Exploring Colonial
Mexico©
Exploring Colonial
Mexico©
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Michoacán, like almost every other region of Mexico, is also home to innumerable local images of the Virgin Mary. We have chosen to look at three of the best known of these venered regional santos.
Tlalpujahua is a picturesque hill town in Michoacán, close to the boundary with Mexico State. Formerly a rich mining center, the town is endowed with several fine churches. The most impressive is the grand late baroque church of St. Peter and St. Paul, set on a broad platform at the top of the town.
The church, noted for its extravagantly sculpted west front, is a popular shrine to one of the region's most popular images, that of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel. Originally painted on stucco for a hacienda chapel belonging to a local silver magnate, the icon miraculously escaped first a fire, and then a disastrous flood, and was installed in its present location in the early1900s when the church was extravagantly remodeled by the talented local designer Joaquín Orta.*
The image, probably
painted in the 17th or early 18th century, portrays Our Lady of
El Carmen as protectress of the Carmelites. Bowing her head beneath
a weighty gold and silver halo, she shelters nuns and friars of
the order beneath an ample redlined cloak, which is held up at
the sides by St. Joseph and St. Teresa of Avila.
For travelers to the lakeside town of Pátzcuaro, the Basilica of Our Lady of Health is one of the main attractions, set on an ancient temple platform overlooking the colonial city. Now a shrine to Pátzcuaro's patron saint, this imposing church was originally part of Bishop Vasco de Quiroga's innovative but unfinished cathedral.
The venerated 16th century image of the Virgin was in fact brought here by Bishop Quiroga, and for almost 300 years stood in the humble hospital chapel of Santa Marta down the hill from the Basilica. Now she stands in splendor inside the Basilica, opposite an 18th century painting of the controversial bishop.
The Virgin is richly costumed in an embroidered robe and spreading floral cape, She wears a crown and a finely wrought silver glory surrounds her head. In accordance with the traditional image of the Virgin of the Immaculate Conception, she stands on a silver crescent moon.
Over the centuries La Salud has been credited with many miraculous cures, as well as favorable intervention in times of plague and drought.
Colonial annals are full of accounts of miraculous santos being found by humble Indians, but the story of Our Lady of the Root is among the most unusual.
In the late 1600s, the town of Jacona bordered the eastern shore of Lake Chapala. A local fisherman one day found a twisted length of tree or mandrake root floating in the lake. Drying it out, he noticed that it bore a marked resemblance to the entwined figures of the Virgin and Child.
The image was embellished and placed in a local hospital chapel, where it attracted a following among the Indians of the region.
The Augustinian friars, initially skeptical but anxious to channel the piety of the Indians in a more orthodox direction, moved the figure to their priory, where it was recarved, lacquered and richly costumed in the 18th century manner.
Today, the sweet-faced but doll-like figure of La Esperanza, wearing a crown, floral cape and vestments, still rests in the monastic church. The sculpted facade of the old hospital chapel has also been preserved in front of a modernistic new church a block away.
