla, Casa del Deán, Sala de las Sibilas, Tiburtina, detailIn the second room, the Salon of the Triumphs, the murals are directly related to the series of poems known as the Triumphs, written over a twenty-three-year period (1351-1374) by the famous Tuscan poet Petrarch (1304-1374). Precipitating countless artistic interpretations over the centuries which include frescos, prints and tapestries, the Poems and the Puebla murals depict the Roman custom of “triumph”, when victorious generals and their armies were accompanied by their captives in grand civic processions. As with the murals in the Salon of the Sibyls, the triumphs of Chastity, Love, Time, Death and Eternity incorporate pagan and Christian symbolism in scenes of pageantry meant as metaphors for the ideal course of life, i.e., from sin to redemption.

A third secular structure of great interest is the colossal fountain in the town center of Chiapa de Corzo (Chiapas). A stone’s throw from the convento of Santo Domingo, it was once called “La pila” but now is commonly known as “La fuente mudéjar”, underscoring Islamic influences in the overall application and patterning of its bricks. As recorded by the Dominican chronicler Antonio de Remesal (1570-1619), the fountain was created by fray Rodrígo de León to bring water to the city and thereby unite its community, but was finished only after its creator had departed Chiapa de Corzo in 1562. Surprisingly, no other architectural structures have been attributed to de León, about whom little else is known save for notes regarding his circuitous voyage South to Chiapas by way of layovers at Dominican conventos then under construction, such as Izúcar de Matamoros (Puebla), Tlaxiaco and Yanhuitlán (both Oaxaca).

While polygonal buildings in Europe were not uncommon, the only other noteworthy octagonal structure in 16th century Mexico is the Rollo of Tepeaca (Puebla). In the monumental fountain at Chiapa de Corzo eight flying buttresses brace the same number of pillars which uphold the ribbed vaults directly above the fountain’s well-mouth, also octagonal. On the Northeast side of the fountain a circular turretturret encases a caracol. The entire structure is made of bricks in creatively cut combinations that serve to optically differentiate architectural components all the while retaining material consistency, geometric fluidity, and chromatic harmony. The bricks above the arches, for example, are an example of diamondwork, those in the archivolts are flat, and contrasting polygonal shapes form the fountain’s pillars, buttressing, cupola, even merlons. As an ensemble, Gothic flying buttresses, a Renaissance influenced dome, and unmistakable Mudéjar brickwork yield an authentically hybrid monument.

Chiapa de Corzo, Chiapas, Fuente La Pila o La Corona, turret, arches & flying buttresses“The brick fountain in the main plaza of Chiapa de Corzo has no direct parallel in Central America or Mexico, nor anywhere else in Hispano-American architecture. Its unique design is not directly related to any prototype in the New World or in Spain. The individual parts, when taken out of the context of the building as a whole, are clearly derived from a plethora of styles, construction techniques, and design concepts.” (Markman, Sidney David, Architecture and Urbanization in Colonial Chiapas, Mexico, The American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia, 1984, p. 148)

Demographic Disaster & the End of Conventual Construction

Whereas Mexico’s indigenous population is estimated to have been somewhere between 15 and 30 million at the time of the Spaniards’ arrival, astonishingly at century’s end only about two million remained. The Cocoliztli epidemic of 1547 alone exterminated an estimated 12-15 million, followed by the plague of 1576 which took another 2-2.5 million lives. Now understood to have been an indigenous hemorrhagic fever spread through the rural rodent population run rampant with the introduction of livestock, the Amerindians suffered disproportionately due to any number of reasons. They were, after all, the labor force which worked the fields via encomienda, a system so severe as no doubt have reduced their immune systems. The social organization of the convento also increased physical proximity which would have exacerbated communicability, a bitter irony for the friars intent on protecting the protection of the autochthonous. The results were nothing less than calamitous on a world historic scale, and brought the most intense period of convento construction to a close nearly twenty years before the end of the century, resulting in their ultimate secularization. Santa María Xoxoteco, Hidalgo, Santa María, presbytery wall, The Damned devoured by Leviathan

In 1542, the aforementioned fray Bartolomé de las Casas wrote his Brevísima relación de la destrucción de las Indias (published a decade later) which in gruesome detail described and illustrated Spanish atrocities in Cuba. The perpetual propagandistic propounding by Spain’s contemporary adversaries gave birth to the Spanish Black Legend, i.e., the intentionally distorted premise that Spaniards were uniquely evil in their methods of colonization and treatment of indigenous cultures, more so than their Portuguese, French, British or Dutch rivals.

“I believe that because of these impious, criminal and ignominious deeds perpetrated so unjustly, tyrannically and barbarously, God will vent upon Spain His wrath and His fury, for nearly all of Spain has shared in the bloody wealth usurped at the cost of so much ruin and slaughter”. (quotation from Las Casas, Bartolomé. A Brief History of the Destruction of the Indies, as it appears in Todorov, Tzvetan The Conquest of America: The Question of the Other, Harper and Row, New York, 1984, p. 245)

Certainly the Spanish conquers and settlers were cruel. Nevertheless, their greatest injustice may have been to chance upon a part of the world considerably more densely inhabited than their contemporary European counterparts where the effects of their brutality were exacerbated. In fact, the demographic decline in Mexico, while statistically far more jaw-dropping than that which would commence a century later in relatively sparsely populated North America, was also less voluntary. The mere fact that in exchange for their conversion the indigenous in New Spain were offered some protection from rapacious conquistadors turned encomenderos differs in intent from what took place in New England.

Protestant Great Britain and its territorial successor, the United States of America, hardly aspired to the salvation of native souls, let alone placing them at the theological center of a New Jerusalem. For the Puritan John Winthrop (1588-1649), founder of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, “God hathe consumed the natives with a miraculous plague” and therefore “{God} hathe hereby cleared over title to this place”. (cited, Hartmann, Betsy. The American Syndrome: Apocalypse, War, and Our Call to Greatness, 2017, p. 53). Triumphantly praising the Lord for the annihilation of the indigenous surely differs from benevolently thanking Him for their salvation.

Mystified by the death of nearly all the Amerindians, disillusioned, despondent friars returned to their homeland or headed to Mexico’s Northern frontier to perpetuate what was left of their missionary zeal. Others perished alongside their converts in the sort of apocalypse they had not anticipated. Nearly a half millennium later, their church fortresses and the veiling shadows they still cast remain portals to the past, ghostly reminders of a vast vision which once was.

Syncretism

"New Spain is incomprehensible without the presence of the indigenous world, its customs, familiar structures and politics, economic system, crafts, legends, myths and beliefs." (Paz, Octavio. Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz o Las Trampas de la Fe, Fondo Cultura Económica, México, 2003, p. 26 personal translation)

The fifteen hundreds saw symbolism in architecture parallel the transculturation of the indigenous through an eclectic assortment of European artistic styles ranging from Isabelline Gothic, Plateresque, Italian Renaissance, and Mannerism. Islamic architecture had left an indelible imprint on Spain, no edifice having been more influential than the great mosque of Córdoba with its interior labyrinth of arches, domes, vaults, and exterior array of alfiz accentuated portals. Well after the Reconquest but before the ultimate ethnic expulsion from Spain of the Morisco population by King Philip III in 1609, Moorish Mudéjar was sanctioned in many Spanish cities like the great provincial capitals of Sevilla, Valencia and Teruel.

Tlaxcala, Tlaxcala, La Asunción de Nuestra Señora, artesonado sotocoro & & choir loftWith the founding of New Spain, the Mudéjar was exported to the Americas and soon found expression in alfarje ceilings with harneruelos, façades with ajimeces, portals with alfices, and a the massive Moorish bell-towers at AugustinianYuriria (Michoacán), Actopan and Ixmiquilpan (both Hidalgo). The effective and harmonious use of rainwater, its harvesting and drainage, is a longstanding Arabic tradition, a skillset the New World friars put to good use in the conventual aljibes and acequias they engineered. It is truly remarkable to observe so many impressive examples of Islamic architecture and ingenuity in Mexico.

Christian and Moslem designs were flavored by the infusion of pre-Colombian traits which formed an additional, distinct visual language known as tequítqui, a term coined in the 20th century by the Malagan painter-poet José Moreno Villa (1887-1955). On page 16 of his 1942 publication La Escultura colonial Mexicana, Villa wrote “I propose the ancient Mexican voice ‘tequítqui’, or rather tributary” personal translation). This artistic “voice” which Villa chose to collectively award the conquered Mexican artisans augured forth a new age of scholarship in which the architecture of the Conversion would be valued in a broader context than simply via its European antecedents. In fact, this single word, tequítqui, engendered an enduring debate over just which contributions pre-Hispanic peoples made to both Colonial and post-Colonial Mexico.

Challenging pre-Colombian language speakers to select a more apt interpretation than the Náhuatl one for “tributary”, in tequítqui Villa found a way to both recognize and classify residually present, pre-Hispanic artistic features in post-Conquest architecture. This designation is analogous to the very term Mudéjar which, as stated, came to mean art made by Muslim craftsmen working in Christian dominated Spain after the Reconquest. The same could apply to the classification of Mozarabic, namely the type of art produced by Christians living and working in Arab dominated Spain once the Iberian peninsula had been overrun by the Moors in the 8th century, or even pertain to the Christian and the pagan which, as Villa wrote, “in Renaissance Italy are forever interconnected” (p. 16 personal translation).

“Between Spain and Mexico a rather obvious parallel can be drawn with ancient Rome and the Near East. In each case there were achievements in the ‘dependent’ that paralleled and in many ways went beyond the implications of the ‘parent’, and at the same time simplifications in the ‘dependent’ that responded to wholly different aesthetic conventions than those imposed by the ‘parent’. The increased complexities of this relationship between Spain and Mexico are apparent in the fact that Spain was herself both ‘dependent’ (on Rome, the Islamic world, the Gothic North, and so on) and ‘parent’.” (Baird, Joseph Armstrong. The Churches of Mexico 1530-1810, University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1962, Introduction, p. 4)

Hence, tequítqui refers to the characteristics of pre-Hispanic intaglio that were transposed to similarly fashioned Christian imagery after the Conquest.
Tarécuato, Michoacán, Santa María de Jesús, atrial cross, base relief with Franciscan cordThese attributes may be foreseen in the decorative motifs of the intentionally flat carvings at pre-Colombian temples, such as those along that of the Feathered Serpent at Xochicalco (Morelos) or in the simpler, geometric patterns about the Casa de los Nichos, El Tajín (Veracruz). Such traits reappear, for instance, along the shaft of an atrial cross, about the door jambs of a church portal, its archivolt or spandrels. Some scholars expand the syncretic notion of a fusion of forms to a fusion of functions and therefore embrace as an example of tequítqui a Christian stone cross set into a pre-Hispanic base (found in front of the church of Santa María Natívitas, Zacapa, México City) or cuauhxicalli converted by the monastics into baptismal font as a at the church of Santa Cecilia Acatitlán (also Mexico City).

For some the notion of tequítqui endures to the present, for example in the form of Chicano murals along Whittier Boulevard (East Los Angeles, California) in which expressions of heritage endure within the context of an altogether different and dominant society. For others, tequítqui ends where a self-consciousness of style begins. In this case, it would have to be circumscribed to the century Villa was referencing and exclude deliberate, post-Conversion attempts to reflect pre-Conquest aesthetics, such as seen in the masterful relief work of the Baroque façade of the Colegio de Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe (just East of Zacatecas city) or in the base of Los Toritos fountain, Acámbaro (Guajanuato) -- both eighteen century manifestations.


Conclusion

Historiographic and interpretational disagreements regarding the nature of Amerindian and Spanish syncretism may depend on how invested one is in reconstituting a national Mexican identity versus how Eurocentric somebody may be in defining Spain’s New World hegemony. The reality is that no one knows, or ever will know, what was in the minds of the autochthonous converts when they decided to lodge obsidian disks (still inset today) into the frontal arm-shaft intersections of the atrial crosses before the churches of Taximaroa and San Felipe de los Alzati (both Michoacán). Nor has anyone found evidence as to why the overseeing Franciscans of these two communities permitted or turned a blind eye to such a transgression. As obsidian is fraught with pre-Hispanic associations, surely one must wonder if the natives were grasping to preserve qualities of their extinguishing world (in the cases of the crosses perhaps completing their axis mundi) as they built anew, just as whether the friars’ tacit acquiescence was as part of their own cultural compliance. Many related and resultant questions must be left to hypothesis and speculation.

San Felipe de los Alzati, Michoacán, San Felipe, atrial cross, front crossing, obsidian disk Some answers to ethnographic, pre-Hispanic issues may be found in the writings of 16th century friars. None is more exhaustive than the General History of the Things of New Spain (also known as the Florentine Codex because of its longtime residence in Florence, Italy), a 2,400 page, twelve volume manuscript with over 2,000 tlacuilo illustrations written in both Spanish and Náhuatl over a thirty year period by the Franciscan fray Bernardino de Sahagún (1499-1590). Composed in part to analyze the Aztec religion and thus aid the friars in their converting efforts, the Florentine Codex has come to represent the foremost primary source to appreciate pre-Hispanic central Mexico.

On the political spectrum, an official Spanish questionnaire was ordered by King Philip II between 1578-1580 and issued throughout New Spain in an effort to glean pertinent information regarding the propagation of native peoples, their towns, customs and staples, as well as each region’s history and geography. Known as the Relaciones Geográficas, it was followed some two hundred years after by a second survey which resulted in the so-called Padrones (1790-92), and then an additional two hundred years later by Peter Gerhard’s masterful A Guide to the Historical Geography of New Spain (1972) and The Mapping of New Spain: Indigenous Cartography and the Maps of the Relaciones Geográficas (1996) in which author Barbara Mundy utilized maps which had accompanied the Relaciones to effectively resurrect the Amerindian world of the 16th century.

Apparent in modern Mexico’s hybridized society is that its culture derives not only from centuries of mestizo miscegenation but from the initial accommodations both civilizations made in order to interact and coexist, and the cultural coalescence which followed. The struggle is ongoing to determine just what were those early compromises, on whose part they were made, consciously or not, and how best to interpret to what degree they molded a new society. While recognizing the impossibility of definitive conclusions, the furthering of this dialectic underscores the unprecedented nature of the encounter between two totally foreign worlds. To acknowledge that only a few years before the realization of the great monastic complexes neither worker nor supervisor shared a morsel of language is to recognize the contextual uniqueness and magnitude of circumstances which forever enshroud the Mexican convento.

Coyoacán, D.F., San Juan Bautista, portería

Huejotzingo, Puebla, San Miguel Arcángel, porciúncula door

Cholula, Puebla, Capilla Real, interior (reconstructed & vaulted, 18th century)

Actopan, Hidalgo, San Nicolás de Tolentino, capilla abierta, East wall mural, Garden of Eden with Adam & Eve, Tree of Knowledge & Serpent