The Chapels of Ixtla: San Isidro

the chapel before clearing (1960s)

San Isidro

The once abandoned outlying Ixtla capilla of San Isidro is under restoration for its proposed new role as a community museum.  

the chapel front before restoration began (2010)

The chapel after exterior restoration and landscaping

Like El Templo del Barrio (Ojo Zarco), the chapel is a substantial domed building, although lacking a tower or belfry. The handsome stone doorway is plain save for reliefs of the sun and moon, windblown rosettes and a winged angel head.

The interior was lavishly decorated with colorful murals, now also under restoration. Among the highlights are folkloric portraits of the Four Evangelists holding their gospels on the pendentives beneath the painted octagonal dome.

The painted dome

St John the Evangelist

St Mark

the restored chapel and atrium cross.

Like the Templo (previous post) San Isidro boasts an old carved stone cross facing the chapel front and set on a pyramidal pedestal raised on a high, square base. 
   The cross is simply ornamented in Jalisco style, with a streamlined, cross-within-a-cross pattern and petal finials. A second, smaller carved stone cross rests inside the church. 

text © 2014 Richard D. Perry.  images by Niccolò Brooker, Diana Roberts and others.