MEXICO

MEXICO CITY

Mexico City has the distinction of being the oldest, highest, and most populous metropolis on the North American continent.  At an elevation of 7,350 feet, Mexico’s capital city is located in the Valle de México in the center of the country and is home to nearly one-fourth of the country’s population.   Its history as a great city dates back to the time of the Aztec Empire, and it was also the site of much earlier occupations by the Nahuatl and Toltec civilizations.

The Aztecs established their great city of Tenochtitlan on an island in the middle of shallow Lake Texcoco around the year 1325 AD.   In 1521, Tenochtitlan was invaded and captured by Cortés and his Spanish army and many of its great buildings were destroyed and replaced with European-style architecture.   As the new city grew, Lake Texcoco was drained and its canals were replaced by roads.  The former lake bed is a poor support for the now enormous city that has been slowly sinking as its underground aquifers are drained to keep up with the demand for water.

Standing on the site of a great Aztec temple and dominating its city square, the second largest in the world, is the Cathedral of Mexico City.  Begun in 1573, it took a century and a half to achieve its final form of soaring architecture and brilliant decoration.

 In the sacristy of the church are giant paintings of the Assumption and the Coronation of the Virgin by the seventeenth-century Mexican painter Juan Correa. 

Where Titian’s Renaissance Assumption was tightly focused, pulling the viewer upward with Mary, Correa’s is expansive, offering the abundance of the heavens and the earth.  Mary is welcomed into heaven with music and song by Jesus, God the Father, and a host of angels.  A passage from the Song of Songs is inscribed on banderols held by angels: 

“As beautiful as the moon, as resplendent as the sun, as awe-inspiring as bannered troops.” 

Joining the Apostles in bidding farewell to Mary are a crowd of onlookers and animals of the Old World and the New.

Long before the Spanish came to Central America, Aztecs had developed the art of amantecayotl feather work.  Tiny fragments of the feathers of brightly colored birds were glued to paper to create rich mosaics that were highly prized objects.   Missionaries encouraged the adaptation of New World artistic techniques to Old World images and supplied European prints for models.   Feather work was used for ecclesiastical garments as well as devotional pictures like this Madonna surrounded by rosary beads.

Today, Mexico City is home to the most popular Marian shrine in the world.

A native, Juan Diego is said to have encountered the Virgin Mary on this very site - it’s said she left an imprint on his mantle for all to see.  She is the Virgin of Guadalupe.  Today she’s represented in every imaginable media:  in paintings, as sculpture, on candles and t-shirts, from the most pedestrian to the most luxurious objects.  She is a national icon, as rich with political as with religious meaning.  The afflicted and endangered bring their sorrows and cares to the Virgin of Guadalupe, imploring her to grant them

relief and protection.