Sierra Gorda Part 2: The baroque exterior of Misión Jalpan's church

 

 Jalpan's Franciscan mission church, viewed over its atrium wall. This was the first of five churches constructed between 1750-60, under the direction of Junipero Serra. He was a Franciscan friar who arrived in Jalpan in 1750. The five churches are each attached to a former Franciscan mission in various valleys scattered throughout the Sierra Gorda. The overall design of each of the churches is quite similar. This indicates that they may have all been constructed by the same team of builders, indigenous Pame under the supervision of Franciscan friars.

For example, each has a single bell tower on the left side and each has an elaborate facade. The facades all have niches resembling retablos found behind church altars. All the facades were done in the New Spanish Baroque style, sometimes called the mestizo Baroque. Finally, all the churches overlook large atriums with atrial crosses in their centers. However, each also has many unique features, particularly in the decorations found on the facades and in the interiors. 

In this posting, we'll take a look at the exterior of Jalpan's church. In my next posting, we'll walk through the interior. For a map showing how to get to Jalpan from the Lake Chapala/Guadalajara area, please go to Part 1 of this series.

Overview

Map of the Sierra Gorda area showing the locations of the five missions. Jalpan is located just below and to the left of center.  Landa, the pueblo with the 2nd mission, is about 20 km (12.4 mi) east of Jalpan on Hwy 120. About 10.7 km (7 mi) further along on Hwy 120, you reach the pueblo of La Lagunita. Turn rigth there on the road to Tilaco, where the the 3rd mission is located. 

After visiting Tilaco, head back to La Laguinta and turn right on Hwy 120. Travel about 5 km (3 mi) to a Pemex gas station where you make a left on Hwy190. The pueblo of Tancoyol, site of the 4th mission, is 23.6 km (14.6 mi) from the intersection with the Pemex. To reach the Misión San Miguel Concá, take Hwy 69 from Jalpan northwest about 40 km (25 mi). Turn left at the highway sign for Concá. Take your time on these short journeys because the countryside along the way is gorgeous.

Santuario del Santo Niño de la Mezclita (exterior)

The formal name of the church is Sanctuario del Santo Niño de Mezclita.  In the photo above, you see the complexity of the facade. The church was built to serve the Misión Santiago Jalpan. In addition to the church, the mission complex includes an atrium, a cloister, and a chapel annex attached to the church's right side. This facade is designed to imitate a retablo, which is a large structure often found behind an altar. Like a retablo, the facade has niches for statues. There are two on either side of the facade and each of these is framed by a pair of large pilasters (decorative columns). Two smaller statues stand in niches beside the door. 

The facade was created using stucco and stone work. The pilasters are of an ocher color, while the rest is yellow. As is typical with the Baroque style, virtually every square inch is decorated, mostly by carvings of plants and animals native to the Sierra Gorda region. At the top of the facade is a large niche containing a clock. However, this niche originally contained a statue of the Virgin. According to one story, the statue was confiscated by a passing general and later replaced by the clock. 

The dome covers the area inside the church directly in front of the altar. It has an octagonal shape with a small cupola on top. Mexican colonial churches were generally constructed as a cruciform (in the shape of a cross). The long, rectangular central room, called the nave, has an entrance at one end and the main altar at the other. It is crossed by an area called the transept, which has an altar at each end. The dome covers the area inside the church where the transept and nave intersect. It has windows on each of the octagonal sides to provide light to illuminate the designs and paintings on the inside of the dome.

Sanctuario del Santo Niño de Mezclita gets its name from a small statue of the Santo Niño (Holy Child) that was created at the beginnng of the 20th century. It passed through several hands and eventually became the property of Antonio Velasquez who lived in the pueblo of Mezclita, to the south of Jalpan de Serra. He donated the statue to the Parroquia de Santiago de Jalpan de Serra. After the church had been secularize (taken away from the Franciscans) in 1770, it became the parroquia (parish church) of Jalpan.  In the years following the donation of the statue, miracles were attributed to the Santo Niño. 

The campanario, or bell tower, has two levels and several bells. The lower level has openings for eight bells, but some of them have been filled in. The upper has the capacity for six bells, but none can be seen in this photo. Today, many churches use recordings of bells that are broadcast with loudspeakers. However, the bell shown above is still rung by pullng on the hand ropes draped down the side of the church. The openings for the bells are framed by Solomonic columns, another feature of the Baroque style.

The use of bells to call people to worship was established early in the Christian era. At first, handheld bells were employed but, around 400 AD, Bishop Paulinus of Campania introduced the idea of hanging  bells in churches. The Spanish word for bell is campana and the bell towers in Mexican churches are called campanarios. 

By 750 AD, church bells were common and priests were ordered to ring them at particular times. A set of rules for the use of bells was established by 1000 AD. Over the centuries church bells were used to sound the time of day, as well as to announce religious events, deaths, attacks by enemies, fires and other impending disasters. 

Two visitors walk hand-in-hand through the main entrance. On either side of the door are small statues standing in niches with pointed moorish arches. On the left is San Pedro (St. Peter) and to the right is San Pablo (St. Paul). San Pedro was one of the Twelve Apostles and became the first Bishop of Rome. San Pablo came a bit later. He was one of the most important Apostles, although he was not one of the original twelve. San Pablo is purported to be the author of 14 of the 27 books of the New Testament. 

The arch above the door is scalloped like a shell. This is a reference to a legend about Santiago (St. James), another of the original Twelve Apostles and the saint to whom the mission is dedicated. One version of the legend is that, after Santiago was martyred in Jerusalem in 44 AD, his body was returned to Spain where he had been evangelizing. The ship was caught in a storm off the Spanish coast and Santiago's body was lost overboard. When it washed up on the shore, the body was miraculously intact but covered with the scallop shells. Pilgrims still wear scallop shells when visiting his shrine in Compostela, Spain.

The niche on the lower left of the facade contains a statue of Santo Domingo. I found this a bit odd, since St. Dominic was the founder of the Dominican Order, one of the rivals of the Franciscans. Notice the incredibly complex floral carvings that surround the statue and its pilasters. In addition to copying native flora, local fauna was sometimes used as well. These included jaguars and rabbits, which had been sacred to the indigenous people far back into pre-hispanic times. This was a deliberate strategy of Junipero Serra, who wanted to appeal to the natives by using their symbols in Christian contexts.

Santo Domingo was born in 1170 in Caleruega, Spain. His parents were well-to-do and his maternal uncle was an archbishop. He was named after St. Dominic of Silos and was well-educated in religious schools, becoming a priest at age 24. In 1208, he had a vision of the Virgin Mary in which she gave him a rosary. As a result, he became responsible for the spread of the use of the rosary. Dominic founded the Dominican Order in 1216 as a way of addressing the spiritual needs of the 13th century's growing cities. He died at the age of 51 and was canonized in 1267. 

A statue of San Francisco stands in a niche on the lower right side. Like the niches for San Pedro and San Pablo, those containing Santo Domingo and San Francisco also were designed with moorish pointed arches. The Muslim Moors, who invaded Spain in 711 AD and were not driven out until 1492, had a profound influence on Spanish Christian culture, particularly its architecture. After Christopher Columbus discovered the New World the same year as the final defeat of the Spanish Moors, their cultural influences were brought to Nueva España.

The Baroque artistic style, which flourished in the 17th and early 18th centuries, was very different from what preceded and followed it. Rather than appealing to the intellect, Baroque appealed to the emotions. It also was used with great theatricality to convey messages of power. Perhaps this is why I often feel attracted but also overwhelmed when confronted with something like these Franciscan facades. Baroque is very warm and florid, as opposed the the Neo-Classic style, which I find somewhat cold and severe.

On the upper left of the facade is a statue of the Virgen de Guadalupe. Above her head is a smaller version of the scalloped arch over the church door. The Virgen de Guadalupe was the first apparition of the Virgin in the New World. The person who interacted with her was a Christianized Aztec named Juan Diego. He encountered her in the ruins of a temple of the earth goddess Tonantzin. This apparition of the Virgin was dark skinned like a native and spoke to Juan Diego in Nahuatl, the Aztec language. 

All this made the encounter very controversial. The Franciscans asserted that it was a scam to allow the natives to continue to worship pagan gods. However, the Virgen de Guadalupe became enormously popular and her veneration spread like wildfire. The Franciscans remained bitterly opposed to recognizing her as legitimate, but the Dominicans and Augustinians supported her, because of the great increase in converts. The controversy raged for a hundred years before she was fully accepted by the Church. The issue had obviously been settled by the time Junipero Serra built this church.

Nuestra Señora del Pilar stands in a niche on the facade's upper right side. There are a great many stories about miraculous appearances by the Virgin Mary. Nuestra Señora del Pilar is unique because she was the first of these apparitions that occurred over the next couple of millennia. In addition, it supposedly happened in Spain while Mary was still alive and thousands of miles away in Jerusalem. The statue above shows the Virgin wearing a crown while standing on a pillar and holding the infant Jesus. This is an excellent example of how Baroque architecture was used for story-telling. 

This incident is said to have occurred at Zaragoza, Spain, in 40 AD. Santiago was evangelizing there at the time, but was having little success and was very discouraged. While he was praying on the bank of the Ebro river, Mary suddenly appeared, standing on a pillar and accompanied by thousands of angels. She came to console and encourage him and, thus inspired, Santiago continued his work until he was later called back to Jerusalem and martyred. 

Detail of one of the pilasters on the facade. Baroque designs typically are heavily populated not only with plants and animals, but also with human faces and the figures of cherubs. On the pilaster, the oval space in the center contains a semi-nude figure holding a staff and draped with a cloth. Above this figure is the head and upper torso of another human figure. Plants appear to grow out of his shoulders and head. Leafy plants seem to writhe all about, covering every inch of space. With Baroque designs, the more closely you look, the more intricate the design become. 

Pilasters are decorative architectural features that imitate load-bearing columns, although they sometimes bear part of the load. They date back to Classical Greek and Roman architecture, but fell out of fashion for about a thousand years until the style was revived during the Renaissance. Highly decorated pilasters are a feature of Baroque architecture.

This completes Part 2 of my Sierra Gorda series. In Part 3, we will view the interior of Sanctuario del Santo Niño de Mezclita.  I hope you have enjoyed this posting. If so, please leave any thoughts or questions in the Comments section below. If you leave a question, please include your email address so that I may respond in a timely manner.

Hasta luego, Jim