Calpan: The Posa Chapels 2

2. The Northwest Posa 

This chapel is dedicated to St. Francis, reinforcing the link between the Seraphic Order and the Passion of Christ. 

Large, framed reliefs of the Five Wounds of Christ appear on both faces of the posa. These are flanked on the east side by a pair of fluttering angels bearing the Instruments of the Passion—the one on the left identified by a plaque as the Archangel Michael.

northwest posa, east side detail

northwest posa, south side

On the south face the five wounds are embraced by a seraph with six spreading wings and flanked by monograms of Francis, Christ and Mary. Instead of the customary knotted cord, chain moldings like those at Huejotzingo border the arch and alfiz above—representing the Order of the Golden Fleece and suggesting royal patronage. 

  
statue of St Francis

One unique feature of this chapel is the statue of St. Francis himself, displaying the Stigmata, kneeling on the corner of the luxuriantly foliated parapet—a unique instance of such placement on a posa chapel. 
   Not only that, but a second statue, now missing but formerly mounted on the adjacent corner, is believed to have represented Francis elegantly dressed as a young man at the moment of his conversion—this photograph taken circa 1960 shows it still in place. 

text © 2018 Richard D. Perry 

photography by Carolyn Brown, Beverley Spears, Patrice Schmitz and the author

Calpan: The Posa Chapels 1.

San Andrés Calpan, Puebla

Founded in 1548 by Fray Juan de Alameda, the monastery of San Andrés Calpan sits in a sleepy hill town set among cornfields and walnut groves on the slopes of the volcano Ixtaccihuatl.
     A gem of early Franciscan architecture, the monastery is even now seldom visited by travelers. Fray Juan also drew up the plans and may have supervised the early construction from nearby Huejotzingo. The atrium is cut deep into the hillside at the west end, where a flight of stone steps descends steeply from the raised gateway. 
   To the east, the apse of the church and the rear of the convento stand tall above the sloping hillside, commanding a panoramic view of the entire valley below.

The Posa Chapels 

Calpan's atrium is a 16th century sculpture garden, its posa chapels justly famed as the most elaborate and best preserved in Mexico—probably dating from the 1550s. 
   Together with those at Huejotzingo, the four posas at Calpan are unique for their imaginative stone carving and complex iconography. Their sculpted reliefs are a triumph of tequitqui ornament, exquisitely carved by a team of skilled native artisans in the service of their Franciscan patrons. Each of the four chapels is linked to one of the four principal barrios of Calpan—Tepetipa, Tlamapa, Tlalnahuac and Tlaxixco.

   As at Huejotzingo, the imagery illustrates the redemptive power of Christ's Passion, as mediated by the Franciscan Order. But here, the theme takes on a more urgent tone, intensified by apocalyptic visions of the Second Coming and divine judgment.
   In this post, the first of four, we describe the posas in their traditional order, proceeding counterclockwise from the  processional northeastern gateway. 

1. The Northeast Posa
Dedicated to the Virgin Mary, this first and most extensively sculpted chapel stands just inside the arcaded gateway on the north side of the atrium. Carved panels of rosettes and intricate foliage border the reliefs on three sides of the posa.

A dramatic relief of the Virgin of Sorrows covers the otherwise blank eastern facade, the first to be encountered in procession around the atrium. Seven giant swords with engraved hilts and dagger-like points, symbolizing her Sorrows, crisscross Mary's grieving figure. 

The presence of prominent disks before each hilt suggests that they may once have enclosed miniature inlays or reliefs of the Seven Joys, or corresponding episodes in the life of the Virgin.  

The Assumption or Coronation of the Virgin, carved over the south facing archway, is encased in a U-shaped frame. Here she is swathed in a voluminous robe amid a celestial cloud of seraphs who display the crown above her head. To either side angels hover holding candles and swinging censers.

Portrayal of the Annunciation embellishes the third face of the posa. The Virgin Mary sits on the left, with the Archangel Gabriel on her right. An outsized vase of lilies symbolizes the purity of the Mother of God, and the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove descending through exaggerated rays of heavenly light.

Monograms of Christ and the Virgin are linked on the jambs, friezes and roof medallions. 

  

The steep pyramidal roof of the chapel, its corners lined by moldings with prominent volutes on either end, is topped by a  fleurs-de-lis crown and the shaft of a tree cross shaped like a quiote or agave floral spike.

text © 2018 Richard D. Perry 

photography by Carolyn Brown, Patrice Schmitz, Felipe Falcón and the author

Mexican Crucifixes: The lost crucifix of Totolapan

As part of our ongoing series on Mexico's stone crosses, we publish the occasional post on the sculpted stone crucifixes often found on church facades.

Totolapan, the church front and crucifix before the earthquake (Beverley Spears)

One of these crucifixes, affixed to the surmounting espadaña of the church at San Guillermo Totolapan—an early Augustinian monastery celebrated for its 16th century Cristo—became a victim of the earthquake that devastated the Morelos region in September 2017. 

Niccolò Brooker

Although less stylized and probably later than the related example at nearby Yecapixtla, this crucifix is not unsophisticated. With arms and legs partly disengaged but nailed to the cross, the figure of Christ is also notable for its aged face, its prominent ribs and the multiple folds of its flared loincloth.

Niccolò Brooker

During the 2017 earthquake the tower and entire espadaña collapsed into a heap of rubble in front of the church door. Tragically the colonial crucifix also succumbed, to the point where reassembly or restoration seems unlikely.

Totolapan, the church front after the 'quake (Robert Jackson)

text © 2018 Richard D. Perry

images courtesy of Beverley Spears, Niccolo Brooker and Robert Jackson

Look for future posts in this series:Yecapixtla; San Agustin Salamanca; Santiago Silao; 

San Jose Irapuato; San Agustin de Queretaro; Zacatecas Cathedral; Singuilucan;

Zacualpan de Amilpas: The Baptismal Font

In a previous post in this series, we looked at the monolithic baptismal font at Tlalmanalco, whose rim was inscribed with the Latin legend:  

Qui crediderit et baptizatus fuerit, salvus erit; qui vero non crediderit, condemnabitur.

Whomever believes and is baptized will be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.

The first part of the same quotation, from the gospel of St. Mark, is carved on the rim of a more complex font at Zacualpan de Amilpas in nearby Morelos state.

© Niccolo Brooker

Below the inscribed rim, the delicately delineated, shell like form of the basin rests on an inner ring carved with cannonball reliefs.

But the most extraordinary feature of this font is the outer ring, with its freestanding supports of luxuriant carved foliage modeled in high relief.

© Niccolo Brooker

text © 2018 Richard D. Perry

See our earlier post on the early colonial murals of Zacualpan

Please see our earlier posts featuring early Mexican fonts of  interest: Oaxaca; Yucatan; Michoacaneast; Atlixco (Puebla); Acatzingo; Tlaxcala; Cholula; 
CiudadHidalgo; Tepepan; Molango; Tecamachalco; Quecholac; Tecali; Zinacantepec; Cuernavaca; Otumba; 

The Picota of Zempoala

In a previous post we described the architecture of Todos Santos Zempoala, an early Franciscan monastic complex in the state of Hidalgo, together with its carved stone crosses.

In this post we look at another unusual early colonial monument there, the celebrated "picota" of Zempoala. This rare 16th century structure, more properly called El Rollo de Justicia, was designed as a monument to Imperial authority and punitive justice.

image © Niccolò Brooker

As evidence, the Spanish royal coat of arms is carved on its pyramidal cap, with an inscription that reads in part: “Erected by order of the exalted Don Juan de Piñeda, Corregidor of His Majesty…” 

lion's head and inscription image © Niccolò Brooker

Situated in the central plaza, in the colonial era it would have served as a public whipping post and perhaps also to exhibit severed heads and body parts of executed wrongdoers.

 image © Niccolò Brooker

Royal lions' heads face outward at the top, and primitive coyote like figures, with markings that suggest feathers, crouch around the base of the column.

The picota in the Plaza Real de Tlaxcala (from the Relación Geográfica de Tlaxcala 1584)

In colonial times, the picota was a common fixture in the main plazas of major Mexican towns and cities. After Independence, most such monuments were removed as hated symbols of Royal colonial authority, although a few survived and continued in use, often in other guises. 

The picota in the Plaza de Armas, Mexico City (18th c. print)

 

 picota column in Celaya

Although many still stand in Spain, today few identifiable picotas are to be found in Mexico. Aside from one beside the church of San Francisco in Celaya, the Zempoala picota, with its colonial inscription, may be the only unaltered example to have survived.

Visit our page on the murals of Zempoala

text © 2018 Richard D. Perry

Otumba: The Baptismal Fonts

In our first post on Otumba we looked at the sculpted doorways of the church and convento.  For our second post we survey other examples of early stonework there, notably the various fonts.

Carved stone basins in all shapes and sizes proliferate in the church. They have a family resemblance, ringed with the Franciscan knotted cord and emblazoned with large, eight-pointed rosettes.

The larger baptismal font, housed beneath a shell niche in the baptistry, sports huge ball pendants and a trumpet-shaped hood.  This font is accompanied by a smaller version as well as a third font with a barbed quatrefoil basin, foliated swags and an inset ceramic bowl.

 

 

The knotted cord rims another font in the nave, in front of a similarly banded dado, also with star-like relief rosettes. 

Finally a more elongated version rests in the convento, carved with four petaled rosettes and a cross relief.

text © 2018 Richard D. Perry. images by the author and ELTB

Please see our earlier posts featuring early Mexican fonts of interest: 

Oaxaca; Yucatan; Michoacan-east; Atlixco (Puebla); Acatzingo; Tlaxcala; Cholula; Ciudad Hidalgo; Tepepan; Molango; Tecamachalco; Quecholac; Tecali; Zinacantepec; Cuernavaca; Otumba; Chimalhuacan; Tlalmanalco;

Stones of Otumba: The Carved Doorways

OTUMBA 

Place of the Otomi 

High on the high northeastern rim of the Valley of Mexico, Otumba has the only regional place name to commemorate the Otomi, the aboriginal settlers of the valley who had long been a marginalized by a succession of invaders including the Aztecs.

The Monastery of La Purísima
Shortly after the Spanish conquest, in 1527, the Franciscans built a primitive mission of rude adobe atop the earthen mound of a former temple here. With the completion of the Arcos de Zempoala, a famous aqueduct which brought water over 45 kilometers from Zempoala, Otumba prospered as an agricultural and trading center.
   The present stone monastery replaced the early mission sometime after 1550, possibly supervised by Fray Francisco de Tembleque, the builder of the aqueduct. Although the fabric of the monastery has suffered over the centuries from neglect and thoughtless alteration, happily much of the original stone carving has survived. 

Otumba, the west doorway

In contrast to the elegant Renaissance style of nearby Acolman, most of the stonecarving at Otumba exemplifies the classic early Franciscan style in Mexico—a combination of late Isabelline Gothic, Hispano-Moorish and Romanesque motifs, unified in appearance by the traditional tequitqui sculptural techniques of the native Indian artisans who actually built and ornamented the mission.

 

In contrast to the blandly resurfaced west front, the west porch is densely textured with relief carving. Sinuous vines and bands of fleurs-de-lis rosettes rise between the slender colonettes that divide the broad triple jambs of the doorway. 

Bulbous "basket" reliefs and pearl moldings head the columns, the outermost of which has been transformed into a Franciscan knotted cord that extends upwards to form a generous alfiz above the doorway. Narrow relief panels of rosettes and vines run along the imposts and continue over the flattened arch of the doorway.

Cord motifs and eight petaled rosettes also frame the choir window surmounted by another knotted cord alfiz.

The Convento
Although the cloister and much of the convento are now in ruins, the imposing double arcade of the grand portería has been restored, retaining its later 16th century Renaissance style. 

In common with several other early monasteries, the portería also housed an open chapel. Its broad, raised archway, framed and ornamented in the same style as the west porch, with rosettes, carved foliage and twisting vines, can be seen recessed into the rear wall behind the larger center arch of the arcade. 

© Niccolò Brooker

The ample convento entrance, at the north end of the portería, is another close relative of the church doorway, its wide triple jambs again carved with narrow colonettes and rich foliar decoration. Medallions of the Five Wounds and passages of mudéjar strap work alternate with thistle-bearing vines around the arch.

 

convento entry details by ELTB

 

Several other doorways inside the convento are also intricately carved with curling, spiky foliage.

text © 2018 Richard D. Perry. 

 images ©1986 by the author, except where noted.  all rights reserved