Colegio de la Santa Cruz de Tlatelolco
The Colegio de la Santa Cruz de Tlatelolco was the leading higher education institution for the Aztec nobility offspring in the 16th and 17th centuries . Since 1536, the monk Bernardino de Sahagún, among others, has taught at the college led by the Franciscan Order .
location
The entire complex is now part of the 'Square of the Three Cultures' ( Plaza de las Tres Culturas ), which is popular with both Mexicans and foreign tourists. At the beginning of the 20th century there was a train station on the north side of the church, which was moved underground during the construction of the underground line, which ran a little further to the west, in the 1960s.
history
After the conquest of Tenochtitlán by the troops of Hernán Cortés , the country's capital was completely rebuilt. The cultural life thus mainly took place in the outskirts of the city, among which Tlatelolco, only about 2 km to the north, held an outstanding position, because the first church building is documented here as early as 1527. Latin lessons for the adolescent sons of the Aztec aristocratic class can be demonstrated at an early age , but the whole thing required better organization and a proper educational institution. In a letter from 1533, Bishop Ramírez de Fuenleal asked the Spanish King Charles I for permission to divert 200 pesos and a sufficient amount of maize from the royal income and income in kind in order to be able to pay salaries and provide for the students. The most important educational goal was to convey the Christian faith to the students so that they could later study theology and become priests, in order to achieve a quick and profound Christianization of the Indians in this way . The first initial successes - in 1546 the educational establishment was largely placed in Indian hands - however, were destroyed by diseases of various kinds at the end of the 1540s and training activities came to a complete standstill at times. There were repeated efforts to revitalize the college, which temporarily succeeded, but in 1728 the economic end of the institution came.
Santiago de Tlatelolco Church
The current church dates from the 1570s and was built entirely from reused but unplastered Tezontle rubble; only the two Renaissance portals are made of sandstone . The monumental building looks almost like a fortress; Both the high windows and the two sloping western towers and crenellated decorative elements on the eaves contribute to this impression . The interior of the church has a single nave with a transept ; Walls and vaults - with the exception of the belt arches , the pilasters and the apse - are plastered and painted in a light blue shade. In the pendentives of the unexposed dome above the crossing there are paintings depicting the four evangelists .
monastery
The south side of the church is completely taken up by the former monastery and training area of the college. Most of the buildings, which are painted yellow on the outside, date from the late 16th and early 17th centuries. Particularly noteworthy is the entrance facade made of unplastered Tezontle and sandstone on the east side with its five-arched outer gallery . Inside there is a large two-story cloister with adjoining buildings; in the upper part of the cloister were the living rooms and bedrooms of the students. In the middle of the 19th century, the entire complex was profaned and temporarily used as a military prison. It was not until 1944 that the church was reopened for worship and placed under the direction of Franciscans.
Web links
- Iglesia de Santiago Tlatelolco. Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia (INAH), accessed on July 3, 2020 (Spanish).
- Tlatelolco, Church and Monastery - Photos + Info (Spanish)
Coordinates: 19 ° 27 ′ 3.2 ″ N , 99 ° 8 ′ 12.1 ″ W.