La Capilla del Pocito (1791) en 1957
These are photos my mother took when she and my brother and sister visited Mexico in 1957. Unlike a small set of slides from Colombia in 1952 and 1953, these images lack information about the subject. Some I could identify. Others required some searching.
This ecclesiastical structure had me stumped until I invited Google Lens to have a look at it. Let's just say you'd never score below 100 percent on an art history slide test if you left the answers up to Google Lens.
GL identified this as the Capilla del Pocito, or the Chapel of the Well on the Hill of Tepeyac at the pilgrimage site of Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe, or Our Lady of Guadalupe, in today's Mexico City.
Do you want to know about Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe? How much time do you have?
Briefly:
=======================
Vatican News
"The story of Our Lady of Guadalupe"
December 12th is the Feast Day of Our Lady of Guadalupe. We take a look at the story behind the indigenous peasant who came across the Patron of the Americas, and how he fought for her message to be heard.
By Francesca Merlo
The Virgin of Guadalupe, like the shroud of Turin, appears on a piece of fabric. Both are sacred objects, hundreds of years old, and both depict an image said to be miraculous. The Virgin of Guadalupe was declared Queen of Mexico and is Patron of the Americas.
First apparition
Our Lady of Guadalupe first introduced herself as the Mother of God and the mother of all humanity when she appeared on the hill of Tepeyac in Mexico in 1531. An indigenous peasant, Juan Diego, saw a glowing figure on the hill. After she had identified herself to him, Our Lady asked that Juan build her a shrine in that same spot, in order for her to show and share her love and compassion with all those who believe.
Afterwards, Juan Diego visited Juan de Zumárraga, who was Archbishop of what is now Mexico City. Zumárraga dismissed him in disbelief and asked that the future Saint provide proof of his story and proof of the Lady’s identity.
Juan Diego returned to the hill and encountered Our Lady again. The Virgin told him to climb to the top of the hill and pick some flowers to present to the Archbishop.
Winter bloom
Although it was winter and nothing should have been in bloom, Juan Diego found an abundance of flowers of a type he had never seen before. The Virgin bundled the flowers into Juan's cloak, known as a tilma. When Juan Diego presented the tilma of exotic flowers to Zumárraga, the flowers fell out and he recognised them as Castilian roses, which are not found in Mexico.
What was even more significant, however, was that the tilma had been miraculously imprinted with a colorful image of the Virgin herself.
Tilma
This actual tilma, preserved since that date and showing the familiar image of the Virgin Mary with her head bowed and hands together in prayer, represents the Virgin of Guadalupe. It remains perhaps the most sacred object in all of Mexico. [Sacred, certainly, but miraculous? No such thing exists. The painting was made by human hands.]
The story is best known from a manuscript written in the Aztec’s native language Nahuatl by the scholar Antonio Valeriano. It was written sometime after 1556.
Over 20 million people visit the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe each year, now situated on the very same hill on which she appeared.
In 1990, Pope Saint John Paul II visited Mexico and beatified Juan Diego. 10 years later, in the year 2000, he was declared a Saint.
www.vaticannews.va/en/church/news/2018-12/our-lady-of-gua...
(Ask yourself why it took so long . . .)
======================
The Chapel of the Little Well
Once one of the most important sites in the Basilica [of Our Lady of Guadalupe) complex, the Pocito [Little Well] Chapel was, sadly, [made less significant] in the 1950 when the Plaza of the Americas was built. Today, it’s an under-appreciated masterpiece of Baroque architecture.
The chapel was originally but a shelter over a miraculous well. By the mid-18th century, the sulfurous water source was receiving so many penitents, and those seeking cures, that it needed a proper church above. The natural spring at the base of the Tepeyac hill was to be blessed with church that would remain one of the most visited in the complex for better than the next 100 years.
Begun in 1777 by architect Francisco de Guerrero y Torre, it was complete by 1791. It remains the only circular church from the 18th century in all of Mexico. Visitors seem to perceive the space little by little, as if it is only gradually coming out of hiding.
The zigzag decorations on the outsides of the dome, and the multiform lines in the windows, all help to support the sense that it’s an atmosphere suspended and slowed down. The angel symbols painted in the dome are Marian symbols from the Litany of Loreto, the final section of the rosary.
In 1815, José María Morelos was permitted to pray to the Virgin of Guadalupe here. He was later executed in Ecatepec for his role in the Mexican war for independence.
La Capilla del Pocito (1791) en 1957
These are photos my mother took when she and my brother and sister visited Mexico in 1957. Unlike a small set of slides from Colombia in 1952 and 1953, these images lack information about the subject. Some I could identify. Others required some searching.
This ecclesiastical structure had me stumped until I invited Google Lens to have a look at it. Let's just say you'd never score below 100 percent on an art history slide test if you left the answers up to Google Lens.
GL identified this as the Capilla del Pocito, or the Chapel of the Well on the Hill of Tepeyac at the pilgrimage site of Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe, or Our Lady of Guadalupe, in today's Mexico City.
Do you want to know about Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe? How much time do you have?
Briefly:
=======================
Vatican News
"The story of Our Lady of Guadalupe"
December 12th is the Feast Day of Our Lady of Guadalupe. We take a look at the story behind the indigenous peasant who came across the Patron of the Americas, and how he fought for her message to be heard.
By Francesca Merlo
The Virgin of Guadalupe, like the shroud of Turin, appears on a piece of fabric. Both are sacred objects, hundreds of years old, and both depict an image said to be miraculous. The Virgin of Guadalupe was declared Queen of Mexico and is Patron of the Americas.
First apparition
Our Lady of Guadalupe first introduced herself as the Mother of God and the mother of all humanity when she appeared on the hill of Tepeyac in Mexico in 1531. An indigenous peasant, Juan Diego, saw a glowing figure on the hill. After she had identified herself to him, Our Lady asked that Juan build her a shrine in that same spot, in order for her to show and share her love and compassion with all those who believe.
Afterwards, Juan Diego visited Juan de Zumárraga, who was Archbishop of what is now Mexico City. Zumárraga dismissed him in disbelief and asked that the future Saint provide proof of his story and proof of the Lady’s identity.
Juan Diego returned to the hill and encountered Our Lady again. The Virgin told him to climb to the top of the hill and pick some flowers to present to the Archbishop.
Winter bloom
Although it was winter and nothing should have been in bloom, Juan Diego found an abundance of flowers of a type he had never seen before. The Virgin bundled the flowers into Juan's cloak, known as a tilma. When Juan Diego presented the tilma of exotic flowers to Zumárraga, the flowers fell out and he recognised them as Castilian roses, which are not found in Mexico.
What was even more significant, however, was that the tilma had been miraculously imprinted with a colorful image of the Virgin herself.
Tilma
This actual tilma, preserved since that date and showing the familiar image of the Virgin Mary with her head bowed and hands together in prayer, represents the Virgin of Guadalupe. It remains perhaps the most sacred object in all of Mexico. [Sacred, certainly, but miraculous? No such thing exists. The painting was made by human hands.]
The story is best known from a manuscript written in the Aztec’s native language Nahuatl by the scholar Antonio Valeriano. It was written sometime after 1556.
Over 20 million people visit the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe each year, now situated on the very same hill on which she appeared.
In 1990, Pope Saint John Paul II visited Mexico and beatified Juan Diego. 10 years later, in the year 2000, he was declared a Saint.
www.vaticannews.va/en/church/news/2018-12/our-lady-of-gua...
(Ask yourself why it took so long . . .)
======================
The Chapel of the Little Well
Once one of the most important sites in the Basilica [of Our Lady of Guadalupe) complex, the Pocito [Little Well] Chapel was, sadly, [made less significant] in the 1950 when the Plaza of the Americas was built. Today, it’s an under-appreciated masterpiece of Baroque architecture.
The chapel was originally but a shelter over a miraculous well. By the mid-18th century, the sulfurous water source was receiving so many penitents, and those seeking cures, that it needed a proper church above. The natural spring at the base of the Tepeyac hill was to be blessed with church that would remain one of the most visited in the complex for better than the next 100 years.
Begun in 1777 by architect Francisco de Guerrero y Torre, it was complete by 1791. It remains the only circular church from the 18th century in all of Mexico. Visitors seem to perceive the space little by little, as if it is only gradually coming out of hiding.
The zigzag decorations on the outsides of the dome, and the multiform lines in the windows, all help to support the sense that it’s an atmosphere suspended and slowed down. The angel symbols painted in the dome are Marian symbols from the Litany of Loreto, the final section of the rosary.
In 1815, José María Morelos was permitted to pray to the Virgin of Guadalupe here. He was later executed in Ecatepec for his role in the Mexican war for independence.