San Gabriel, Cholula

1555-1570

Name(s) currently unknown

Cholula, MEX

This sixteenth century “fortress church” was designed by Franciscan friars as part of their efforts to evangelize the Nahuas in Central Mexico. It was meant to replace the nearby pre-Hispanic pyramid as a center of religious and ritual life.

Like most mendicant churches built in native communities, Cholula is a simple, single-nave church. The battlements at the roof were not literally for defense, although they may have been included to emphasize the metaphoric “military conquest” of New Spain. Above the main door, a pattern of carved flowers frames the deep-set round window. Its style reveals it to have been carved by a native artisan. To the left, the enormous Capilla Real (“Royal Chapel”) is the only one of its kind in New Spain. Its roof is supported by a forest of columns and its architecture most closely resembles the Great Mosque in Córdoba, Spain.

San Gabriel was built by the Franciscans, who were charged with the evangelization of this densely populated region of central Mexico. Although some friars had training in architecture and engineering, they also relied on the skills of native builders to create the large, vaulted structures.

The church is built of stone, brick and masonry. It was plastered and painted both inside and out. The interior vaulting systems used throughout to support the roof were European technology that the mendicant friars introduced to native builders. Since pre-Hispanic sacred architecture emphasized mass (great pyramids) rather than volume (interior space), such churches were as novel among 16th century Amerindians as the Christianity they sought to inspire.

Between 1530 and 1580, mendicant friars commissioned hundreds of churches and dozens of larger monastic complexes like this one in New Spain. During its heyday, Cholula's monastery buzzed with activity, as more than thirty friars taught native children from elite families within, and catechized adults in the outside courtyard. This same church complex appears at the center of the Relación Geográfica map from Cholula (also in Vistas), showing that other than the change in color, the building’s outward appearance has changed little over four hundred years.

The Catholic church was deeply embedded into the fabric of urban life in Spanish America. Franciscans pointedly chose Choulua as a center for evangelization, since it was once a center for worship of the pre-Hispanic deity Quetzalcoatl, whose pyramid was mined for material to build the monastic complex. The hybrid styles of architecture in Cholula probably reflect the Franciscan understanding of their mission. For instance, the unusual side chapel looks like an Islamic mosque. In 16th century Spain, all mosques had been destroyed or converted into churches during the war of the Reconquista, as reminder of Christianity’s triumph over Islam. The Franciscans thought of their work in Cholula as another such religious conquest. Likewise, the battlements at the top of the building—which are decorative, not functional—added to the building’s metaphor of a conquering Christianity.

Barbara E. Mundy

Dana Leibsohn and Barbara E. Mundy.
Vistas: Visual Culture in Spanish America, 1520-1820. http://www.fordham.edu/vistas, 2015.

Edgerton, Samuel. 2001. Theaters of Conversion: Religious Architecture and Indian Artisans in Colonial Mexico. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press.

Espinosa Spinola, Gloria. 1999. Arquitectura de la conversión y evangelización en la Nueva España durante el siglo XVI. Almeria: Universidad de Almeria.

Kubler, George. 1948. Mexican Architecture of the Sixteenth Century. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Lara, Jaime. 2004. City, Temple, Stage: Eschatological Architecture and Liturgical Theatrics in New Spain. Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press.