Art and Architecture of Viceregal Latin America, 1521-1821 by Donahue-Wallace Kelly

Author:Donahue-Wallace, Kelly
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780826334602
Publisher: University of New Mexico Press

It stands to reason that the geometric forms and architectural elements that appeared in local buildings were therefore more than merely decorative. Colonial viewers from the educated elite likely associated them with the divine geometry that thinkers since the Renaissance claimed ordered the world. Hence the octagons, squares, circles, and other shapes popular in New Spanish façades and stucco decoration provided an additional layer of religious significance to the more obvious iconography of the paintings and sculptures. By the same token, the Basilica’s central plan placed the Virgin of Guadalupe at the center of a sacred geometry—the perfect shapes of circle and square that ordered the universe—and made her home a kind of axis mundi.38 In fact, the 1709 sermon dedicating the structure noted the architect’s use of Vitruvian principles and their humanistic proportions.39 The building thus made a potent statement about the significance of this American devotion and its colonial context.

The South American devotion that comes closest to the Guadalupe’s popularity is the Virgin of Copacabana. Her shrine, constructed during the seventeenth century, is located on the shores of Lake Titicaca where Peru and Bolivia meet today. As discussed in Chapter 1, the lake and its islands of the sun and moon were sites of indigenous devotion before the Spaniards arrived. The holy site of Copacabana was founded by Tupac Inca Yupanqui, and the town functioned as a rest stop for pilgrims traveling through the sacred region.40 With such potent pagan roots, it comes as no surprise that Lake Titicaca attracted Dominican missionaries as early as 1532 and, like Tepeyac, was soon home to a miraculous Christian cult image.

According to legend, indigenous artist Francisco Tito Yupanqui set out in 1576 to make a sculpted Virgin Mary out of maguey for the small church on the town square in Copacabana. After consulting Marian images in La Paz and Potosí, he based his work on a Virgin of the Rosary in Potosí’s Dominican convent. When a local governor decided to sell the new sculpture to resolve a dispute among indigenous communities, the image began emitting rays of light. This miracle convinced authorities to install the Yupanqui’s sculpture (discussed in Chapter 5) in Copacabana in 1583.41 The sculpture soon developed a fervent following, necessitating a grand shrine in honor of the Virgin of Copacabana (Figure 63).

Work began in 1610 on Spanish architect Francisco Jiménez de Sigüenza’s design for the structure.42 The shrine’s dedication on April 6, 1614, was attended by the region’s civic and ecclesiastical dignitaries and local faithful, including dancers and indigenous nobility.43 By 1640, the compound consisted of a single-nave cruciform church topped by rib vaults and a crossing dome, and a walled atrium with four posa chapels and a Miserere chapel for funerary services. Like other South American churches, the shrine at Copacabana features a simple portal on the nave axis and a more elaborate lateral entrance. The structure has experienced many renovations since the seventeenth century, but retains much of its original appearance. A tall open chapel rests to the west of the church, next to the axial façade.

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