Tag: morelia

Postcard from Morelia, Mexico: Foreign beliefs transform both faith and art

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“My spirit that is upon you,” Isaiah 59 verse 21, translation of one of the Latin phrases floating around the canvas of “El Obispo Juan de Palafox y Mendoza” by Miguel Cabrera

As in Europe, art served as a primary tool for friars to introduce the mysteries of Catholicism to those of other beliefs. Consequently, religious paintings from that period form the core of the collection of Museo de Arte Colonial. The works are displayed in a house of the Colonial period which was renovated in 1984.

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Postcard from Morelia, Mexico: Crash history course in Michoacan

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Above: Portion of “Defenders of National Integrity, Cuauhtemoc and History,” Alfredo Zalce, 1952, Museo Regional Michoacano Nicolas Leon Calderon

A Spanish Baroque house built in the 1700s is home to the Michoacan Regional Museum Dr. Nicolas Leon Calderon. With the oldest artifacts in the museum dating from more than 1000 years BC, the collection chronicles the history of and life in the state of Michoacan until hundreds of years after the dramatic impact of the Spanish Conquest.

Oh, Emperor Maximilian I (1832-1867) is said to have slept here (I believe this a more reliable claim than that of owners of almost every old house in central Virginia boasting “George Washington slept here.”). The home belonged to Francisca Roman de Malo and her husband when Maximilian stayed there in 1864 at the beginning of his brief reign. Francisca served as lady-in-waiting to Empress Carlota (1840-1927).

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Postcard from Morelia, Mexico: Contemporary art lines ex-convento’s walls

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Above: Portion of “The Mountains of Michoacan,” a 2003 mural by Adolfo Mexiac

In the year 1660, Jesuits began construction of Convento de la Compania de Jesus, or the Convent of the Society of Jesus in the city the Spanish called Vallodolid, renamed after the Mexican War of Independence to memorialize native son Jose Maria Morelos (1765-1815). The large rose-colored complex included a temple and a Jesuit college.

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