Aguascalientes is the capital of the Mexican state of the same name and its most populous city, as well as the head of the Aguascalientes Municipality; with a population of 948,990 inhabitants in 2012 and 1,225,432 in the metro area. The metropolitan area also includes the municipalities of Jesús María and San Francisco de los Romo. It is located in North-Central Mexico, which roughly corresponds to the Bajío region within the central Mexican plateau. The city stands on a valley of steppe climate at 1880 meters above sea level, at 21°51′N102°18′W.
The Metropolitan Cathedral of Morelia is a religious site that is the seat of the Archdiocese of Morelia of the Catholic church in Mexico. It is located as its name itself says in the city of Morelia, capital of the state of Michoacán, Mexico. The cathedral is located in the first square of the city, forming the trace of the Historic Center of Morelia. The building was built in the 18th century at the time of the viceroyalty, it is Baroque in style and is made of pink stone that gives it a peculiar and characteristic color. An important family group headed by Sebastián de Guedea collaborated in its construction for a long period; They were Andrés, Pedro, Diego, Miguel, Anastacio, Lorenzo and Joseph, all with the surname Guedea.
The Franciscan missions of the Sierra Gorda of Querétaro are five missions built in Mexico between 1750 and 1760. The foundation of the missions is attributed to Junípero Serra, who also founded the most important missions in California. They were declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 2003.
The Metropolitan Cathedral of the Assumption of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary into Heaven is the cathedral church of the Catholic Archdiocese of Mexico. It is situated on top of the former Aztec sacred precinct near the Templo Mayor on the northern side of the Plaza de la Constitución (Zócalo) in the historic center of Mexico City. The cathedral was built in sections from 1573 to 1813 around the original church that was constructed soon after the Spanish conquest of Tenochtitlan, eventually replacing it entirely. Spanish architect Claudio de Arciniega planned the construction, drawing inspiration from Gothic cathedrals in Spain.
Acolman de Nezahualcóyotl is a town and municipality located in the northern part of State of Mexico, part of the Greater Mexico City area, just north of the city proper. According to myth, the first man was placed here after being taken out of Lake Texcoco. In the community of Tepexpan, the fossilized bones more than 12,000 years old of a man were found in the 20th century. The settlement was founded in the eighth century and was an important commerce center at the time of the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire.
The Earliest Monasteries on the Slopes of Popocatepetl are sixteen earliest 16th-century monasteries which were built by the Augustinians, the Franciscans and the Dominicans in order to evangelize the areas south and east of the Popocatépetl volcano in central Mexico. These monasteries were recognized by the UNESCO as World Heritage Sites in 1994, because they served as the model for the early monastery and church buildings as well as evangelization efforts in New Spain and some points beyond in Latin America. These monasteries almost uniformly feature a very large atrium in front of a single nave church with a capilla abierta or open chapel. The atrium functioned as the meeting point between the indigenous peoples and the missionary friars, with mass for the newly converted held outdoors instead of within the church. This arrangement can be found repeated in other areas of Mexico as these friars continued to branch out over New Spain.
The Basilica of Our Lady of Zapopan and the abbey of the same name are a 17th-century Franciscan sanctuary built in downtown Zapopan, in the state of Jalisco, México.
Mary has been one of the major subjects of Western art for centuries. There is an enormous quantity of Marian art in the Catholic Church, covering both devotional subjects such as the Virgin and Child and a range of narrative subjects from the Life of the Virgin, often arranged in cycles. Most medieval painters, and from the Reformation to about 1800 most from Catholic countries, have produced works, including old masters such as Michelangelo and Botticelli.
Chalma is a small community, which is part of the municipality of Malinalco, Mexico State. Its small population is almost completely dedicated to the pilgrims who come to visit the Sanctuary of Chalma, the second most-important pilgrimage site in Mexico. The sanctuary is dedicated to an image of what many people describe as a "black Christ" on a cross that legend says miraculously appeared in an area cave where the worship of a deity commonly known as Oxtoteotl used to take place. Some contend that as Oxtoteotl is an aspect of Tezcatlipoca, the "Smoking Mirror," then the "black Christ" is really Tezcatlipoca, which the Spanish friars superimposed on the existing representation of Tezcatlipoca in order to convert the natives. Pilgrimages to this Christian sanctuary follow many of the patterns of the prehispanic rituals, including walking the narrow paths to the town itself, bathing in the waters of a special fresh-water spring and dancing at the sanctuary.
A capilla abierta is considered to be one of the most distinct Mexican construction forms. Mostly built in the 16th century during the early colonial period, the construction was basically an apse or open presbytery containing an altar, which opened onto a large atrium or plaza. While some state that these were constructed by friars because the native peoples of that epoch were afraid to enter the dark confines of European-style churches, the more likely reasons for their construction were that they allowed the holding of Mass for enormous numbers of people and the arrangement held similarities to the teocallis or sacred precincts of pre-Hispanic temples. While open chapels can be found in other places in Spain and Peru, their systematic use in monasteries and other religious complexes, leading to a regularization of architectural elements, is only found in Mexico.
The Ex-monastery of Santiago Apóstol is located in the town of Cuilapan de Guerrero in the Mexican state of Oaxaca. The fortress-like complex is easily seen from the highway as one travels south from the capital city of Oaxaca on the road leading to Villa de Zaachila, and it is visited by both Mexican and international tourists. The complex is located on a small hill which gives it a view of much of the valley area. It is one of the most extravagant and elaborate colonial era constructions in Oaxaca, but it is often overlooked in favor of churches and monasteries located in the Mexico City area. Built of green quarried stone and river rocks, it is a quiet place where footsteps can echo in the hallways. The extravagances of the site, including the tall basilica, the elaborate baptismal font, the Gothic cloister and murals remain as national treasures. The decorative work of the monastery, especially its murals, are important because they show a systematic blending of indigenous elements into the Christian framework, done in order to support the evangelization process in the local Mixtec and Zapotec peoples. The single-naved church is used for worship but the roofless basilica and cloister are under the control of INAH, which uses many of the second-floor rooms of the cloister as workshops for restoration projects and runs a small museum with important liturgical items from the 16th century.
The Santa Veracruz Monastery in the historic center of Mexico City is one of the oldest religious establishments in Mexico City and was the third most important church in the area in the 16th century. It was established by a religious brotherhood founded by Hernán Cortés.
The Sanctuary of Atotonilco is a church complex and part of a World Heritage Site, designated along with nearby San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato, Mexico. The complex was built in the 18th century by Father Luis Felipe Neri de Alfaro, who, according to tradition, was called upon by a vision of Jesus with a crown of thorns on his head with blood on his face and carrying a cross. The main feature of the complex is the rich Mexican Baroque mural work that adorns the main nave and chapels. This was chiefly the work of Antonio Martínez de Pocasangre over a period of thirty years. The mural work has led the complex to be dubbed the "Sistine Chapel of Mexico." The complex remains a place of worship and penance to this day, attracting as many as 5,000 visitors every week.
The Cuernavaca Cathedral is the Roman Catholic church of the Diocese of Cuernavaca, located in the city of Cuernavaca, Morelos, Mexico. The church and its surrounding monastery is one of the early 16th century monasteries in the vicinity of the Popocatepetl volcano inscribed as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO, built initially for evangelization efforts of indigenous people after the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire. By the 18th century, the church of the monastery began to function as the parish church of the city and in the late 19th century, it was elevated to the rank of a cathedral. Unlike many cathedrals in Mexico, this one does not face the city's main square, but rather is located just to the south, in its own walled compound, which it shares with a number of other structures. Unlike the other monastery structures from its time, the importance of this church provoked a number of renovation projects, the last of which occurred in 1957. This one took out the remaining older decorations of the interior and replaced them with simple modern ones. This renovation work also uncovered a 17th-century mural that covers 400 square metres (4,300 sq ft) of the interior walls and narrates the story of Philip of Jesus and twenty three other missionaries who were crucified in Japan.
Andean Baroque is an artistic movement that appeared in colonial Peru between 1680 and 1780. It is located geographically between Arequipa and Lake Titicaca in what is now Peru, where rules over the highlands and spreads over the entire altiplano. From the Portuguese word barrueco meaning impure, mottled, flamboyant, daring, the most striking example of Andean Baroque art is in religious architecture, where criollo and indigenous craftsmen together gave it a unique character, as happened in the New Spanish Baroque.
San Bernardino de Siena Church is the parish church of the borough of Xochimilco in Mexico City. The church and former monastery complex was built in the 16th century over a former pre-Hispanic temple as part of evangelization efforts after the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire. Since its construction, it has been the center of much of Xochimilco’s history and social life, including ceremonies related to is famous image of the Child Jesus called the Niñopa. The interior of the church contains a rare 16th-century altarpiece in Plateresque style with no columns or other supports. The only other altarpiece like it is in Huejotzingo, Puebla.
The Andean Baroque Route is a scenic route of Peru mainly dedicated to 4 churches belonging to the Andean Baroque artistic movement, including the Society of Jesus Church of Cusco and the Saint Peter the Apostle Church of Andahuaylillas.
Indochristian art, is a type of Latin American art that combines European colonial influences with Indigenous artistic styles and traditions.
Mendicant monasteries in Mexico were one of the architectural solutions devised by the friars of the mendicant orders in the 16th century to the evangelization in the New Spain. The religious function of these buildings was thought for an enormous number of Amerindian indigenous people to evangelize although soon, due to the policy of reduction, the whole became the social center of the pueblos de indios, transmitting to them the civil modes of the West, Castilian, various arts and crafts, health, and even funeral services.
The Tepoztlán Ex Convento Museum is a museum located at the Ex Convento Dominican Church in Tepoztlán, Mexico. The church was built by the Tepoztecan Indians under the orders of the Dominican friars between 1555 and 1580, dedicated to the Virgin of the Nativity. In 1993, INAH created a restoration project and in 1994 it was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. This site is the parish of the Nativity and the Museum and Historical Documentation Center of Tepoztlán.
