The Rome of the Americas

The city of Puebla was founded in 1531.  Unlike many cities in Mexico, it was not built upon the site of a pre-Hispanic city, but was laid out from scratch by the Spanish.  According to legend, Bishop Julián Garcés had a dream in which angels traced out a city on the place where Puebla is today.  He took the dream as a divine message and established the city which he named Puebla de los Angeles.  To this day the city is nicknamed "City of Angels".

The city became a very prosperous city on the trade route between the Gulf of Mexico and Mexico City, and was the second largest city in the colony.  Because it was settled by colonists from Spain, it was devotely Catholic.  The diocese of Puebla was even richer than Mexico City.  Churches, monasteries and convents proliferated, and today it seems that wherever you are in the historic center of the city there is a church tower (or two or three) within sight. 

Here are a few of the churches that we saw during our wanderings around the city.  (Keep in mind, we did not even visit this time around the most spectacular church in the city... the Church of Santo Domingo with its incredibly ornate Rosary Chapel.  If you click on "Puebla" under the list of labels, you will find a post from a couple years ago entitled "Sunday Afternoon in Puebla" with some photos of that chapel.)

A couple blocks away from the main plaza of Puebla is the church referred to as "La Companía" which was the headquarters of the Jesuit order (The Company of Jesus) in Puebla.  This structure is the second Jesuit church to stand on the site.  It was completed in 1600.

One of the prettiest churches that we came across was the Church of San Jerónimo which adjoined the convent of the Hieronymite order of nuns.  We walked in just as a wedding was concluding.

At the rear you can see the screens behind which the cloistered nuns could observe mass.

Across the street is the Church of San Juan de Letrán.  Its interior is relatively austere.

Down the street a block, the Church of La Limpia Concepción was also part of a convent.

The Church of San Pedro

At the edge of the historic center is the neighborhood of Analco which is one of the oldest parts of the city.  The Church of Santo Angel originally dates back to 1560, although the present church appears to be of later construction.

There is a small chapel in the atrium of that church.  What caught my eye, however, is the mountain in the background just to the right of the chapel.

The mountain is La Malinche, a volcanic peak which is the sixth highest peak in Mexico.  This was the first time that I had seen snow on top of the mountain, a result of last week´s cold front.

The most important of all the city´s churches is, of course, the Cathedral of Puebla.  

The Cathedral was begun in 1575 and completed in 1768.  Its bell towers, nearly 230 feet high, are the tallest in Mexico.

The main altar was designed by Manuel Tolsá, the Spanish-born architect and sculptor who built many buildings in Mexico City during the late colonial period.

These are just a FEW of the many churches in the city of Puebla, the Rome of the Americas.