Exploring
Colonial Mexico©
Exploring
Colonial Mexico©
On a curve just below the twisting road that winds through the Barranca de Metztitlan, en route to the great Augustinian priory of Los Santos Reyes, stands the squat16th century church of San Pedro Tlatemalco.
However, the church was originally much taller and more imposing, as the facade diagram below reveals and its broad, out of scale belfry indicates. Close inspection in fact reveals that now only the upper section of the building remains above ground, its lower parts having been buried by landslides from the steep cliffs of the barranca above.
The original doorway is still below ground. Today, the old choir window, framed by an alfiz ornamented with carved rosettes and currently gaily painted red and blue, serves as the diminutive, arched entry.
Inside the church, the low vault and the present side windows now almost at ground level confirm this partial infilling of the nave. Holes for the beams that once supported a raised choir can still be seen, also just above the floor.
In addition, a cave like aperture, set back on the south side of the church, is the eroded head of an archway that may formerly have fronted a raised open chapel, an identification supported by its elevation as well as the still visible sections of another carved alfiz (see diagram). The rest of the convento, further to the south, is entirely buried.
Tales of eery howlings in the night, which once gave the church the reputation of being haunted or possessed, were traced to missing dogs or other animals trapped in isolated sunken pockets in the old conventual rooms.
* The scale and extent of these early precincts suggest a mission of some importance, which has led to the proposed identification of San Pedro Tlatemalco with the original Augustinian mission at Metztitlan, founded in 1537 only to be abandoned two years later in the great inundation of 1539 that forced relocation of the priory to higher ground.
San Pedro Tlatemalco : original church front
with present ground level shown in red. © Pablo Escalante
Text & color illustrations ©2007, 2009 by Richard D. Perry. All rights reserved * For fuller details on Tlatemalco and its neighbors, see the 1994 article by Pablo Escalante on which this page is based. Facade drawing adapted from the Escalante article. For more information on the early churches and monasteries of Hidalgo, consult our classic guidebook, Mexico's Fortress Monasteries see our archive for more pages on the colonial monuments of Hidalgo, including Metztitlan Look for our forthcoming pictorial guide to Mexican Stone Crosses, including numerous examples in Hidalgo.
