San Martín, Huaquechula

1550-1585

Name(s) currently unknown

Huaquechula, Puebla, MEX

This church, commissioned by the Franciscans as part of their 16th century evangelizing campaign, shares its severe style of façade with many other mission churches. However, vivid narrative programs exist inside the cloister and church.

Sixteenth century monastic churches are usually quite simple, with thick walls and buttresses to support the vaulted roof. At Huaquechula, a single window punctures the façade. Below it, San Martín on horseback is depicted in a cartouche. As a destroyer of pagan shrines, he was an appropriate choice as patron saint of this mission church. The sparse sculptural decoration is clustered around the door. It was likely the work of a local sculptor and was perhaps based on prints the Franciscans carried with them. The shields at the corners of the doorways bear the five wounds of Christ, looking like bunches of grapes, a frequent symbol used by the Franciscans.

In the mid-16th century, approximately 10,000 indigenous families lived in Huaquechula and its related communities. As was typical of the region, these people were assigned to an encomienda, in this case an encomienda awarded to the conquistador Jorge de Alvardo. Towards the end of the 16th century, about the time this church was completed, the local population would be smaller in number and have moved into a more consolidated area. While Spaniards, mulattos and mestizos lived nearby, the church would have been used largely by indigenous worshippers.

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

Córdova Tello, Mario. 1992. El convento de San Miguel de Huejotzingo, Puebla. Mexico City: INAH.

Gerhard, Peter. 1972. A Guide to the Historical Geography of New Spain. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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

Lara, Jaime. 2008. Christian Texts for Aztecs: Art and LIturgy in Colonial Mexico. Notre Dame: Notre Dame University Press.