Old stuff - Mexico, France and the US

One of the things that has surprised me the most about our trip is the heritage of Mexico. We have visited a number of places here that were built in the 1600's and 1700's, beautiful churches and haciendas, and even a few from the 1500s. The University of Mexico was founded in 1551, before my ancestors even thought about going to Massachusetts. 

When we visited France and Italy, one of our favorite things to do (in addition to hiking up mountains) was to visit historic sites. There were indeed many from the middle ages, but many of the buildings were more recent. There's often a mix of buildings from many ages.

Of course, in California, nothing is more than about 150 years old. We visited the Salem, Massachusetts area a few years ago, to connect with family history, and saw a few buildings from the late 1600s and from the 1700s. We lived in a village in Pennsylvania, "Historic" Fallsington, where the oldest building, a log cabin, was from the 1760's. The architecture in Mexico feels older and more ambitious than any of those places. 

It's not so much the number of buildings and the dates, but the scale of the buildings. Here in Mexico there are magnificent churches. We visited the Sanctuaro de Atotonilco, known as Mexico's Sistine Chapel. It's a world heritage site outside San Miguel de Allende, it was started in 1740 and took 35 years to complete. The most amazing part are the frescoes which were done by a local artist named Miguel Antonio Martinez de Pocasangre. 

The entire inside is covered with scenes from the life of Jesus. 

 

Of course Lupita and Tonio knew the nun who was keeping an eye on the place and she let us in to see one of the chapels that is usually closed to the public. The entire chapel was covered in silver. On one of the walls was a self portrait of the artist.

Back in the main church, there is a statue of Our Lord of the Column, Jesus on his way to the cross. It gets carried in a procession to the city during Holy Week and is credited with several miracles. As with much religious art in Mexico (and we noticed this as well in Peru) there is a lot of blood. In the back room we were able to see a wall of oil paintings showing the deaths of the Apostles - very gruesome. I think the worst was the guy who was flayed (skinned to death).

This church was on the list of the world's most endangered historic sites in 1996 but has had some restoration done in recent years. I think it's amazing that we'd never heard of this remarkable church so close to the US. A recurring theme for me so far is how little I knew about Mexico, a country so close to our own.