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Abstract
On 25 April 1631, Saint Michael the Archangel appeared to the Indian Diego Lázaro in the town of San Bernabé in Puebla de los Ángeles. This apparition, the sanctuary built in honour of Saint Michael, and the promotion of his cult by Puebla’s episcopacy cemented a connection between the saint and the city. What might have been an obscure occurrence in a tiny Indian town became a crucial event for the development of New Spanish painting. Curiously, while the apparition took place within Puebla’s jurisdiction, it was in Mexico City that the most spectacular Saint Michael imagery was created. Of the six large-scale canvases created at the end of the seventeenth century for the cathedral’s sacristy, four include the image of the archangel, but without reference to Puebla. Conceived in a spirit of competition with Puebla, the decoration of Mexico City’s sacristy offered the chapter an opportunity to elevate its status and document its own connection to the archangel. This paper explains how the tensions between the two rival cities helped create such a rich visual tradition of Saint Michael in New Spain.
Abstract
El día 25 de abril de 1631, el arcángel San Miguel se le apareció al indio Diego Lázaro en la aldea de San Bernabé en Puebla de los Ángeles. Esta aparición, el templo construido en honor a San Miguel, y la promoción del culto del arcángel por el episcopado poblano cementaron por siempre el vínculo entre el santo y la ciudad. Lo que pudo haber quedado como obscuro y provincial evento en la historia de una pequeña aldea indígena se convirtió en un acontecimiento crucial para el desarrollo de la pintura novohispana. Curiosamente, mientras la aparición ocurrió dentro de la jurisdicción poblana, fue en Ciudad México donde la utilización de la imagen de San Miguel alcanzó un nivel espectacular. De los seis grandes lienzos pintados a finales del siglo diecisiete para la sacristía de la catedral capitalina, cuatro cuentan con la imagen del arcángel. Además, a pesar de la conocida historia de la aparición en Puebla, no se hace referencia a esta en los lienzos en la sacristía. Este ensayo propone que el motivo de la transformación de la imagen de San Miguel en Ciudad México, una representación que ignoraba la aparición del arcángel en Puebla, era político. La decoración de la sacristía en la Catedral de Ciudad México le ofrecía una oportunidad al cabildo de este para elevar su propio prestigio episcopal, documentar visualmente su conexión con el arcángel y retar así el control que Puebla ejercía sobre el culto del santo. Este ensayo explica por qué y cómo las tensiones entre estas dos ciudades rivales lograron crear una rica tradición de imágenes de San Miguel en Nueva España.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Michael A. Brown, John A. Gutiérrez, Sofía Sanabrais, and Clara Bargellini. I would also like to thank the anonymous reviewers of the Hispanic Research Journal for their comments and suggestions. This essay is developed from my dissertation, ‘Painting Power: Images of Ecclesiastical Authority in Seventeenth-Century New Spain’ (PhD diss., Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, 2012). A preliminary version of this paper was presented at The Third Triennial Conference of the Association for Latin American Art at the Art Museum of the Americas in Washington, DC, 15–17 March 2013.
Notes
1 For a discussion on the importance of Puebla in the colonial period and the political and economic foundations of public rituals, see F. Ramos, Identity, Ritual, and Power in Colonial Puebla (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2012).
2 Work on the Cathedral of Puebla began in 1575 and concluded with the dedication in 1649. By contrast, construction on Mexico City’s Cathedral began in 1573 but the majority of the cathedral was built in the seventeenth century. It was consecrated for the first time in 1645 and then rededicated in 1667. The façade was incomplete and the belfries were not finished until 1791. Manuel Tolsá finally completed the cathedral in the early 1800s. See R. J. Mullen, ‘Cathedrals: Symbols of Authority’, Architecture and its Sculpture in Viceregal Mexico (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1997), pp. 85–115; and A. G. Diz, ‘La imagen de la catedral en la época colonial’, in El Mundo de las Catedrales Novohispanas, coord. by M. Galí Boadella (Puebla: Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla, 2002), pp. 17–48.
3 Saint Michael is one of seven archangels from the Eighth Angelic Choir of the Third Hierarchy of Angels. In the Bible, four archangels are mentioned by name: Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, and Uriel. Scripture describes them as spiritual beings and intermediaries between God and man. God’s messengers who carry out His will, they communicate God’s message and are in charge of the armies of angels and govern the world by executing God’s law. See Quién Como Dios. San Miguel Arcángel, ed. by E. Merlo Juárez & E. Flores Rueda (Puebla: Museo de Arte Popular Religioso, 2005), pp. 16–18.
4 F. de Florencia, Narración de la marabillosa aparición que hizo el arcángel S. Miguel a Diego Lázaro de San Francisco, indio feligrés del pueblo de S. Bernardo, de la jurisdicción de Santa María Nativitas. Fundación del Santuario que llaman San Miguel del Milagro; de la fuente milagrosa [...] de los milagros que ha hecho el aqua bendita [...] Dala a luz por orden del ilustríssimo, y reverendíssimo Señor Manuel Fernández de Santa Cruz (Puebla, 1898 [c. 1692]), pp. 13–14, 19–20.
5 Quién Como Dios, pp. 16–18.
6 See R. F. Johnson, Saint Michael the Archangel in Medieval English Legend (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2005), pp. 33–35, 42–43.
7 T. Shephard, ‘Constructing Identities in a Music Manuscript: The Medici Codex as a Gift’, Renaissance Quarterly, 63.1 (Spring 2010), 92–93.
8 See L. Rice, ‘Urban VIII, the Archangel Michael, and a Forgotten Project for the Apse Altar of Saint Peter’s’, Burlington Magazine, 134 (July 1992), 429–30. Pope Urban’s dedication to Saint Michael also stemmed from his ‘Sun-dominated astrological destiny’, since Saint Michael is the angel of the sun: J. B. Scott, Images of Nepotism: The Painted Ceilings of the Palazzo Barberini (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991), p. 98.
9 See Rice, ‘Urban VIII’, p. 421, for Michael’s historic associations with Rome.
10 R. M. Pinilla, ‘Angels and Demons in the Conquest of Peru’, in Angels and Demons and the New World, ed. by F. Cervantes & A. Redden (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), p. 179.
11 Saint Michael was a favourite subject of post-conquest productions and Passion plays, in which the archangel represented Christian virtue in the face of evil. A production featuring a mock battle between the saint and Lucifer took place in Jalisco in 1578, for example. Similar events took place in Tlaxcala in 1539 and in Tlatelolco in around 1531. See C. H. Callaway, ‘Saint Michael and the Sudarium: A Christian Soldier and Human Sacrifice’, College Literature, 20.3 (October 1993), 86–88. Callaway posits that over time the image of Saint Michael in New Spain became identified less with his role as vanquisher of evil and associated more with his job as protector of the righteous. She attributes this shift to the development of the cult of the saint in Puebla.
12 E. K. Rowe, Saint and Nation. Santiago, Teresa of Ávila and Plural Identities in Early Modern Spain (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2011), pp. 222–23.
13 See E. Goodman, ‘Portraits of Empire. Notes on Angels and Archangels in the Spanish World’, in Art in Spain and the Hispanic World. Essays in Honor of Jonathan Brown, ed. by S. Schroth (London: Paul Holberton, 2010), p. 405.
14 Pictured are Philip IV, Prince Felipe Próspero, Princess Margarita, and Queen Mariana of Austria: Goodman, ‘Portraits of Empire’, p. 405.
15 Quién como dios, p. 19; A. Cañeque, The King’s Living Image. The Culture and Politics of Viceregal Power in Colonial Mexico (New York: Routledge, 2004), pp. 41–44. Nieremberg was a Spanish Jesuit and mystic and an exact contemporary of Palafox. He studied canon law at Salamanca and wrote a large number of important religious works.
16 A. Cañeque, ‘Imagining the Spanish Empire: the visual construction of Imperial Authority in Hapsburg New Spain’, Colonial Latin American Review, 19.1 (2010), 29–68 (p. 34).
17 Cañeque, ‘Imagining the Spanish Empire’, p. 34.
18 I owe special thanks to Frances L. Ramos for generously sharing her work and insights. For information on Puebla and its angelic foundations, see especially F. Ramos, ‘Myth, Ritual, and Civic Pride in the City of Angels’, in Emotions and Daily Life in Colonial Mexico, ed. by J. Villa-Flores & S. Lipsett-Rivera (Santa Fe: University of New Mexico Press, 2014), pp. 122–47. For information on Puebla’s early history, see also J. Shean, ‘Models of Virtue: Images and Saint-Making in Colonial Puebla (1640–1800)’ (PhD diss., Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, 2007).
19 Angelis suis Deus mandavit de te ut custodian te: Ramos, ‘Myth, Ritual and Civic Pride’, p. 125.
20 Ramos, ‘Myth, Ritual and Civic Pride’, p. 125.
21 Relacion de la aparicion [...] de San Miguel en Nativitas en Puebla de los Angeles, Mexico, en 1631. Dedicada a la Majestad Catolica del Rey por Pedro Salmeron, Clerigo Presbytero (Mexico, 1645).
22 In The Glories of the Republic of Tlaxcala. Art and Life in Viceregal Mexico (Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 2004), p. 164, Jaime Cuadriello discusses Saint Michael’s association with water, both as a protector and manager. In the Old Testament it is the archangel who helps save the Egyptians by parting the Red Sea. Tlaxcala and Israel were thus both protected and saved by Saint Michael’s skill in guiding the force of water — a matter of some relevance in flood-prone Mexico City.
23 Florencia, Narración, p. 15.
24 Florencia, Narración, pp. 22–23.
25 From the XXVth session of the Council of Trent, ‘On the Invocation, Veneration, and Relics, of Saints, and on Sacred Images’, in The Canons and Decrees of the Sacred and Oecumenical Council of Trent, ed. and trans. by J. Waterworth (London: C. Dolman, 1848), pp. 232–89; available at: <http://history.hanover.edu/texts/trent/ct25.html> [accessed 31 July 2014].
26 Florencia writes that Diego Lázaro’s story reminded Bishop Quiroz of La Guadalupe’s apparition, told by Juan Diego to Bishop Zumárraga. Florencia points out, however, that in that case Bishop Zumárraga did not believe the Indian (Narración, p. 29).
27 Traditionally, scholarship dedicated to the archangel’s cult examines Saint Michael’s apparition on Mexican soil within the context of burgeoning creole pretensions. In both texts and imagery, Saint Michael’s miraculous appearance to Diego Lázaro is often compared to the Virgin’s apparition to Juan Diego. The significance of the Indians’ discovery of these miraculous images cannot be overstated. Nonetheless, the ecclesiastical authorities were crucial to the perpetuation and sanctification of these apparitions and were thus associated with their importance. The topic of criollismo and apparition stories in New Spain is examined by L. E. Alcalá, ‘The Jesuits and the Visual Arts in New Spain, 1670–1767’, 2 vols (PhD diss., Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, 1998). See also I. Katzew, ‘Stars in the Sea of the Church: The Indian in 18th Century New Spanish Painting’, in The Arts in Latin America 1492–1820, ed. by J. Rishel & S. Stratton-Pruitt (Philadelphia, PA: Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2006), pp. 345–48; S. Gruzinski, Images at War. Mexico from Columbus to Blade Runner (1492–2019) (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2001), pp. 96–160; D. Brading, Mexican Phoenix: Our Lady of Guadalupe; Image and Tradition across Five Centuries (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001); S. Poole, Our Lady of Guadalupe: The Origins and Sources of a Mexican National Symbol, 1531–1797 (Tucson, AZ: University of Arizona Press, 1995).
28 For a reproduction and details of this work, see E. Báez Macías, El arcángel San Miguel (Mexico: UNAM, 1979), figs XXV–XXVIII. Also located in the sanctuary are a 1728 painting attributed to Luis Berrueco depicting Saint Michael’s second apparition to Diego Lázaro; two eighteenth-century paintings, and a sculpture of the angel. See Alcalá, Jesuits, p. 89; Báez Macías, El arcángel San Miguel, p. 46; and F. E. Rodríguez-Miaja. ‘A Wondrous Event in San Miguel del Milagro’, in Images of the Natives in the Art of New Spain 16th to 18th Centuries, ed. by E. Vargaslugo (Mexico City: Banamex, 2005), pp. 354–83.
29 J. de Voragine, The Golden Legend of Jacobus de Voragine, available at: <http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/goldenlegend/GoldenLegend-Volume5.asp#Michael%20the%20archangel> [accessed 31 July 2014].
30 The conflation of the two narratives is supported by the shared date of the accounts, 8 May: Florencia, Narración, pp. 16–17.
31 Rodríguez-Miaja, ‘Wondrous Event’, pp. 377–79, reproduces Florencia’s text detailing Varona’s call for an investigation into the apparition, which describes the prelate and his dedication to Saint Michael: ‘moved by zeal and love that he had for said Archangel and for his house that he had as the beneficiary parish priest that he had been of it, and where he had the promotion to prebendary, which he obtained, and from which he passed on to the canonship, which today he holds most worthily, he wished to make another investigation, not only following the proper content and form, but with more credible witnesses and more full of good news; and in fulfillment of his zealous intentions, he appeared before Dr Don Juan García de Palacios, treasurer of the holy church of Los Angeles, judge provisor and vicar general of said Bishopric on July 12, 1675 and presented [said petition]’.
32 Rodríguez-Miaja, ‘Wondrous Event’, p. 378.
33 Cristóbal de Villalpando, ed. by J. Gutiérrez Haces et al. (Mexico City: Fomento Cultural Banamex, 1997), pp. 240–42; C. Bargellini, ‘Paintings in Copper in Spanish America’, in Copper as Canvas. Two Centuries of Masterpiece Paintings on Copper 1575–1775, exh. cat, Phoenix Art Museum (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), p. 309. For a good account of the saint, see G. Marker, The Cult of Saint Catherine and the Dawn of Female Rule in Russia (Dekalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 2007).
34 C. Bargellini, ‘El Ochavo: Kunstkammer Americana’, in El Mundo de las Catedrales Novohispanas, ed. by M. Galí Boadella (Puebla: Benemérita Universidad Autónoma, 2002), pp. 119–33. In 1688 Varona donated his large collection of paintings and relics to decorate the chapel. Later, the cathedral’s dean, Diego de Salazar Victoria, who was eventually buried there, augmented the gift with works from his own collection.
35 See F. Rodríguez-Miaja, Una cuestión de matices. Vida y obra de Juan Tinoco (Puebla: Universidad IberoAmericana, 1996), pp. 209–12.
36 D. Brading, ‘Psychomachia Indiana: Angels, Devils and Holy Images in New Spain’, in Angels, Demons and the New World, p. 271.
37 M. Brescia, ‘The Cultural Politics of Episcopal Power: Juan de Palafox y Mendoza and Tridentine Catholicism in Seventeenth-Century Puebla de los Ángeles, Mexico’ (PhD diss., University of Arizona, 2002), pp. 68–69.
38 The literature dedicated to Palafox’s writings, life, and works is extensive. For a complete study on the bishop, see C. Álvarez de Toledo, Politics and Reform: The Life and Thought of Juan de Palafox, 1600–1659 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004). For Palafox’s relationship to the arts in Puebla, see N. Fee, ‘Proyecto de magnificencia trentina: Palafox y el patrocinio de la Catedral de la Puebla de los Ángeles’, in La Catedral de Puebla en el Arte y en la Historia, ed. by M. Galí Boadella (México: Secretaría de Cultura, Gobierno del Estado de Puebla; Arzobispado de Puebla; Instituto de Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades/BUAP, 1999); and J. de Palafox y Mendoza, Virtues of the Indian, ed. and trans. by N. Fee, intro. by A. Cañeque (Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield, 2009).
39 Palafox, Virtues of the Indian, p. 33.
40 Palafox, Virtues of the Indian, pp. 55–56.
41 Palafox, Tratados mejicanos, ed. by F. Sánchez-Castañer, 2 vols (Madrid: BAE 117–18, 1968), i, 21, 33–34; Palafox, Obras, 13 vols (Madrid, 1762), x, 26–27; xii, 5–12, reproduced in D. Brading, The First America (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991), pp. 234–35.
42 See M. Torres, Dechado de príncipes eclesiásticos, que dibujó con su ejemplar, virtuosa y ajustada vida el Ills. y Exc. Señor Don Manuel Fernández de Santa Cruz y Sahagún (Puebla, 1716, and Madrid, 1709). Torres’s account is the only known extant biography of the prelate.
43 A. Carrión, Historia de la ciudad de Puebla de los Ángeles: obra dedicada a los hijos del Estado de Puebla (Puebla: J. M. Cajica, 1970 [1896]); M. Fernández de Echeverría y Veytia, Historia de la fundación de la ciudad de Puebla de los Ángeles según testimonios de algunos viajeros que la visitaron entre los años 1540–1960, ed. by I. Ibarra Mazari (Puebla: Imprenta Labor Mixcoac, 1962 [1830?]); and M. Zerón Zapata, La Puebla de los Ángeles en el siglo XVII: crónica de la Puebla por Miguel Zerón Zapata de Manuel Fernández de Santa Cruz (1682) (México City: Editorial Patria, 1945). See also F. L. Ramos, Identity, Ritual and Power in Colonial Puebla (Tucson, AZ: University of Arizona Press, 2012).
44 After the Great Flood of 1629, 20,000 people left the capital for Puebla, prompting the Chapter to suggest to the viceroy that the capital be moved to Puebla. Ramos, Identity, p. 12. See also I. Altman, Transatlantic Ties in the Spanish Empire. Brihuega, Spain, and Puebla, Mexico 1560–1620 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000), pp. 103 and 119.
45 Crónicas de Puebla de los Ángeles: según testimonios de algunos viajeros que la visitaron entre los años 1540–1960, ed. by I. Ibarra Mazari (Puebla: Gobierno del Estado de Puebla, 1990), p. 45.
46 Brescia, The Cultural Politics of Episcopal Power, p. 48.
47 Mullen, ‘Cathedrals’, p. 90.
48 The palio was a royal canopy and the dosel, a baldachin: Cañeque, Living Image, p. 133, and Ramos, Identity, pp. 48–50.
49 Cañeque, Living Image, p. 133.
50 Each work measures over 22 x 23 ft, with largest one measuring 30 x 25 ft.
51 Though Saint Michael is absent from these paintings, his presence is implicit since both of these works share the theme of triumph. Additionally, each is connected to the Eucharist, of which Saint Michael is custodian.
52 It was customary in New Spain and elsewhere to place Saint Michael above the doorways or at the entranceways to temples and monuments: see Villalpando, p. 210.
53 See J. Cuadriello, The Glories of the Republic of Tlaxcala. Art and Life in Viceregal Mexico, trans. by C. J. Follett (Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 2004), pp. 163–65.
54 In the far right background is what appears to be a city, which might in fact represent New Jerusalem and alludes to the church’s establishment in New Spain: Villalpando, p. 210. It is worth mentioning, however, that chroniclers often referred to Puebla as the Holy or New Jerusalem: Ramos, Identity, p. 5.
55 Cañeque, Living Image, p. 44.
56 Born in Betanzos, Galicia, Aguiar y Seijas served as canon at the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela for twelve years before assuming his position as bishop of Michoacán from 1677 to 1680. He arrived on 30 December 1681 with Viceroy Conde de Paredes in Mexico City, where he served as archbishop until his death in 1698. The figures were first identified by F. de la Maza, El pintor Cristóbal de Villalpando (Mexico City: Instituto Nacional de Antropologí,a e Historia, 1964), p. 62.
57 Also identified are Antonio de Velasco and Diego de la Serna: N. Sigaut ‘El concepto de tradición en el análisis de la pintura novohispana. La sacristía de la catedral de México y los conceptos sin ruido’, in Tradición, estilo, o escuela en la pintura Iberoamericana siglos XVI–XVII, ed. by M. García Saiz and J. Gutiérrez Haces (Lima: UNAM, 2004), pp. 219–20.
58 Sigaut, ‘El concepto de tradición’, pp. 219–20.