The European Middle Ages in Mexico's architectural tradition

Unlike the medieval revivalist traditions since the 19th and 20th centuries, Mexico may be the only place with authentic medieval romanesque and gothic Christian architecture outside of Europe and the Levant (crusader buildings)



This wonderful book by Luis Weckmann speaks on the wonderful late medieval tradition in early mendicant architecture in Mesoamerica.

In chapter 39 titled "Romanesque, Gothic, and Mudejar Survivals in Religious Architecture", Luis Weckmann explains how there is no clean-cute cutoff between what is considered Medieval and what is considered Renaissance. Some place it at the Fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks in 1453, some at the arrival of Columbus in the Antilles in 1492. The more accurate response would be that it was a gradual process lasting many generations.

It was a process of shifting geopolitical balances that changed the old order of the middle ages. It led to the downfall of the merchant republics of Italy, the lessened critical power of Muslim states in the global system and a diminution of the role of the land-based Silk Road in the global system which had been in place since the age of Roman-Parthian-Han Eurasia.

Getting back to the book, the author argues, citing the work of previous scholars, that not only was there a florescence of Isabelline gothic but also of romanesque forms and artistic techniques and decorations. Indeed the geneology of many of these early "fortress monasteries" lies in southern France and in many parts of late medieval Spain where fortified or otherwise robustly built churches are found with thick, castle-like walls and buttresses, and even mudejar-style crenelations crowning the walls and butresses of many a fortress monastery in Mexico.

The example below is of the Convent of San Nicolas de Tolentino in Actopan, Mexico which dates to the 16th century. Visible is the mudejar style tower (mudejar is an Islamo-Christian style from Spain), and the romanesque/gothic pointed arch, among other decorative features discussed by Weckmann in his chapter. This example is very illustrative of what Weckman writes about in his book but there are many other and equally interesting surviving examples throughout Mesoamerica. This makes renaissance with elements of Gothic, Mudejar, and Romanesque just as autochthonous as baroque. However with baroque, the Spanish-ruled World Island came into its owned, contributing vastly to the baroque canon and indeed being the military and economic driver of the global baroque from the 1600s and the early 1700s. More on that later.

















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