Cathedral And National Museum Of Mexico

( Originally Published 1905 )

NATURALLY the first building to which the stranger turns when he enters Mexico City is the great cathedral. As the visitor to Rome, long before he enters the imperial city, sees from afar the dome of St. Peter's apparently suspended in the air, so the passenger on the Mexican Central catches a glimpse of the royal dome and prodigious towers of this magnificent temple when he is yet many miles from the city. We have no ecclesiastical building in Canada, nor, indeed is there any church in the United States to be compared with it.

The cathedral, "The Holy Metropolitan Church of Mexico," is built upon the site of the Aztec temple (the Teocalli) which the Spaniards levelled soon after they captured the city. On the roof of this Aztec pantheon thousands of prisoners were slaughtered, their hearts torn out, and offered in atonement to the Aztec gods. Near this site, also, the memory of the conquest was celebrated for centuries by the "parade of the banner," in which the mayor of the city carried the standard of Cortez, followed by the viceroy, the council, and nobility on horseback.

When the city was divided into wards this site was set apart for a Christian church, and, in 1523, eleven years before Jacques Cartier entered the St. Lawrence, a church was opened for service. The first stone of the present cathedral was laid in 1573, and its final dedication took place in December, 1667; the immense towers were not completed till 1791, and the cost of the building was over $2,000,000. This is exclusive of the priceless paintings and Tolsa's famous altar.

The façade, from the sides of which spring the towers, is divided into three parts of various orders of architecture. The lower is severe Doric, the second part Ionic, supporting a Corinthian storey. The bas-reliefs, statues, friezes, bases and capitals are carved in white marble, producing with the dark gray stone a very charming colour effect. The towers are two hundred and four feet high, and in two divisions, lower, Doric, and upper, Ionic, capped with bell-shaped domes of native limestone. The cornices of these towers are surmounted by balustrades of carved stone, upon which repose beautiful chiselled vases. Beneath the domes are pedestals supporting marble statues of the doctors of the church and the patriarchs of the Jews.

Over the central entrance are blazoned the arms of the republic of Mexico an eagle perched on a cactus, strangling a snake. Above all rises the dome, surmounted by its single, graceful lantern.

In the towers hang a number of costly bells, the largest seventeen feet in height and worth $10,000. From east to west this great Christian temple measures four hundred and sixty feet, and from north to south four hundred feet. It has an interior height of one hundred and seventy-nine feet. The interior is in the form of a Latin cross and has five naves. In the centre are two rows of eight pillars, which support the vaulted roof, above which rises a splendid octagonal dome. There are fourteen chapels, or side altars, separated from the body of the building by upright iron railings. Back of the second pair of pillars the choir commences, and here also is the Altar of Forgiveness, over which are two valuable paintings, the "Blessed Virgin holding the Infant Jesus," and "The Resurrection."

Two immense organs in carved wood rise almost to the arches of the choir. Over the entrance to the choir is a very old life-size carving of the crucifixion, in which the thieves are roped, not nailed to their crosses. At the northern end of the cathedral is the Altar of the Kings, a mass of gold and gilt, and the most imposing in the temple. The gilded cross which crowns the dome of the altar almost touches the arches of the roof. It was modelled after the one in the cathedral of Seville in Spain and was done by the same artist.

The side paintings, "The Adoration of the Kings" and "The Assumption," are particularly fine. Beneath this altar are buried the heads of the patriots Allende, Jiminez, Aldama, and the warrior priest, Hidalgo, "the father of Mexican independence." In one of the side chapels rest the remains of the first Mexican emperor, Augustin de Iturbide, and the famous general, Anastasio Bustamente. .Some of the most valuable paintings in America adorn the walls of the cathedral, its sacristy and chapter house, such as the " Church and the Assumption," by Juan Correa; "The Triumph of the Sacrament," " The Immaculate Conception," " The Glory of St. Michael," by Villapando ; " The Holy Family," by Murillo; "The Virgin of Bethlehem," by Cortona, and by an unknown artist, " John of Austria Imploring the Virgin at the Battle of Lepanto." In the baptistry is a fine fresco by De Aguine, and among others of great merit a painting of Murillo, " John the Baptist in the Desert."

I expected when entering the cathedral to examine some fine examples of Mexican plastic art, but though I saw some excellent statuary in stucco, painted in many cases with good taste, I did not see within the building a solitary statue in onyx or marble; nor have I seen in any church in Mexico, and it is a city of churches, a solitary marble statue. On enquiry I was told that marble was too severe and cold to appeal to Mexican devotion. The Mexican loves bright colours, he lives in a land luxuriating in a profusion of flowers of wondrous tints and perfumes. He has acquired a taste for attractive colours and he seeks the gratification of his taste even in his devotion. He contends that statues, like paintings, should represent the saint as he or she was when upon earth, and hence the artist very often clothes his subject in the garb of the religious order to which he or she belonged. The statue of the Blessed Virgin is often robed in Oriental dress and St. Joseph in the garb of a carpenter.

Nor must we judge these southern races, these Mexican half-castes, Indians and those of Spanish descent, by our northern standards. They are an easy-going, courteous and most agreeable people, and if they lack the push and energy of northern races, we ought not to forget when criticizing them the enervating influence of a sub-tropical climate. Beyond question the Metropolitan Church of Mexico is a marvel of architectural art. Through it all one may notice the influence of the Saracen mind, which left its stamp on Iberian manners, Iberian art, and even on the Spanish language. Judging from the thickness of the walls and the massiveness of the building, the Spaniards built not alone for time, but also for eternity.

On my return from Bogota to Mexico City I passed a day in the National Museum. Some departments of this great museum are unworthy of its reputation. What is known as the zoological hall contains exhibits so badly mounted that I am satisfied the taxidermist never graduated in his art nor saw living specimens of the animals on exhibition. So, too, in the "room of the ophidians" —snakes, serpents, cobras and pythons—the specimens are inferior and the setting and stuffing execrable. But once outside these departments criticism and fault-finding ought to end. The exhibits are well catalogued, and descriptive pamphlets are for sale at the hall of entrance at a reasonable price. Unfortunately the catalogues and labels are all in Spanish, and visitors from abroad who do not read the language miss much that is of great interest and historic value.

The curators, and their name is legion, are uniformed and of engaging appearance and address. They are not permitted to accept tips, and I think this prohibition applies to all government and city employes. The objects on exhibition in the departments of palaeontology, mineralogy, botany, and zoology, are, with few exceptions, what may be seen in any museum in America and call for no particular notice here. The department of antiquities is the most notable in the world, a veritable treasure-house of pre-Columbian relics, and prehistoric finds. In one room of this department are exhibited examples of the famous Aztec picture writings, originals handed down from the days of the conquest; Aztec maps of Tenochtitlan, now the City of Mexico, and the war shield of Montezuma. Here also are genuine specimens of the war spears, bows and arrows, slings, battle-clubs, serrated swords of ebony, shields and poisoned spear-tips borne by the warriors of Montezuma. Carefully protected from the profanation of touch are preserved in glass cases copper and bronze implements, arrow-heads and spear-tips, chipped or carved out of diorite, basalt, quartzite or serpentine. These polished chips and flints are much superior in finish and workmanship to those handed down to us from the Iroquois and Hurons. The obsidian or volcanic glass spear-heads are toothed like a saw and tore ugly wounds in an enemy's body. In this room also is a fine display of ancient pottery, jewels, dresses and costumes of the aboriginal tribes, and cloth made by the early races from the fibre of heneguen, agave, and the maguey plants. Pieces of pottery show an even and transparent glaze, and after remaining for centuries underground still retain their fresh and brilliant colours.

Beautiful specimens of feather cloth, woven from extremely delicate tissues of cotton mixed with silky feathers and rabbits' fur, are among the wonders of the room. Gazing upon these relics of a departed race, I could not help regretting that from the wreck of this primitive civilization some of the arts essentially its own were not saved. For example, the methods by which its astronomers determined the length of the solar year, of working and polishing crystals, and cutting volcanic glass and manufacturing it into delicate articles of ornamental and economic value, of casting figures of gold and silver in one piece, of making filigree ornaments without soldering, of the wonderful pigments that defy the erosion of time and the corrosion of earth, and the triple weaving of fur, down, and cotton floss. Passing into the Memorial Hall, we are brought face to face with Cortez, an historic canvas by Laredo, to whom the conqueror repeatedly sat. The hall is hung with portraits in oil of the early apostolic missionaries, the viceroys or Spanish governors of Mexico, from the days of the conquest to the era of independence. The proud and faded "banner of the conquest," the standard of black velvet, embroidered with gold and emblazoned with a red cross aureoled in blue and white, is here, supported on either side with trophies of victorious engagements. Like the Labarum of Constantine it carries victory in its motto, "Under this sign [the cross] we shall conquer." It was borne by the gallant Ensign Coral in the fierce battle with the Tlaxcalans, who, to the number of forty thousand, barred the road to Mexico. It was almost captured by the enemy on the night the Spaniards were driven from the Mexican capital, when Coral, fighting in the waters of the canal, cut his way to dry land, bearing the blazing cross once again to its friends. When Cortez recaptured the city, Coral planted it on the broad summit of the Temple of Sacrifice, the great Teocalli, where amid grinning idols were thrown the heads of the Spanish prisoners immolated on its bloody altars. In the same room with this historic standard are parts of the armour of Cortez, some of the weapons carried by his victorious troops, and the helmet and cuirass of the dauntless and impetuous Alvaredo, who at the Tacuba causeway,

" So valiantly kept the bridge

In the brave days of old."

In the centre of this hall, conspicuously prominent, is the painting on silk of the "Virgin of Guadeloupe," the patroness of Mexico. This was the banner of the peasant army when the patriot priest, Hidalgo, led the volunteers to victory and struck the first blow for independence, when in October, 1810, he defeated the royal forces. Here are memorials of the republican generals and presidents of Mexico, portraits in oil of the unfortunate Maximilian and the fatalist, Napoleon III, and precious souvenirs of the Empress Carlotta, when, surrounded by an entourage of youth and beauty and princely birth, she reigned a queen in the royal palace of Chapultepec. In a lower room is the magnificent coach and carriage of state of Maximilian and his imperial consort. They are one and all painful reminders of the mutability and insecurity of high hopes, and that the "paths of glory lead but to the grave."