San Juan Capistrano Mission, California

 

This will be my first Californian post and I am stretching the "Baroque Church" label to the utmost!! I came across Junipero Serra in Palma, on the island of Majorca. A huge Franciscan Church with his statue outside. This made a big impression on me as I had no idea before then of his significance and legacy. 

Statue of Junipero Serra in Palma, Majorca.

The "Jewel of the Californian Missions ; containing the oldest building in California and the only place we know Fr. Junipero Serra will have said Mass - I have to post about San Juan Capistrano! Some years ago we hoped to visit California but had to cancel through ill health. May be one day. I'm fortunate in having scooped up several excellent books including Roger G.Kennedy's Mission : the history and architecture of the Missions of North America. Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1993. With these and the Wikipedia photos and You Tube videos it's getting like I've been there.

Our target today was not the first Mission in California, and how come there were Missions anyway? As early as 1542 Juan Rodrigo Cabrillo had explored the Californian coast, and Sebastian Vizvaino had landed at the future San Diego in 1602. However California was viewed as the far frontier by the Spanish Crown, and despite pressure from the Franciscans and Jesuits, no great efforts were made toward colonisation.  The news that Russian fur traders and explorers had established a presence on the Farallon Islands (near present day San Francisco) may have led to fears of Russian ambition. I have always been mystified why Russians were on the west coast of America  when they had the huge Siberian spaces... Anyway, King Carlos III of Spain at last decided California should be a priority and Don Gaspar de Portola as new Governor of Baja California and Fr Junipero Serra (Franciscan)as supervisor of newly created Missions were set to work. What a dainting task! The big change now being introduced was that no longer would Missions be contolled by religious orders, but under military control. As we saw in earlier posts the Jesuits were in charge in the Paraguay Missions. Now the Jesuits were out of the picture  the Franciscans would lead the spiritual side of Missions in California. 

The stone Church ruin

It was considered a long way between San Diego and San Gabriel so a small party led by Fr Fermin Lasuen founded a new Mission at Capistrano on 30 Oct 1775.A  week later it had to be abandoned because of  serious attacks by Indians. Fr Lasuen buried the four heavy bells they had brought and retired to San Diego. The following year Fr Serra refounded it on 1 November 1776. The following year an adobe  Church 120 feet long and 17 feet wide was dedicated and bells placed in a tower in 1791. Fr Serra died in 1784 and by 1794 a bigger church was needed The expert Mexican stonemason Isador Aguilar, was put in charge of its building. It was to be a Latin cross with nave and trnsepts. The roof was to be made up of 6 domes. Stone for the construction had to obtained from local creek beds and valley gullies and dragged up to the site by the local  population. The Church took 9 years to build and unfortunately Aguilar died 3 years from completion. and this helps to explain mistakes in construction due to inadequate supervision. For example a seventh dome had to be put in to fill the space. The building was 180 feet long 30 feet wide nave with transepts 20 feet each and a 120 foot bell tower visible  from 10 miles away. It was a fantastic achievement and  celebrated with all civil, military and religious dignitaries with a two day fiesta in September 1806. Then disaster struck in December 1812 with a major earthquake causing the vault to split, the ceiling to collapse on the congregation and 40 deaths. The stone sanctuary with its dome remained and many fine wooden statues and the old stone baptismal font along with candlesticks, vestments and pictures, No attempt was made to rebuild the huge church and the original small church used by Serra was reused. In 1813 the bells from the big church were installed in the still existant bell wall.

The bell wall

Economically the Mission was successful with a population of 1361 in 1812.Barley, maize and wheat were the main crops with a peak of 14,562 bushels in 1818. grown. It owned 22,000 cattle and 8 ranches in 1818. In particular there was a thriving trade in hides and tallow for candles and soap.In 1783 the Mission produced the first wine in Alta California. 

These activities were disrupted in 1818 by the pirate Hippolyte Bouchard who raided the Mission. The inmates took refuge elsewhere but the local military nelected to prevent considerable damage to property and theft, especially wine barrels. Decline set in with Mexican Governor Echeandia's decree  that the Indians had no longer any obligation to follow the orders of the Franciscans. In 1833 Governor Figueroa made Capistrano a pueblo of free Indians. This might have worked if legal safeguards had been built in to protect the rights of the Indians. They were still subject to control of civil administrators whose salaries were even paid by them. They soon lost their property, crops and livestock as these inevitably went to white settlers, a process completed  by 1845. Part of the mission was returned to the Church in 1865 but the buildings continued to deteriorate over the rest of century. 

Serra Church 

It was Fr John O'Sullivan who was key in reviving the condition of the Mission from 1910 to 1933. In particular he restored the original little church that had been a granary and store room for many years. He helped to arrange the Spanish golden altar, a gift of the late Archbishop Cantwell of Los Angeles. 

The Mission today

So we come to today's picturesque ruin with its vine-covered walls and pretty flower-filled gardens and famous swallows. Every 19 March,St Joseph's Day, thousands of swallows congregate here - sometimes delayed by storms - the bulk usually around the day. They are cliff swallows and build their nest of saliva dn mud against he broken arches of the Mission.

plan view of the Mission San Juan Capistrano complex (including the footprint of the "Great Stone Church") prepared by architectural historian Rexford Newcomb in 190816.^[34]

The plan above shows the Guard House U, visitors' rooms C  in the Plaza, the ruins of he stone church, and in the Patio the Serra Church B and Wine room M, Hides and Tallow N Carpentry amd Wood weaving O and P, Soap making R. The bell wall at the side of the stone church ruin contains  four new bells cast in 2000 in Arle-Rixtel in the Netherlands with moulds made from the originals. These originals are now displayed right by where they originally hung in the bell tower of the stone church.

The Serra original Church has brightly coloured native ceiling  motifs.In the sanctuary the altar reredos is much more ornate than any original  which may have occupied the space. The reredos came over from Spain in 1906 to go into a Cathedral in Los Angeles. Never used there it was given to our Church   and installed 1922-4. It is 17th century and had to be trimmed down in order to  fit the space. A more than worthy home.

Finally to really get the atmosphere with no text - just music here is a great video!

Mission San Juan Capistrano video tour presented by California Missions Foundation. Video courtesy Cultural Global Media archives and music provided by our esteemed CMF member Dr. Craig Russell and vocal ensemble Chanticleer.

 

St Francis of Assisi Church, Goa

St Francis of Assisi Church, Goa (Wickipedia)

I have been inspired to include this Church through the great photos in the book Goa : cultural patters, edited by Saryu Doshi, Marg Publications, Bombay 1983 which I bought years ago in Burnham Market, Norfolk. 

The Franciscans got to Goa in 1517 and soon built a small chapel dedicated to the Holy Spirit. During the century it was enlarged but  by the 1650s was in a poor state of repair. In 1661 it was pulled down and a larger grander replacement was built using laterite blocks covered with lime plaster. Only the facade   and the two octagonal towers in Portuguese Manueline style were kept. The main door frame has the customary exuberant Manualine look..

The interior is a single nave with barrel vaulting and three side chapels on each side.   There are floral frescos in the vault and wall surafces. The main altar dominates with the statue of St Francis kneeling before Christ  in the centre and flanked by paintings of events in his life. There is much fine wood carving which reminds me of the superb examples in Porto.

The original adjoining convent now houses the Archaeological Museum of Goa. 

Basilica of Bom Jesus, Goa

 

I haven't been to Goa, but I had picked up that it is different from the usual images we see of India : Rajasthan, Taj Mahal, Benares, Delhi. This is because it stems from the Portuguese incursion here as far back as 1510,  first set up by Alfonso de Albuquerque.  Yes, it was Portuguese and only became part of India by force in 1961. It's now a popular holiday resort with fine beaches, distinctive cuisine and music merging Portuguese fado with lilting Konkani folk songs. Colonial mansions, Hindu temples and white-washed churches mingle together. 

But it is St Francis Xavier that has brought me to Goa. The great Jesuit missionary to the Far East began his work in Italy but was commisioned by Dom Joao II of Portugal to go to Goa. He arrived there in 1542  working tirelessly  ministering to locals, both the sick and those losing faith. Many of these were pearl fishers,  converted several years earlier.  After travelling and preaching in Malaysia he came back to Goa in 1548 working and developing the  College of Faith here for training priests.Goa was therefore a crucial place for the Jesuits and for the Christian mission in the Far East.

 Although Francis died just off the coast of China in December 1552 his body was returned to Goa in March 1554  and taken to the Jesuit College of St Paul. Canonisation came in 1622 and in 1624 his remains were moved to the Basilica of Bom Jesus. By then the Counter Reformation of the Catholic Church was in full swing and the Jesuits and the King of Portugal both wanted to gain from the popularity of a developing cult of Francis Xavier. To consolidate their hold on power in Goa, Portuguese Viceroys of Goa went through a ritual whereby they laid down their staff of command to ask for Xavier's blessing and protection. The Basilica thereby became a centre of political power in Goa as well as spiritual pilgrimage through the shrine of Francis Xavier.

The Basilica today

 The suppression of the Jesuits and their expulsion in 1773 did not end the importance of the Basilica. In 1782 the state arranged the first exposition of the saint's remains - perhaps to reassure locals that  the Jesuits had not removed  the body to Rome! (Remember,  part of his right arm was already in the Gesu Church in Rome). In 1834 the other missionary orders were expelled and Old Goa with its churches was neglected - for examble the large Church of Augustine  in 1842 collapsed and there is only part of a tower left. Old Goa was no longer the capital of the little state after it moved about 10 kilometers to Panjim in 1843. The Basilica survived though and in 1859 the second exposition of the saint was organised by the state. Immensely popular with locals, this has become a regular event and attracted the faithful from far and wide. Today millions visit every 10 years when there is an exposition. 

The basilica was built by the Jesuits 1594-1605 as part of their residence. It was more modest than the Se (Cathedral) or St Augustine (Augustinian).  It was built of soft flaky local laterite stone to be whitewashed with lime plaster;  but when it came to the facade Bassein basalt was used. This could be carved. It is in three tiers vertically and horizontally. Ionic columns on the first or ground tier, Doric on the second and Corinthian  on the third. The pilasters that divide the tiers vertically are of laterite and were to be plastered and whitewashed. In the 1950s the church was restored by Baltasar Castro and the plaster was removed  so that the laterite was exposed throughout. Perhaps the intention was to make it look more ancient. The problem now is that the stonework is porous and deteriorating and at some point will require urgent attention. Replastering is controversial. 

The whole exterior had a major impact on other churches being built subsequently in Goa. It was like the protoype. However local patrons and local artisans made their own contributions with each successive building so the outcome in Goan churches was far from simple Portuguese church lookalikes.

Internally there is a balcony over the entrance for a choir. 

The main nave and side aisles are 50 metres by 23 metres and the chancel 15 by 15 metres. The nave has a wooden ceiling and the chancel a coffered barrel vault.

The chapel of St Francis Xavier contains a marble tomb, donated by Cosimo III de Medici, Duke of Tuscany in 1652. The remains of St Francis are in a glass container encased in a silver casket made by Goan silversmiths  1636/7  blending Italian and Indian features. 

The chancel ends with a gilded altar, with St Ignatius in the centre.. No wonder Old Goa was called Goa Dourada (Golden Goa)

This is a link to the Web page for the Basilica.There is comprehensive information. The photos I have used are fropm this Website. I am very grateful for this. 

 If you visit behave! No food, drink, no photos, no mobiles, no shorts and silence. (So different from St Albvans Cathedral...)

St Paul's Church, Macao

 Baroque was the first style of architecture to spread worldwide. It's out of fashion today so this is often forgotten. This spread began in the late 16th century because of the Counter Reformation launched by the Catholic Church and harnessing the amazing energy of the Jesuits - the Papal shock troops. We find Baroque churches particularly in areas discovered and colonised by the Spanish and Portuguese. In the first era of great exploration following Columbus's discovery of America, great rivalry had occurred between Spain and Portugal. The Treaty of Tordesillas (1494) had tried to split the world into two equal zones along a meridian (line of longitude) some 1200 miles west of the Cape Verde Islands. This was fine for America (sort of) but with the spread of discovery to the east new tensions opened up. The Portuguese were the first to reach China, probably near present Hong Kong as early as 1513. 

  China did not come to me quickly as a possible place to find Baroque. I had read that the first recorded  Christian mission to China was during the 7th century Tang dynasty. This died out through persecution in the 9th century and then there were Franciscan missions in the 13th century Yuan dynasty. Then came the Jesuits : St Francis Xavier (1506-1552) considered one of the greatest missionaries since St Paul. After major work in India, he went to Borneo, the Maluku islands, and Japan. His plans to go to China as Apostolic Nuncio were unsuccessful and he fell ill and died in 1552 on the nearby island of Shangchuan 14 km from the mainland of China. 

By 1553 Portuguese traders had warehouses in Macao and in 1555 the Jesuit Belchior Numes Barreto arrived. In 1557 Portugal arranged to lease Macao from China, but it was 1565 before the Jesuits were able  to set up their first house and their first church, St Antony. Around this time the population was around 500. The Jesuit Melchior Carneiro arrived in Macao as Bishop of Japan and China...From 1576-81 he was just Bishop of Macau. An important founding figure his remains are in St Paul's Church, our church being considered here. Near the end of his life, Alessandro Valignano (1539-1606)official  Visitor of the Jesuit Missions in the East visited. He was a key figure in the development of the Church in the East. Realising the importance of enculturisation, including tackling the thorny problem of reading and writing in Chinese. He appointed Michele  Ruggieri (1543-1607) to learn the language. The language spoken by Chinese officials was different (Mandarin) so Ruggiere asked Valignano to get his esteemed friend from his time in Goa, Matteo Ricci, to come to assist. The result was the first Portuguese-Chinese dictionary. It took six years.

A view by Wilhelm Heine in 1854, 

At this time the Jesuit presnce in Macao was still small scale with some single storey houses, a straw made chapel, and small school (1572) for Portuguese traders' children. It was Valignano who was instrumental in the foundation  and development in Macao of the St Paul University College in 1594.

  From 1614 heavy persecution of Christians in Japan meant that the College had to foster and support young Japanese Jesuit students. During the years 1594-1762 theology, Latin, Chinese, Japanese, and seven liberal arts were taught - grammar, rhetoric, dialects, astronomy, arithmetic, geometry and music. It was effectively the cradle of Far East missionaries for Japan, China, Vietnamm, Thailand, Cambodia and more. This ended with the asuppression of the |Jesuits in 1762.

A recent view of the reverse 

side of the facade, 

 

An imaginary reconstruction of the whole building

A fire in 1601 destroyed the original church attached to the College. St Paul's was  built from 1602, and  inaugurated at Christmans 1603. It is beleieved by some that the architect was Carlo Spinola from Genoa. Alessandro Valignano presided at the inauguration. Side entrances, much interior work followed and the facade was added in the 1640s. It became one of the largest churches in Asia. It is recorded that there were 15 fine religious paintings.These may have been done by Chinese or Japanese painters using the Chiaroscuro technique, previously unknown in China. Italian Jesuit painter, Giovanni Nicolao founded a painting school in Macao. A pupil, Jacob Niva, was commissioned by Matteo Ricci to paint The Martyrdom of the Eleven Thousand Virgins (unusual?) and more believably, the  Assumption of the BVM .

The whole facade as it is today

A massive fire caused by a typhoon in January 1835 means that today there is only the facade sitting on a small hill with 68 steps leading up to it. This mighty facade is in five tiers. like a retable and has the the Virgin Mary in the centre of the third tier. 

The Virgin Mary flanked by six angels

It is thought that the Japanese  craftsmen who worked on it were either Jesuit converts or Jesuit missionaries expelled from Japan. There are some Asian influences and Chinese inscriptions. For example - the image of the Virgin stepping on a seven-headed hydra (Chinese   characters saying Holy Mother treads  on heads of the dragon). On the same level there is an image of the Garden of Eden and a demoniac figure and a Portuguese ship symbolising the difficult passage through life. There are several guardian Chinese lions.

Above on main tier left to right  : Portuguese ship ; ?; Virgin Mary with 6 angels ;Garden of Eden ; 
Virgin and hydra

Demoniac fugure                                 Portuguese ship

 

A Chinese lion

There were calls to demolish the facade 1990-95 because of the danger of collapse. This would have been a disaster as it is such a popular site and symbol of Macao. Subsequent work has saved the monument and excavations have uncovered the graves of Chinese martyrs. It must be a wonderful sight, which alas I am unlikely to see!

St Gallen Cathedral and Abbey Church, Switzerland

East end exterior by JM Beer built 1760-4

 It is the stupendous Baroque library of St Gallen which draws people here today, but the Benedictine Abbey was established in 747 and its heyday was from the 9th to the 11th centuries. The Romanesque conventual buildings are long gone and instead we have the Baroque splendour of Peter Thumb and others, completed in 1767.The library was Thumb's last major work and filled the last years of his life up to his retirement in 1758. 

The planning history of the  Baroque church is complex.Plans were submitted from 1720 by various architects including Peter Thumb (1681-1766), Caspar Moosbrugger (1656-1723) , Johann Michael Beer I (1696-1780)  J.C. Bagnato (1696-1757) and Johann Michael Beer II (1700-1767).The Chapter at St Gallen decided to keep the existing eastern church as the choir and demolish the western part and creating a new nave.With the demolition of the western church the commission to build the present nave and domed area began in 1755. With stucco and fresco work by Christian Wenzinger.  consecration was in 1760. By then Peter Thumb had retired and when the Chapter changed its mind  and decided to rebuild the east end of the Church, they turned to J.M. Beer I. In December 1760 he provided a plan with  two towers and shallow apse. By 1764 this new choir with towers was built  including stucco work by J.G.and M. Gigl. Reading the building history in Henry-Russell Hitchcock's 'Rococo architecture in Southern Germany'(1968), bought in 1979 I begin to understand the significance of this building. It was the end of a long sequence of attempts at a church with central oval domed area and nave and choir extending almost equally either side. Hitchcock draws comparison with Wren's St Paul's Cathedral in London where the domed area is so dominant even though the choir and nave are both particularly lengthy. 

The interior of the central dome today 

The little video below, of the church outside and inside, is a must ! Make it full screen. It's  as though  you were there!

After the secularisation of the Abbey the church became the Cathedral for the new diocese of St Gallen.There was severe damage to the abbey and church during the the Napoleonic Wars 1798-1803.  Baroque altars were repositioned, and the high altar redesigned by 1810. By 1815 the Baroque western chancel had been replaced by a neo-classical gallery and organ.The interior of the dome had to be repaired causing the loss of the original paintings on the vault, only partially  restored in the 1960s. A  neo Baroque liturgical centre was erected in the 1960s taking up a substantial part of the rotunda. Finally a competition was held in 2008 to redesign the liturgical centre. Caruso St John of London won. I cannot comment without seeing it in person! 

This excellent World Heritage video introduces the history of the Abbey.

The Abbey was famous as a centre of learning with a scriptorium from the mid 8th century. The plan of St Gall from about 820 is the earliest architectural drawing of a monastic complex (see above video). The interior of the Library is a superb example of late Rococo, the work of Peter Thumb, done in his absence 1758-68. Ceiling paintings by Joseph Wannanmacher (1722-80), stucco by the Giglis and cabinet work and marquetry floor by  Gabriel Loser (1701-1785). After the secularisation we are fortunate that it survived to become a scientific lending library and study centre. It is not simply a museum even today. With about 170,000 volumes and 2100 manuscripts, from 8th to 15th centuries. There are beautiful written and illustrated Irish, Carolingian, Ottonian manuscripts  and also examples from the Renaissance. I do not remember the church on my group visit in the 1970s  but the library was astounding even though I did not understand its importance as a collection or its  Rococo magnificence.

San Jose de Laguna Mission, New Mexico

Interior of san Jose ; notice windows on the left, and painting in the nave.  Massachusetts Institute of Technology, photograph by G. E. Kidder Smith

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/

I have been interested in the New Mexican mission in Acoma a long time and shall return later to it and the Spanish missions in New Mexico. However I want to start with the nearby Church in Laguna. The Pueblo revolt  by Native Americans of 1680 was very distructive to the whole area but after the Spanish Reconquest  an offshoot of Acoma was established - a new pueblo village  some 30 miles away at Laguna in the late 1690s. Settlers from Acoma and Zuni and Queres helped to found  it. Like Acoma, it is situated on an outcrop of rock, rising like an island in the land. The houses today still show a fascinating blend of Indian and Spanish architecture. The highest point was used to found the Church of San Jose. much of it built by the local people while they welcomed their  first Priest,  Fray Antonio de Miranda. Unusually the building is of stone covered by adobe and now regularly whitewashed. 

The interior is 105 by 22 feet There were no arches or dome; as these were quite unknown to Native Americans and they did the building... Kubler 'Art and Architecture in Spain and Portugal and their American dominions 1500-18800' waxes lyrical about the building : in particular about a transverse window spanning the nave at the chancel  between the roof levels of the nave and the sanctuary thereby producing what can be called a Baroque light effect.  There may have been a clerestory originally that was dispensed with when the roof was reordered at a later date. I note there are now two windows high up on the left wall of the nave and a prominent window over the entrance on the west wall and these do create some light.  Nevertheless the interior was felt by Fray Dominguez to be "very gloomy" in 1776!!  

Chncel in 1923 by Laura Gilpin : alas the
side walls have since been whitewashed.

Early in the first decade of the next century an unnamed artist, who we call "the Laguna santero" created the colourful altar screen and sanctuary we know today. It simulates the foliage and scrolls of Spanish artists. A contemporary Fray Jose Pedro Rubi de Celis  Wrote "First, the church of this mission built of stone with baptistery and sacristy. At its main altar is placed a wooden altar screen painted in tempera with delicate colors. Four turned columns and three scallop shells in half relief adorn it. In the principal place it has painted an image of the Most Holy Patriarch St. Joseph, on his right side that of Lord St. John Nepomucene, on the other side that of St. Barbara, and at the summit the Most Holy Trinity. In addition to this, there is at this altar a painting on a frame fit to the shape of the sanctuary serving as a ceiling over the altar. The side walls are adorned with curtains in perspective, painted in colors, which embellish the entire sanctuary. The table that serves for celebrating [Mass] has its elk-hide frontal on very solid frames and well painted." 

A painting of St Joseph still dominates the reredos. An earlier one presented to the Church in Acoma by King Charles II was for a time kept here. This caused a dispute that went on for several years which ended up in the Supreme Court in 1857. 

There were adjacent buildings for a small community of friars in the 18th century. These decayed over the 19th century and were later used as community rooms until they were returned to the Church to become accomodation for the priest.

In the 1870s the church was nearly pulled down, due to lack of use and the hostility of local Protestants. The then sacristan, Hami, faced down the Protestants and through several generations the Church has survived and is still a parish church in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Gallup, and visited by tourists. Alas I doubt that I will get there....it is a special place.

For a very interesting article by Suizanne Hammons written 9 April 2014 read here.

                        "Misión San José de Laguna," in World History Commons, https://worldhistorycommons.org/mision-san-jose-de-laguna [accessed November 10, 2025

Rosario Chapel, Santo Domingo, Puebla

Very short introductory video

 I have longed to post about this remarkable chapel - the first to be dedicated to the Virgin of the Rosary in New Spain, Built between 1650 and 1690 it has been called the House of Gold and an 8th wonder of the world. In 1979 Pope John Paul II called the Reliquary of America.Suprisingly both Pal Kelemen 'Baroque and Rococo in Latin America (1951) and Sacheverell Sitwell  'Southern Baroque revisited ' (1967) seem to have missed it in their pathfinding visits. The use of gold leaf and stucco relief is overwhelming, particularly in the dome with 60 angelic figures.Each figure is different, some head only, some whole body. The complex interweaving  of three dimensional white and gold stucco strapwork incorporates leaves, birds, scrolls, grapes, angels and ribbons, covering walls, dome and vestibule  to an unequalled amount. The stucco work uses plaster made of flour, egg white and water then overlaid with gold leaf. The resulting strap framework spreads over sculptural and painting elements and sometimes spills over into the framed pictues of the Virgin, virtues (faith hope and charity), saints, and Archangels bearing Mary' s titles. 

High altar and view into the drum and dome.

The prototype was likely the chapel of San Isidro in San Andres Church, Madrid, which was begun in 1657 and developed several times later in the century. The stucco strap-work motifs in the vaults may come from drawings and engravings of examples in the Netherlands. Debates have been had about the provenance of the decoration. How far can we see American Indian influence? I do not feel qualified to say. It seems safe to say there are Castilian, Andalusian, Italian and Netherlands antecedents but these were in turn used and developed by indigenous workers. 

The Dominicans arrived in Puebla in 1526 but the chapel was only begun in 1650. It was the brainchild of Friar Juan de Cuenca  to teach the people how to pray the Holy Rosary. It fell to Friar Agustin Hernandez and Friar Diego de Gorozpe to complete the long arduous work. The consecration on 16 April 1690 was a great day in Puebla coinciding with foundation date of the city. Celebrations went on for 9 days with sermons, Masses and jubilant public events each day. Friar Gorozpe spoke in a sermon of the chapel being like a musical ensemble, with all architectural units and motifs taking part - emphasised by a lunette above the choir with many instruments, conducted from above, by God the Father. 

The floor plan of the chapel is based on a Latin cross with short transepts and shallow apse. The nave is in three sections with barrel vault and lunette windows.The narrow dome over the crossing with drum has windows above and in the dome iteself to provide illumination for the great cypress tree style 17th century altar by Lucas Pinto  below. The altar  is in two stages with 12 plain columns below and 12 spiral decorated ones above made of Mexican alabaster. The nave walls have large paintings in chiaroscuro style by Jose Rodriguez Carnero (1649-1725) of the Joys of the Virgin. The paintings in the transept , and apse are also by Carnero. In the left transept is the Assumption, with polychrome statues of St John and St Matthew and above  these surrounded by flowers and leaves St Elizabeth and St Joseph. In the right transept the Coronation of the Virgin with statues of St Mark and St Luke.and above St Joachim and St Anne  in the foliage. The apse contains the painting of the Glorification of the Rosary: Mary with crown of roses. 

This chapel is important because the ornate stucco work begun here was continued in the churches of Oaxaca. It has undergone major restoration 1967-71 sponsored by the Mary Street Jenkins Foundation.