We found a match
Your institution may have access to this item. Find your institution then sign in to continue.
- Title
The Areopagus in New Spain.
- Authors
Morrill, Penny
- Abstract
An eighteenth-century historian compared the vestiges of San Cristóbal, an early sixteenth-century chapel on a hillside in Puebla, to the Areopagus of Athens: "a circle of seats in the open air." In 1591, San Cristóbal was known as an iglesia catedral, a teaching chapel. These descriptive terms provide insight into the earliest structures built by the Franciscans to provide Christian education. They derived their form from classical, mudéjar, and Mesoamerican architectural models. The influence of the Italian Renaissance on pedagogy in Spain and the emphasis on the power of rhetoric also had a profound effect on the chapel builders. The iglesia catedral, configured to amplify the spoken word in the open air, later became a stage for the Mass and for dramatic performances. This paper investigates the innovations that developed around this teaching theater that were then incorporated into monastery complexes throughout Mesoamerica.
- Subjects
PUEBLA (Mexico); NEW Spain; CHAPELS; FRANCISCAN architecture; AREOPAGUS (Ancient Athens); INFLUENCE (Literary, artistic, etc.); FRANCISCANS; HISTORY
- Publication
Sixteenth Century Journal, 2020, Vol 51, Issue 3, p687
- ISSN
0361-0160
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1086/scj5103002