Construction
cathedral in Mexico City
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The Metropolitan Cathedral of the Assumption of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary into Heaven (Spanish: Catedral Metropolitana de la Asunción de la Bienaventurada Virgen María a los cielos), also commonly called the Mexico City Metropolitan Cathedral, is the cathedral church of the Catholic Archdiocese of Mexico. It is situated on top of the former Aztec sacred precinct near the Templo Mayor on the northern side of the Plaza de la Constitución (Zócalo) in the historic center of Mexico City. The cathedral was built in sections from 1573 to 1813 around the original church that was constructed soon after the Spanish conquest of Tenochtitlan, eventually replacing it entirely. Spanish architect Claudio de Arciniega planned the construction, drawing inspiration from Gothic cathedrals in Spain.
Due to the long time it took to build it, just under 250 years, virtually all the main architects, painters, sculptors, gilding masters and other plastic artists of the viceroyalty worked at some point in the construction of the enclosure. The long construction time also led to the integration of a number of architectural styles in its design, including the Gothic, Baroque, Churrigueresque, Neoclassical styles, as they came into vogue over the centuries. It furthermore allowed the cathedral to include different ornaments, paintings, sculptures and furniture in its interior. The project was a point of social cohesion, because it involved so many generations and social classes, including ecclesiastical authorities, government authorities, and different religious orders.
The influence of the Catholic Church on public life has meant that the building was often the scene of historically significant events in New Spain and independent Mexico. These include the coronations of Agustin I and his wife Ana María Huarte in 1822 by the President of the Congress, and Maximilian I and Empress Carlota of Mexico as emperors of Mexico by the Assembly of Mexican notables; the preservation of the funeral remains of the aforementioned first emperor; burial, until 1925, of several of the independence heroes, such as Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla and José María Morelos; the disputes between liberals and conservatives caused by the separation of the church and the state in the Reform; the closure of the building in the days of the Cristero War; and the celebrations of the bicentennial of independence, among others.
The cathedral faces south. It is approximately 59 metres (194 ft) wide by 128 metres (420 ft) long, with a height of 67 metres (220 ft) to the tip of the towers. It consists of two bell towers, a central dome, and three main portals. It has four façades which contain portals flanked with columns and statues. It has five naves consisting of 51 vaults, 74 arches and 40 columns. The two bell towers contain 25 bells. The tabernacle, adjacent to the cathedral, contains the baptistery and serves to register the parishioners. There are five large, ornate altars, a sacristy, a choir, a choir area, a corridor and a capitulary room. Fourteen of the cathedral's sixteen chapels are open to the public. Each chapel is dedicated to a different saint or saints, and each was sponsored by a guild. The chapels contain ornate altars, altarpieces, retablos, paintings, furniture and sculptures. The cathedral is home to two of the largest 18th-century organs in the Americas. There is a crypt underneath the cathedral that holds the remains of many former archbishops. The cathedral has approximately 150 windows.
Over the centuries, the cathedral has suffered damage. A fire in 1967 damaged a significant part of the cathedral's interior. The restoration work that followed uncovered a number of important documents and artwork that had previously been hidden. Although a solid foundation was built for the cathedral, the soft clay soil it is built on has been a threat to its structural integrity. Dropping water tables and accelerated sinking caused the structure to be added to the World Monuments Fund list of the 100 Most Endangered Sites. Restoration working beginning in the 1990s stabilized the cathedral and it was removed from the endangered list in 2000.
After the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire, and after Hernán Cortés returned from exploring what is today Honduras, the conquistadors decided to build a church on the site of the Templo Mayor (or specifically, just southwest of the former temple) of the Aztec City of Tenochtitlan in order to consolidate Spanish power over the newly conquered territory. There is evidence of the existence of a great major temple dedicated to the god Quetzalcoatl, a temple dedicated to the god Huītzilōpōchtli, a temple dedicated to Tōnatiuh and other minor buildings. The architect Martín de Sepúlveda was the first director of the project between 1524 and 1532, while Juan de Zumárraga was the first bishop of the episcopal see in the New World. The cathedral of Zumárraga was located in the northeastern part of what is now the cathedral. It had three naves separated by Tuscan columns, the central ceiling had intricate engravings made by Juan Salcedo Espinosa and gilded by Francisco de Zumaya and Andrés de la Concha. The main door was probably Renaissance style. The choir had 48 ceremonial chairs made by hand by Adrián Suster and Juan Montaño in pinus ayacahuite wood. For the construction, they used the stones of the destroyed temple of the god Huītzilōpōchtli, god of war and principal deity of the Aztecs. In spite of everything, this temple was soon considered insufficient for the growing importance of the capital of the Viceroyalty of New Spain. This first church was elevated to a cathedral by King Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor and Pope Clement VII according to the bull of 9 September 1534 and, later, named Metropolitan by Pope Paul III in 1547.
This small, poor church, vilified by all the chroniclers who judged it unworthy of such a famous new city, rendered its services well that badly for long years. Soon it was ordered that a new temple be erected, proportionate sumptuousness to the greatness of the colony more, but this new factory encountered so many obstacles for its beginning, with so many difficulties for its continuation, that the old cathedral saw passing in its narrow sumptuous ceremonies of the viceroyalty; and only when the fact that motivated them was of great importance would he prefer another church, like that of San Francisco, to raise in its huge chapel of San José de los Indios the burial mound for the funeral ceremonies of Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor.
Seeing that the conclusion of the new church was long, its factory was already beginning, in 1584 it was decided to completely repair the Old Cathedral, which would certainly be little less than ruinous, to celebrate in it the Third Mexican Provincial Council.
The church was a little longer than the front of the new cathedral; its three naves were not 30 meters wide and were covered, the central one with a step-scissors armour, those on the sides with horizontal beams. In addition to the puerta del Perdón door had another call puerta de los Canónigos door, and perhaps a third was left to the Placeta del Marqués. Years later, the cathedral was small for its function. In 1544, the ecclesiastical authorities had already ordered the construction of a new and more sumptuous cathedral.
The cathedrals of Jaén and Valladolid inspired that of Mexico City.
Almost all the American cathedrals of this first Renaissance period follow the model of that of Jaén, whose first stone was laid in 1540. With a rectangular plan and, at most with the main chapel octagonal, are the cathedrals of Mexico City, Puebla ... (...) It was mainly inspired by the Cathedral of Jaén in 1540, with a rectangular plan and a flat chevet, although it is probable that it was also seduced by the Herrerian model of that of Valladolid, the relationship of the Valladolid Cathedral, projected in 1580, with the [Hispanic] American cathedrals has not been sufficiently taken into account.
— Extracted from El Arte Hispanoamericano (1988).
In 1552, an agreement was reached whereby the cost of the new cathedral would be shared by the Spanish Crown, the Comendadores and the Indians under the direct authority of the Archbishop of New Spain. The initial plans for the foundation of the new cathedral began in 1562, as part of the project for the construction of the work, then archbishop Alonso de Montúfar would have proposed a monumental construction composed of seven naves and based on the design of the Seville Cathedral; a project that, according to Montúfar himself, would take 10 or 12 years. The weight of a work of such dimensions in a subsoil of swampy origin would require a special foundation. Initially, cross beams were placed to build a platform, which required high costs and constant draining, in the end this project would be abandoned not only for the aforementioned cost, but for the floods suffered by the city center. It is then that, supported by indigenous techniques, solid wooden logs are injected at great depth, about twenty thousand of these logs in an area of six thousand square meters. The project is reduced from the original seven naves to only five: one central, two processional and two lateral for the 16 chapels. The construction began with the designs and models created by Claudio de Arciniega and Juan Miguel de Agüero, inspired by the Spanish cathedrals of Jaén and Valladolid.
In 1571, with some delay, the viceroy Martín Enríquez de Almanza and the archbishop Pedro Moya de Contreras placed the first stone of the present church. The cathedral began to be built in 1573 around the existing church which was demolished when the works advanced sufficiently to house the basic functions of the church.
The work began with a north–south orientation, contrary to that of most cathedrals, due to the waterfalls of the subsoil that would affect the building with a traditional east–west orientation, decision taken 1570. First the chapter house and the sacristy were built; the construction of the vaults and the naves took a hundred years.
The beginning of the works was met with a muddy and unstable terrain that complicated the works, because of this, the Tezontle and the Chiluca Stone were favored as building materials in several areas, on the quarry, as these are lighter. In 1581, the walls began to be erected and in 1585 the works began in the first chapel, at that time the names of the stonemasons who worked on the work were: in the chapels were carved by Juan Arteaga and the niches Hernán García de Villaverde, who also worked on the Toral pillars whose mediums were sculpted by Martín Casillas. In 1615, the walls reached half its total height. The works of the interior began in 1623 by the sacristy, and the early church was demolished at its conclusion. What is now the vestry was where Mass was conducted after the first church was finally torn down. On 21 September 1629, the works were interrupted by the flood suffered by the city, in which the water reached two meters in height, causing damage in the main square, today called Plaza del Zócalo, and other parts of the city. Due to the damage, a project was started to build the new cathedral in the Tacubaya hills, west of the city but the idea was discarded, and the project continued at the same location, under the direction of Juan Gómez de Trasmonte, the interior was finished and consecrated in 1667.
The archbishop Marcos Ramírez de Prado y Ovando made the second dedication on 22 December 1667, the year in which the last vault was closed. The date of consecration, (lacking, at that time, of bell towers, main façade and other elements built in the 18th century), the cost of construction was equivalent to 1 759 000 pesos. This cost was covered in good part by the Spanish kings Philip II, Philip III, Philip IV and Charles II. Annexes to the central core of the building would be added over the years the Seminary College, the Chapel of the Animas, and the buildings of the Tabernacle and the Curia.
In 1675, the central part of the main façade was completed, the work of the architect Cristóbal de Medina Vargas, which included the figure of the Assumption of Mary, the title to which the cathedral is dedicated, and the sculptures of James the Great and Andrew the Apostle guarding it. During the remainder of the 17th century, the first body of the east tower was built, by the architects Juan Lozano and Juan Serrano. The main portal of the building and portals on the east side were built in 1688 and that of the west in 1689. The six buttresses that support the structure on the side of its main facade and the bottoms that support the vaults of the main nave were completed.
During the 18th century little was done to advance in the completion of the construction of the cathedral; largely because, now completed in its interior, and handy for all the ceremonies that were offered, there had not the urgent need to continue working on what was missing.
Although the work had in fact been suspended, some works in the interior continued; by 1737 it was the master builder Domingo de Arrieta. He made, in the company of José Eduardo de Herrera, master of architecture, the stands that surround the choir. In 1742 Manuel de Álvarez, master of architecture, ruled with Herrera himself about the presbytery project presented by Jerónimo de Balbás.
In 1752, on 17 September, a cross of iron, with more than three varas, with its vane, was placed on the crown of the lantern tower of this church, engraved on one side and on the other side the prayer of the Sanctus Deus, and in the middle of it a fourth-by-fourth oval, in which a wax of Agnus was placed on one side with its window and on the other side a sheet in which Saint Prisca, lawyer of the rays, was sculpted. The ear of the cross is of two varas, and all its weight is of fourteen arrobas; it is nailed to a quarry base.
In 1787, the architect José Damián Ortiz de Castro was appointed, after a competition in which it imposed the projects of José Joaquín García de Torres and Isidro Vicente de Balbás, to direct the construction works of the bell towers, the main facade and the dome. For the construction of the towers, the Mexican architect Ortiz de Castro designed a project to make them effective against earthquakes; a second body that looks piercing and a bell-shaped finishing. His direction in the project continued until his death in 1793. When he was replaced by Manuel Tolsá, architect and sculptor driver of the Neoclassical, who arrived in the country in 1791. Tolsá is in charge of completing the work of the cathedral. He reconstructs the dome that was low and disproportionate, designs a project that consists of opening a larger ring on which builds a circular platform, to lift from there a much higher roof lantern. Integrates the torches, statues and balustrades. He crown the facade with figures symbolizing the three theological virtues (faith, hope and charity).
The main facade of the cathedral faces south. The main portal is centered in the main facade and is the highest of the cathedral's three portals. Statues of Saint Peter and Paul the Apostle stand between the columns of the portal, while Saint Andrew and James the Just are depicted on the secondary doorway. In the center of this doorway is a high relief of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary, to whom the cathedral is dedicated. This image is flanked by images of Saint Matthew and Saint Andrew. The coat of arms of Mexico is above the doorway, with the eagle's wings outstretched. There is a clock tower at the very top of the portal with statues representing Faith, Hope and Charity, which was created by sculptor Manuel Tolsá.
The west facade was constructed in 1688 and rebuilt in 1804. It has a three-section portal with images of the Four Evangelists. The west portal has high reliefs depicting Jesus handing the Keys of Heaven to Saint Peter.
Text from the Wikipedia article “Mexico City Metropolitan Cathedral”, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.