The Bell towers of the Cathedral of Mexico

The bell towers were practically the last sections of the Cathedral to be built. The first bell tower to be built was the east tower. Each stage of the tower had four sides. If you look at the bottom level of this bell tower, you will see that it has an opening or window for a major bell weigh several tons, and then four other openings for smaller bells.

The ladder connecting the first stage of the bell tower to the second higher level is a wonderful work of workmanship in wood. The stairway is not round in shape but elliptical. The main vertical supports are made out of very tall tree trunks, in one piece and not connections. In fact, there are no nails or bolts in the whole stairway structure. This stairway, for reasons of security, is closed to the public.

The largest bell in this belfry is the Doña Maria, 

Cast in 1575 and was part of the first Cathedral. 

Most of the bells in the east tower are hanging bells,

Where one has to pull the clapper with a rope to ring the bell.

This picture reveals a sad fact about the towers.

They have a capacity for 90 bells,

but they only have 38 bells.

This is a swinging bell. This bell is swung on its axis, 

And finally does a full-flip over.

It is very dangerous to come near the bell,

When it is flipping and swaying. 

It is amazing to watch the bell tollers,

as they literally hang from the rim of the bells,

and the bell picks them up from the ground.

There have been, unfortunately, fatal accidents.

One of the largest bells is Santa Maria de Guadalupe,

Over in the west tower.

 

The red cross marks the "forgiven" bell

The Cathedral of Mexico Ciudad, La Catedral de Mexico: the Underground, el Subterraneo.

When we wrote the dateline of the construction of the Cathedral in this blog a few days ago, we mentioned that in 1573, Archbishop Moya de Contreras organized the groundbreaking ceremony, as they started construction on the second Cathedral, the Cathedral that still prevails. What we did not mention was the magnitude of the challenge that the foundations of the Cathedral represented during the first years of the construction, and the ingenious methods these architects developed.

 

The most important problem at hand was that the building site, the Grand Tenochtitlan, was not dry land, but something of a manmade landfill, similar to building on the Great Canal in Venice. As we all know, the solution in Venice was to use wood pilings,  very long and strong tree trunks the Venetians brought by water from the forests of Slovenia, Croatia and Montenegro. Afterwards they buried the tip deep into the mud at the bottom of the canal. Yet after so many years, why haven't the pilings rotten, like the pilings of some many piers we see close to the sea?

The view from the Piazza San Marco towards the island of La Giudeca, Venice

 

The trick in Venice was that the pilings are so deep that the wood never comes in contact with oxygen, and therefore cannot rot. On the contrary, with so much contact with mineralized water, the pilings tend to petrify over time.

Estela, my wife, standing on the balcony of the Violino d Oro Hotel overlooking the canal in Venice

The Aztecs had faced this problem when they built the Great Tenochtitlan decades before the conquest. The problem was even more acute in Xochimilco, where even today, the residents live not only on the lake shore, but practically on top of the lake. At the point, the Aztecs found a type of tree they not only does not rot in water, it requires water so as not to rot...the Ahuejote, a willow tree that grows in central and southern Mexico.

Inspecting 400 year old Ahuejote, the wooden pilings underneath the Cathedral of Mexico

Last April, we took a group of 7 adults, down inside a dig, that was done several years ago, to outset the sinking of one of the corners of the Cathedral, that was sinking quicker than the other three corners. The group of architects corrected the problem, but discovered some long forgotten secrets on the construction of the Cathedral...the ahuejotes or wooden pilings the XVI century Spanish architects used to build a solid foundation.

The Ahuejote was not the only discovery the architects made. They discovered two pyramids that had been forgotten...the Pyramid of the Wind and the Pyramid of the Sun, as well as the glifo, showing the four cardinal points, and the fifth, which is the zenith.

 

The ruins of an minor Aztec Pyramid buried and forgotten for almost 500 years.

The glyph or glifo showing the four cardinal points and the center point or zenith

As we changed our angle of view, the polychromatic coloring of the Glyph changed tones.

As we continue to change our angle of view, the tones of the Glyph also change.

A wooden Ahuejote is anchored in the buried pyramid to support the foundations of the Cathedral

Hydraulic jacks used to correct the sinking of the fourth corner of the Cathedral 

 



Another hydraulic jack used in correcting the sinking corner of the Cathedral

 

Our expedition came to a startling conclusion. The hydraulic jacks you see above were not required because the ancient ahuejotes no longer were up to the task. The ahuejotes did start to rot over the last 40 years, but not because they were exposed to water, but to the contrary, because of the lack of humidity in the subsoil of Mexico City, that over the past generations has exhausted its well waters. The question remains whether the hydraulic jacks can last as long as the ahuejotes have.

 

Cathedral of the City of Mexico, Catedral de la Ciudad de Mexico: Dateline of Major Events

1519: On November 8th, Cortes meets Moctezuma II, in the Grand Tenochtitlan. In the following days, the Franciscan Missionaries accompanying Cortes pray mass in open spaces near the Templo Mayor, on tables which were set up momentarily for Mass, and after Mass dismounted.

 

1520: After the conquest, Mass is celebrated in the bottom floor of the headquarters of Hernan Cortes.

 

1524: Cortes authorizes the construction of the first Cathedral. This first cathedral was much smaller the second and definite Cathedral, which is the Cathedral we see today. The first cathedral was built in the corner of what today is the outside front atrium of the Cathedral, close to the Monument of Enrico Maertens or Enrico Martinez as he was later called. If you are outside the Cathedral, but in the atrium, and you turn to your left, that is, towards the southwest corner of the atrium, you can see on the ground the place where the columns of the first Cathedral were.

In the southwest corner of the atrium of  the present day Cathedral,

was the site of the first Cathedral and some of its columns still

remain on the site.

 

1555: Fray Toribio de Motolinia complains to the King of Spain that the Cathedral is inappropriate for a city as rich and as important as the City of Mexico.

 

1573: the Archbishop Pedro Moya de Contreras and the Viceroy Martin Enriquez laid down the first stone of the new and definite Cathedral.

 

1625, Feast of Corpus Christi: The viceroy ordered that the first Cathedral be torn down and that all religious ceremonies be conducted in the newly finished Sacristy of the Cathedral.

 

1629 to 1634: The Virgin of Guadalupe Image was brought to the Sacristy of the Cathedral for safekeeping during the terrible series of floods that afflicted Mexico City during those years.

Gilded ribbed vault of the sacristy is the only part of the Cathedral

thar reflects gothic style architecture.

 

 

1667: Great part of the inside of the Cathedral was finished at this point and the Cathedral was dedicated.

 

1690: Cristobal de Villalpando painted his masterpieces in the Sacristy. The Triumph of Religion.

 

 

 

 

1792 to 1813: Manuel Tolsá gave the Cathedral its final touches, including the main dome, adding the buttresses to the outside roof and the series of the three statues of Faith, Hope and Charity at the top of the façade.

The dome of the Cathedral redesigned by Manuel Tolsá.

in a clear move towards Neoclassic Style.

Buttresses reinforcing outside walls of Cathedral

 

1810 to 1820: Our Lady of Good Refuge came to the Cathedral for its Basilica in Naucalpan, and became the symbol of the Royalists troops, just as Morelos had made Our Lady of Guadalupe, the symbol of the soldiers fighting for Independence from Spain. In 1820, as I explained in my post on Our Lady of Good Remedy Shrine last month, she was taken our of the Cathedral, and brought back to her Shrine in Naucalpan.

 

1813, on August 15th: On the Feast of the Ascension of  Our Blessed Lady, the Cathedral was inaugurated, during the war of Independence from Spain.

 

1815 to 1840: The Cathedral was the target of constant acts of pilferage, by the Spanish and by the Independence Forces. During the first years of Independence, the Cathedral continued to be the target of thieves and pilferage, as the young government lacked stability.

 

1840: Madame Fanny Calderón de la Barca, wife of the first official Spanish emissary to the new Independent Nation of Mexico, during her stay, wrote her diary Visit to Mexico, where she describes different liturgical celebrations at the Cathedral

 

1967: A fire destroyed the Altar del Perdon at the entrance, most of the chorus, and a good deal of the two organs.

 

At the entrance of the Cathedral the Altar del Perdon,

with the miraculous Cristo del Veneno.

 

2013 August 15: Estela, my wife, and I went to the Cathedral, entering by the Jubilee Door or main entrance, which is only open on these special occasions. During the following months we assisted to several important events commemorating this 200th anniversary of the finished Cathedral, such as the Voces de la Catedral play which I described in my post yesterday, a festival of Baroque Organ Music and the chiming of all the church bells during a concert.

My wife Estela outside the central Jubile Door of the Cathedral

opened on August 15, 2013 for the 200th anniversary of its completion.

 

The Cathedral of Mexico City, La Catedral de la Ciudad de Mexico and Las Voces de la Catedral

The Cathedral of Mexico City was built on top of the some of the minor pyramids beside the Templo Mayor, or Major Temple of the Aztecs, that we mentioned last week when we wrote a post on the Basilica de La Virgen de los Remedios or Basilica of Our Lady of Good Remedy.

 

The eastern belfry of the Cathedral illuminated after dark.

 

El Templo Mayor was the apex of the Religious and Cultural life of the Aztecs. With the downfall of the great Tenotichlan, a huge vacuum has been created, and Cortes and the Franciscan Missionaries realized that they had to fill this gap with the Christian concept of God and religion.

 

El Altar del Perdón or Altar of Pardon, at the entrance of the Cathedral

 

The building of this Cathedral as we see it today, began almost 50 years after the conquest, in the second half of the XVI century, and took approximately 250 years for its completion, in the year 1813, with the final touches being executed as we stated in an earlier post this week concerning the Church of the True Holy Cross, by Manuel Tolsá.

 

Chorus of the Cathedral and its wrought iron gate made in the Philippian Islands.   

 

To give an adequate introduction to the Cathedral might take me another 250 years. But instead of trying to accomplish the impossible task of giving you the full view of the Cathedral in one post, what I will try to do is to tell you about a theatrical program, sponsored by the Cathedral, called Voces de la Catedral of Voices of the Cathedral, where they gave us an overview of the highlights of the Cathedral, with actors dressed in costumes typical of the XVIII century, and using the Cathedral after dark, as the background and stage for the performance.

 

The vaulted ceiling of the main aisle of the Cathedral

 

The Cathedral has a somber but majestic aspect in the light of day, but after dark, both outside the Cathedral and particularly inside, it seems to adopt spectral and almost a mystical charm. We went to see the a performance during the Third Season of Voces de la Catedral as part of a series of programs commemorating back in 2013, the 200th anniversary of the completion of the Cathedral.

The Chorus of the Cathedral

 

A view inside the sacristy and its collection of paintings.

 

Another angle of the view inside the sacristy as the young ladies dressed in

epoch costumes of the late XVIII century.

 

One of the main mural paintings of the Sacristy of the Cathedral

The Altar of the Kings of the Cathedral

 

The main altar of the Cathedral is titled the Altar of the Kings. Other cathedrals in Spain also have similar altars, likewise dedicated to the holiest monarchs in the history of Christian Europe.

An actor impersonates Manuel Tolsá during the performance, and makes us laugh as he

portrays a typical gifted but very self-centered and conceited architect and sculptor.

Manuel Tolsá boasts about his achievements during this pantomime.

A poster announcing the Third Season of the program Voces de la Catedral.

La Profesa, the Church where Jesuit Novices "professed" their vows.

The Jesuits were not one of the first religious orders or congregations to come to Nueva España to evangelize, to preach the message of Christ to the natives of the New World. Together with Cortes in 1519, came the first Franciscan Missionaries. In the next few years, the Dominicans and the Augustinians followed. At this point, Saint Ignatius of Loyola was commuting between Paris, Rome and Spain, forming his first group of Jesuits.

 

Hernan Cortes and his son were among first to ask the Jesuits to come to Nueva España. However the first Jesuits didn't come to Mexico until the last decades of the XVI Century.

Portrait of the Dolorosa or Our Lady of Sorrows with two of her greatest advocates,

Saint Ignatius of Loyola and Saint Philip Neri, in the Pinacoteca of the Profesa Church

Their first novitiate was here, in downtown Mexico City, one city block west of the Zocalo Plaza where the Cathedral is. As the novitiates lived here and eventually professed their vows here, the Church became known as the La Profesa. This Church was founded by the Jesuits in the early XVII century, but with the edict of Carlos III of Spain in 1767, the Jesuits were forced to leave this church and every other Church and school in the Spanish Colonies and mainland, and forced to leave the country. Almost at the same time, a tragedy befell the Congregation of the Oratory of Saint Felipe Neri, as their Church, some three blocks sourth, in an Earthquake, collapsed.

The façade of the first Church of Saint Felipe Neri,

damaged by an earthquake in the XVIII Century and presently the

Lerdo Tejada Library

The Congregation of Saint Felipe Neri approached the viceroy, and offered to purchase La Profesa, and the viceroy accepted.

 

View of the Church La Profesa from the roof

 of the building on the opposite corner.

 

It was a good match. Few congregations had a better mutual understanding than the Order of  Felipe Neri and the Jesuits. In fact, Saint Ignatius Loyola and Felipe Neri knew each other, and they admired one another. Felipe Neri liked Loyola's concept of his Spiritual Exercises and many of the churches founded or administered by Felipe Neri, or later on by his followers, became houses of retreat, where Spiritual Exercises were held regularly. This was the case in hand with La Profesa Church, that became an important center for Spiritual Exercises, done just like Saint Ignatius had conceived them. Some contemporary Jesuits asked Saint Ignatius Why don't you invite Felipe Neri to become a Jesuit, to which Saint Ignatius replied Felipe has another mission.

 

Another view of the Church of the Profesa,

from the side entrance on Madero Street.

 

La Profesa is not a very large church, but in a certain sense, it is a very rich poor Church. You might think the concept of rich poor is very contradictory, but nonetheless a valid description. Father Cano is presently the pastor of La Profesa, a wonderful and brilliant priest, with a Church full of treasures, which do not belong to the Church, but to la nación, to the country of Mexico, but the expense of the upkeep of all these arts and treasures must come out of his pockets and the meager collections his parishioners give him. This problem is not unique to Mexico. Many churches in Italy endure the same situation.

In the upcoming months, we will talk more about La Profesa and about its Pinacoteca or collection of paintings.