This little jewel of a monastery was one of the first Dominican missions to be founded in the Valley of Mexico. Its principal attraction is its exquisite, intricately carved Isabelline/mudéjar church doorway.
The formerly abandoned cloister was recently given a facelift, and the walks are mostly whitewashed. Vestiges remain of mural fragments, largely friezes and inscriptions above the doorways and the gray basalt arcades.
Sts Mark and Luke
Some surviving figures include richly robed and haloed Evangelists sitting on elaborate thrones. These are finely drawn with added red and ocher washes.
One unusual fresco is a partial Expulsion from the Garden, depicting an agitated God the Father and the Tree of Knowledge on one side of the arch, and Adam and Eve in retreat, hastily covering their private parts, on the other. To our knowledge this is the only representation of this biblical event in any Dominican mural.
text © 2019 Richard D. Perry
images by the author
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