Franciscan missions in the Sierra Gorda

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Mission church of Landa de Matamoros with side capilla abierta
Detail of the church facade of Jalpan de Serra : the hands of two arms raised and crossed are nailed to a cross; one is covered with the sleeve of a Franciscan habit , the other is naked and littered with ulcers. The same motif can be found in the facade decoration of many Franciscan mission churches, only in Tancoyol it is missing.

The Franciscan Missions in the Sierra Gorda are a group of five former missionary monasteries of the Franciscans in the 150 km (distance) north of Mexico City altitude mountain region of Sierra Gorda . They were recognized as World Heritage Sites by UNESCO in 2003 . Some were made by St. Junípero Serra founded.

location

The approximately 700 to 1100 m high mission monasteries are all in what is now the state of Querétaro . Sometimes they are in the center of a place or largely isolated in a spacious valley.

history

The Augustinian order was initially commissioned with the missionary work of the remote and sparsely populated mountain region of the Sierra Gorda , but in 1601 the Franciscan Lucas de los Ángeles undertook an inspection trip through the province. Only a few years later, in 1609, the Spanish viceroy Luis de Velasco y Castilla assigned the missionary mandate to the Franciscans. Around 1750, the minorite brother Junípero Serra came to the Sierra Gorda and gave new impetus to the building of mission stations and churches; in 1768 he was recalled to California .

Monasteries and construction time

  • Misión de Santiago in Jalpan de Serra (1751–1758)
  • Misión de San Miguel Concá (1750–1754)
  • Misión de San Francisco de Asís in the Valle de Tilaco (1754–1762)
  • Misión de Nuestra Señora de la Luz in Tancoyol (around 1765)
  • Misión de Santa María de la Purísima Concepción in Landa de Matamoros (1760–1768)

In some sources the construction of the churches of Landa de Matamoros and Tilaco is given as 1774.

architecture

The architecture of the monasteries and churches only differs in details; however, there are numerous structural similarities:

  • a huge walled courtyard with a central wrought-iron cross on a stone substructure
  • a single-tower facade with mostly two octagonal bells
  • a decoratively designed middle section in the late baroque style of churriguerism
  • a lateral one- or two-lobed capilla abierta
  • a single nave with a crossing dome resting on an octagonal drum
  • a mostly flat-closing apse

Others

The church of the Misión Bucareli in the municipality of Pinal de Amoles , which was begun in 1797 but was never completed, also deserves a mention, although it is not a World Heritage Site.

literature

  • Margarita Velasco Mireles: El mundo de la Sierra Gorda. In: Arqueología Mexicana No.77 , Editorial Raíces SA de CV, 2006.
  • Josué Cornejo: La Sierra Gorda de Querétaro. In: Arqueología Mexicana No.77 , Editorial Raíces SA de CV, 2006.
  • Carmen Mondragón: Una historia de resistencia, Misiones franciscanas de la Sierra Gorda de Querétaro. Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, 2010.

Web links

Commons : Franciscan Missions in the Sierra Gorda  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Entry on the website of the UNESCO World Heritage Center ( English and French ).