The Paradise Garden Murals of Malinalco: Utopia and Empire in Sixteenth-Century Mexico 9780292769182

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T H E P A R A D I S E G A R D E N M U R A L S OF M A L I N A L C O

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THE PARADISE GARDEN MURALS OF M A L I N A L C O Utopia and Empire in Sixteenth-Century Mexico

JEANETTE

UNIVERSITY

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FAVROT

OF T E X A S P R E S S ,

PETERSON

AUSTIN

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Publication of this work has been made possible in part by a grant from the Program for Cultural Cooperation between Spain's Ministry of Culture and United States Universities.

Copyright © 1993 by the University of Texas Press All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America First edition, 1993 Requests for permission to reproduce material from this work should be sent to Permissions, University of Texas Press, Box 7819, Austin, T X 78713-7819. F R O N T I S P I E C E . Serpent and sparrow in tree, detail of garden frescoes; lower cloister walkway, East 3, Malinalco.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION

Peterson, Jeanette Favrot, 1939— The paradise garden murals of Malinalco : Utopia and empire in sixteenth-century Mexico / Jeanette Favrot Peterson. — 1st ed. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN O - 2 9 2 - 7 2 7 5 O - X

i. Mural painting and decoration, Colonial— Mexico—Malinalco. 2. Mural painting and decoration, Mexican—Mexico—Malinalco. 3. Animals in art. 4. Plants in art. I. Title. ND2646.M34P47

ISBN 978-0-292-76918-2 (library e-book) ISBN 978-0-292-76919-9 (individual e-book)

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DATA

1993

751.7'3 '097252—dc20

92-7992 CIP

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To Laurence H. Favrot, whose memory continues to inspire

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CONTENTS

PREFACE

ix

Chapter One INTRODUCTION

Illustrated Books and Graphics 65 Verdure and Armorial Tapestry 77 i

Chapter Two MALINALCO AND THE AUGUSTINIANS n Conquest and Control of Malinalco The Augustinian Program 15 Construction of the Monastery of Malinalco 22

11

Chapter Three T H E P A I N T E R S 29 European and Native Painting Styles 34 The Artistic Team and the Tlacuilo 40 Training of Native Artists 50 Chapter Four T H E S O U R C E S 57 Pre-Hispanic and Spanish Mural Precedents 58

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Chapter Five THE IMAGERY: FLORA AND F A U N A 83 Flora Identified 85 Fauna Identified 102 Meaning of Flora and Fauna 117 Chapter Six P A R A D I S E C O N V E R G E D 124 Gardens and Curing 125 Gardens as Cosmic Paradigms 126 Gardens as Paradise 127 Chapter Seven UTOPIA AND IMPERIAL P O L I C Y 138 The New World as a Terrestrial Paradise

138

Patronage and Program 142 Mendicant Dominion and Heraldry in the Garden Murals 149

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The Paradise Garden Murals ofMaiinalco

Chapter Eight THE AUGUSTINIAN MURAL P R O G R A M 152 Public and Private Zones in the Monastery 153 The Malinalco Mural Program 158 Augustinian Eschatological Murals 164 Chapter Nine U T O P I A L O S T 171 Mendicant Decline 172 Whitewashing the Murals

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176

Appendix C FLORA IN THE M A L I N A L C O G A R D E N F R E S C O E S 182 Appendix D F A U N A IN T H E M A L I N A L C O G A R D E N F R E S C O E S 185 Appendix E SIXTEENTH-CENTURY MURAL T H E M E S IN M E X I C O A N D PRIMARY MONASTIC L O C A T I O N S 187

Appendix A SIXTEENTH-CENTURY MEXICAN M O N A S T E R I E S V I S I T E D 179

NOTES

Appendix B FIFTEENTH- A N D EARLY SIXTEENTH-CENTURY MURALS I N S P A I N 180

INDEX

189

REFERENCES CITED

205

217

Color plates following page xiv

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PREFACE

The garden murals in the Augustinian monastery of Malinalco, Mexico, made their second appearance during a 1974-1975 program of conservation. Hidden and protected by twenty-two layers of whitewashing, the extensive cycle of sixteenth-century frescoes reemerged after four centuries. In spite of the destructive impact of time, humidity, and human negligence, the wall paintings are unusually well preserved. The murals that cover the four inner walls and barrel vaulting of Malinalco's lower cloister are here named the "paradise garden murals" for their depiction of lush plant life, replete with many native species of birds and animals. Emblazoned on the zoological garden are large medallions with ecclesiastical monograms, symbols of the dominant Spanish Catholic presence over the vast lands of New Spain. A second phase of conservation in 1983-1984 revealed further sixteenth-century wall paintings within the "open chapel," in the refectory, and in some of the upper cells and hallways of the convent. Regular trips to Malinalco allowed me to share in the excitement of these successive discoveries. In addition to being intrigued by

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the murals' complex imagery and fresh beauty, I was convinced that understanding the entire mural sequence would contribute to a more integrated view of the early colonial period. The valley of Malinalco is a microcosm of the historical changes that occurred under both Aztec and Spanish rule; this study sets mural production within the political and Utopian agenda of the allied Spanish crown and regular orders. In the second half of the sixteenth century, largescale murals enlivened the walls of hundreds of fortresslike monasteries established by three ambitious mendicant orders in Mexico, the Augustinians, Dominicans, and Franciscans. Under their supervision and with the active participation of native artists, the mural painting that flourished between 1535 and 1585 is now acknowledged as one of the major art forms in viceregal Mexico. Malinalco has long been recognized as an important preconquest site, renowned for its monolithic Aztec temples and their vestiges of original mural painting. Indigenous beliefs and practices persisted in spite of the severe cultural rupture of the conquest; moreover, the valley's

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The Paradise Garden Murals ofMalinalco

first Spanish settlers and the Augustinian friars exploited many of these native institutions. Sixteenth-century murals reveal the continuities and disjunction in art produced by the first generations of native artists. Malinalco's unique imagery is challenging as it incorporates an older, surviving pictographic style within the dominant, imported Euro-Christian tradition. My first task was to examine the garden frescoes as primary documents using stylistic and iconographic methods. The wall paintings of Malinalco were then located within a certain continuum of muralism; this included the dual heritage of pre-Hispanic wall painting in Mexico as well as Renaissance murals in Spain. I visited and photographed twenty-three different Augustinian monasteries in central Mexico, sixteen of which had substantial or meaningful fragments of frescoes. Because interchange between the different regular orders was fruitful, if competitive, twelve Franciscan and Dominican monasteries that were geographically close to Malinalco were also studied. My search for prototypes for the Mexican murals led me to illustrated books and engravings as well as to Spanish fresco painting, tilework, and tapestry; the latter media have been largely ignored in their relationship to colonial painting. Within the fortress-monasteries that represented the missionary program of the colonial church militant, the large-scale frescoes clearly played an integral role. Of the several compelling questions, the propagandistic function of the paradise scene at Malinalco was foremost. Did the idyllic, Utopian Malinalco frescoes reveal or obscure the harsh realities of official policies toward the native American population? The chronicles of sixteenth-century friars in Mexico proved immensely useful in reconstructing the sociopolitical goals, physical challenges, and spiritual longings of the mendicants. Inveterate record keepers, each order designated one official historian for the task of recording the biographies and events of the evangelistic mission in the New World. Notwithstanding the biased glorification of mendicant achieve-

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ment, these records contain reliable ethnographic data on native life under Spanish rule. Among the six Augustinian writers consulted, Juan de Grijalva's 1624 chronicle (1924) is closest in space and time to the production of the murals at Malinalco, although still lamentably late. A Creole descendant of a conquistador, Grijalva took the Augustinian vows at fourteen, was a preacher in the main Augustinian house in Mexico City, was twice rector of the College of St. Paul, and served as prior ofMalinalco in 1629. In 1621 he was named official chronicler of the central Mexican province, at which time Grijalva wrote the four books of his history, or Cronica, covering the period from 1533 to 1592, the time frame of this study. Also pertinent are the writings of Grijalva's successor, fray Esteban Garcia (1916), as well as the early commentary of fray Diego de Basalenque (1963) on the western province of Michoacan. The later chronicles of friars Gonzalez de la Puente (1907) and Matias de Escobar (1970) covered subsequent periods of the Augustinian mission; the Spanish Augustinian fray Jeronimo Roman y Zamora published in 1569 an overview of the order with a section on the New World mission. In addition to the Augustinian authors, the works of the Dominicans Diego Duran and Bartolome Las Casas and such Franciscan writers as Bernardino de Sahagiin, Toribio de Benavente Motolinia, Geronimo de Mendieta, and Juan de Torquemada also provided invaluable insights. To counter the slant of church historians, the records of European soldiers, lawyers, physicians, and academicians provided a secular perspective on colonial society and institutions. Of great value were the published documents found in the collections of geographical surveys, letters, and ordinances that traveled between the viceroys, the governmental representatives of the crown, and the Spanish monarchs. My research into the native and European components of the mural paintings of Mexico necessarily meant relying on scholars in both Spain and Mexico. Neither would have been possible without the aid of two Samuel H. Kress

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Preface xi Foundation travel grants, awarded in 19791980 and 1981-1982, to accomplish the necessary library and field work abroad. Spanish art historians were consistently generous with their expertise and time, directing me to relevant documentation and to little-known mural cycles in their country. In particular I would like to thank Antonio Bonet-Correo of the Universidad Complutense in Madrid, Santiago Sebastian of the University of Valencia, and Enrique Valdivieso, Alfredo Morales, and Juan Miguel Serrera of the University of Seville. In Mexico I was the beneficiary of many fruitful exchanges with Elena de Gerlero, a recognized authority on the subject of sixteenth-century Mexican murals whose work traverses much of the same terrain as mine. To ensure the success of numerous field trips in Mexico, the architect Luis Fernando Rodriguez contributed his expertise on colonial architecture and Jesus Franco facilitated the physical arrangements. Two successive Augustinian priests in charge of Malinalco, Father Luis and Father Francisco, graciously allowed me entrance to the library and private sectors of the monastery. I acknowledge with appreciation the photography of Kirk L. Peterson as well as the excellent professional work of J. Adrian Fernandez, with the generous assistance of Philip de Kanter. Outside the traditional purview of art history, professionals from the field of biology, both botanists and zoologists, were invaluable consultants during my research. For their contributions to the scientific identification of fauna and flora I would especially recognize Javier Valdes, Miguel Angel Martinez, Rafael Martin

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del Campo, Antonio Lot, and Helia Bravo of the Instituto de Biologia at the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, Mexico City, and Amadeo Rea of the Natural History Museum of San Diego, California. During the course of my research I was fortunate to profit from contact with scholars in various departments at the University of California at Los Angeles. H. B. Nicholson often answered my queries, drawing on his vast store of knowledge of Aztec art and culture. I am greatly indebted to the Nahuatlato James Lockhart, whose perspective on the complexities of the early colonial period stimulated my thinking from the first and whose incisive criticisms greatly enriched various drafts of this manuscript. Jean Weisz and Carlo Pedretti offered useful suggestions for the chapter on the Renaissance sources for the frescoes. Finally, I am most grateful for the scholarly insights and stringent editorial demands of Cecelia F. Klein; she taught me to ask the right questions and go beyond the work of art, into the cultural fabric, to find the answers. My early and sustained exposure to the Malinalco frescoes would not have been as feasible without the open hospitality ofJohanna Favrot's home in nearby Jalmolonga. My mother's love for her birthplace, its people and art, have left an imprint on my own life and academic pursuits. It goes without saying that an integral part of this endeavor was shared by my husband, Kirk, and children, Sarah, Genevieve, and Josh. For their loving support, technical assistance, and willingness to follow me down yet another side road to see 'just one more monastery" I will always be grateful.

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T H E P A R A D I S E G A R D E N M U R A L S OF M A L I N A L C O

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PLATE i. The town of Malinalco, Mexico, viewed from the Aztec cliffside site of Malinalco. The sixteenth-century Augustinian monastery and walled atrio are in the center. Photo courtesy ofJ. Adrian Fernandez.

2. West fagade of church and partial view of cloister, Malinalco. Photo courtesy ofJ. Adrian Fernandez. PLATE

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PLATE 3. The two-storied cloister interior, Malinalco. Photo courtesy ofJ. Adrian Fernandez.

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4. East lower cloister walkway with garden frescoes on east wall and barrel vault, Malinalco. Photo courtesy ofJ. Adrian Fernandez.

PLATE

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«f*Sf

P L A T E 5. Painted medallion with Malinalco's pre-Hispanic t o p o n y m and the central pelican-eagle motif Detail of cloister stairwell ceiling, Malinalco. Photo courtesy of J. Adrian Fernandez.

P L A T E 6. Detail of murals on upper wall and vault, South 2, Malinalco. N o t e the bees and song scroll with three glyphlike symbols: ilhuitl, shell, and flower.

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P L A T E 7. U p p e r cloister with distant view of fifteenthcentury wall murals, Nuestra Seriora de La Rabida, Huelva, Spain. It is in this Franciscan monastery that Christopher Columbus found asylum and inspiration before his first N e w World voyage.

P L A T E 8. Mural of Noah's ark, flanked by St. Cristina and St. Augustine (c. 1545 — 1550). U p p e r cloister walk, principal cloister, Convento de Santa Ines, Seville.

ft

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i**« -JpM&i , i-

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PLATE 9. Upper cloister walkway looking to the testera mural of the Crucifixion, southeast corner, Malinalco. Photo courtesy ofJ. Adrian Fernandez.

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PLATE io. Agony in the Garden, mural in the southwest corner of the upper cloister, Malinalco.

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i i . Fray Francisco de la Cruz, one of the seven original Augustinians. The inscription commemorates the friars' arrival in Mexico in 1533. Detail of mural on inner pier in the porteria, Malinalco.

PLATE

PLATE 12. Detail of the murals depicting the eremitic life, lower cloister, northeast corner, Culhuacan, Mexico City.

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Chapter One

INTRODUCTION

Under an uncharted segment of the heavens they subdued islands and many, lands, among them one most rich and populous to which they gave the name of New Spain. In that land, in order that the false and pernicious rites he extirpated and the true religion be planted, . . . no church, monastery, or pious place . . . could be erected or founded without the consent of the same King Ferdinand and Queen Juana, monarchs of Castile and Leon. —p A P A L B U L L O F 1 5 0 8 : Universalis Ecclesiae Regimini1

And the painters very marvelously, very well they made the representations. Thus they tempted men; thus there was the worship of idols. — BERNARDINO

DE S A H A G U N

( 1 9 5 O - I 9 8 2 , 1:59)

The spiritual and political impact of the Catholic mendicant orders has rarely been more visible than in the monastic programs o( sixteenth-century Mexico. In the decade following the Spanish conquest of 1521, friars of the Franciscan, Dominican, and Augustinian orders began to share with the conquerors and settlers the challenge of colonization. 2 Due to the vastness of the New World, not only the task of evangelization but also a good part of the responsibility for Hispanization fell to the missionaries. The alliance of church and state in the civilizing of the overseas dominions can be traced to the prerogatives given the Spanish monarchy and the mendicant orders by the popes after the reconquest of the Moors in 1492. During this period the mendicant organizations in Spain also instituted internal reforms that sought to reestablish the ideals of the early church. Receptive to the Christian humanism of Erasmus and Thomas More, the religious orders in the Americas were affected by the Utopian dreams of the humanists in their activity among peoples felt to be uncontaminated by European civilization. The very immensity of the colonization

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effort, in terrain largely unexplored and undeveloped, required cooperation between all elements of the Spanish presence. The monasteries of Mexico were less of a closed system, impervious to outside social, political, and economic changes, than their European counterparts. The subjugation and socialization of the vast indigenous population was a joint venture in which civilian Spaniards, governmental officials, and the mendicant friars all had their part. It is within the context of interlocking ecclesiastical and secular authority that mendicant mural painting must be considered. Sixteenth-century monastic murals were strongly affected by the alliance between church and state in their m u tual goals for the native peoples; further, and as a direct corollary, mural painting was also one manifestation of the acculturative processes that were operative at most levels of sixteenth-century life in N e w Spain. With the backing of a papal mandate and the legal and financial support of the Spanish crown, the friars initially took on the responsibility for religious indoctrination as well as contributing to the social integration, education,

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2

The Paradise Garden Murals ofMalinalco

and political control of the indigenous population. Beyond the moral and spiritual concerns for their neophytes, the friars in many outlying regions were involved in law enforcement, urban development, agricultural production, and many economic transactions, including the collection of tribute that was one of several means supporting the church enterprise. As part of their program of religious conversion, all three of the orders initiated a vigorous (and often competitive) architectural program. The monumental concept of the resultant monasteries, numbering almost three hundred by the end of the sixteenth century, reflected both the friars' sense of providential mission and the central Mexicans' tradition of building great temples in each major center. The bell towers of these m o nastic churches and the crenellated walls of their adjacent cloisters dominated the landscape and proclaimed the militant faith of the friars as well as the greatness of the Indian towns. In need of decorating meters of stuccoed wall surfaces, the mendicants used skilled native artists to execute large-scale fresco paintings. Early colonial Mexico was almost entirely dependent on native manpower for its financial success. Monasteries served this vast constituency, and monastic art, in turn, functioned to help ensure the administrative unity and homogeneity of the royal colony by inculcating the religion and, thus, part of the ideology associated with the dominant class. Mural themes testify to the compatible concerns of friars and crown: the winning of souls and the creation of loyal subjects. This interpretation does not intend to diminish the genuine, often altruistic, fealty of many of the regulars to their faith; in the minds of the friars there was no conflict in advancing the interests of the Spanish empire as a Christian state. The Utopian aspirations of the mendicant orders were only realizable through the monarchical backing of their program. As demonstrated by the frescoes of many Augustinian monasteries, including Malinalco's, Utopian themes were integrated into a shared religious and political ideology that, in part, cam-

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ouflaged the realities of colonial policies toward the native population. The alliance of the mendicants and the Spanish monarchy was forged of common purpose and interdependency. The friars benefited from the approbation and physical support of the crown, and the latter relied on the inexpensive, dependable friars as a vital arm of colonization. This effective but informal partnership endured for much of the colonial period, although it was far less central after the later sixteenth century, by which time a greater number of actors were on the scene. Only for a relatively brief period did the mendicants' Utopian schemes seem to dovetail entirely with imperial ambitions. The synchrony of goals was fragile; it lasted only as long as the friars were the great majority of the ecclesiastics in New Spain. The authority of the mendicant orders for a variety of reasons was gradually undermined. By the seventeenth century, the friars (or regular clergy) had been partially replaced by the episcopal branch of the Catholic church (or secular clergy) and by a stronger, better-organized civil structure. Except for a slight time lapse, the production of mural painting coincided with the period in which mendicant power was at its height, from about 1535 to 1585. The actual painting began a decade or two after the arrival of the mendicant orders due to the delay in erecting permanent monastic architecture and in training teams of artists in Euro-Christian styles and iconography. Frescoes continued to be painted in the 1570s and 1580s, long after the predominance of the regular clergy had first been challenged. Two severe blows to mendicant prestige, one in 1583 and another in 1585, marked the beginning of the curtailment and concealment of murals by coats of white lime paint. Fortunately in many cases, whitewashing also served to shield the underlying mural paintings, as was the case in the monastery of Malinalco, located in the state of Mexico some 60 airkilometers southwest of Mexico City (fig. i). 3 Although founded by the Augustinians in 1540, the masonry complex was not begun until some

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Introduction 3

MEXICO CITY

o„

\ ^

V\* /* o

o ^-.

MORELOS

Tenancingo

Ocuilan de Arteaga

Chalma

.'

, 0 /

/ CUERNAVACA

FIG. i. Region of central Mexico around Malinalco.

twenty years later, literally in the shadow of the famed chffside temples of the Aztecs (fig. 2). The monastery fronts the main plaza of Malinalco, the perimeters of its walled compound defined by the town's principal streets (plates 1 and 2). The architectural scheme, typical for sixteenth-century monasteries, is comprised of two basic units, a large church facing west and a contiguous two-storied cloister located to the south. It is on the four inner walls of the lowerstory cloister walk that the garden frescoes are painted (plates 3 and 4). Temperature changes, humidity, and the remodeling and negligence of later generations have left their ruinous mark on the murals. However, the resiliency of the fresco technique and the twenty-two coats of subsequent whitewashing have also protected them. Except for the near destruction of the west wall, the frescoes on the remaining three

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sides are in excellent condition. The immediacy of their black pigment and the exactitude of detail in many sections of the murals belie the four hundred years that separate us from their creation. Until the 1960s, significant literature on sixteenth-century murals was limited to chapters in books on colonial art and architecture. This can be attributed in part to the delay in establishing Latin American colonial art as a legitimate focus of research and to the paucity of mural examples available before the middle of this century. Scholarly recognition of viceregal art did not gain currency until more than a decade after the Mexican Revolution, a victim of the anticolonial, anticlerical rhetoric that persisted into the 1930s. It was Manuel Toussaint who pioneered historical research of colonial art in Mexico, photographing long-neglected churches

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The Paradise Garden Murals o/Malinalco

FIG. 2. Temple I, Aztec site of Malinalco.

and monasteries, fostering the cataloguing of viceregal monuments, and waging a lifelong crusade against the destructive encroachment of modernization projects. In spite of the exploratory stage of the discipline, Toussaint's (1936, 1962, 1965, 1967) contributions are insightful and comprehensive. Perhaps Toussaint's greatest failing, attributable to his classical training and Christian bias, was his overt distaste for the art of "pagan days" (Toussaint 1967:64). Technical imperfections and stylistic hybrids in colonial art were also judged on the basis of Renaissance canons. Using these criteria, the archaistic work of a "rude Indian hand" was often labeled with the adjective "ingenuous," carrying with it the pejorative implication of "crude" (Toussaint 1967:118). This Eurocentricity most affected Toussaint's treatment of the sixteenth century in general, and of monastic murals in

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particular. Judged by Western and classical ideals of space, proportion, and design, both preconquest and immediate postconquest painting styles were felt too schematized and "expressionless." Beyond the qualitative disservice rendered the art, this attitude also led Toussaint into drawing erroneous conclusions. The murals at Tecamachalco, for example, dated at 1562 and documented to the artist Juan Gerson, were praised for their Italianate and Flemish features and, on the basis of style, were attributed to an artist of European extraction (Toussaint 1967:129). Scholars have subsequently discovered records proving that Juan Gerson was of noble Indian stock (Moyssen 1964; Camelo Arredondo et al. 1964). Like Toussaint, the early scholars of colonial art validated its European legacy and, for the most part, either ignored or disparaged native features. Jose M o -

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Introduction 5 reno Villa was the first to call for an end to evaluating Mexican art by analogy with European art. Moreno Villa (1942, 1948) emphasized the unique aspects of el arte mexicano; he coined the term tequitqui, or "tributary," for that art created by native artisans under Spanish rule. Another twenty years would pass before both the indigenous and Spanish heritages would be equally acknowledged and a more objective assessment possible. George Kubler (1948) secured the place of Mexican colonial art in international scholarship, and his study of sixteenth-century m o nastic architecture still remains the most valuable chronological and functional assessment of mendicant foundations. Kubler's (1948, 2: 361-416) analysis of wall painting, however, is hindered by the still-limited sample of murals available for observation before 1948, by a disavowal of native authorship in many cases, and, finally, by a conviction that the muralists were inspired predominantly by European paintings located in Mexico City. The collaborative work of Kubler and Soria (1969) is devoted primarily to the art of the "Mother countries," Spain and Portugal, and precludes extensive treatment of any one facet of the decorative schemes in the overseas territories. Soria's comparisons accord an inferior status to colonial sculpture and murals; the entire production of art in the Spanish colonies is termed "folk art . . . far below the best European standards" (Kubler and Soria 1969:164). The Spanish counterpart to Toussaint and Kubler, Diego Angulo Iniguez (1954, 1 95 5)5 focused on the European environment that produced the art exported to the New World and was the first to signal the impact of late fifteenth- and early sixteenth-century Northern European prints on Spanish art and colonial painting. Angulo, however, passed few qualitative judgments on the transformations that occurred when forms and ideas transplanted overseas were executed by nonEuropeans. 4 The earliest monographs on Mexican monasteries by architectural historians in the 1940s

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and 1950s advanced our understanding of the technical aspects of construction and the sculptural decoration; mural paintings are given cursory treatment in these texts, although the photographic records alone rendered a valuable service. 5 With growing awareness of the extent and quality of sixteenth-century murals, they were acknowledged as significant episodes in two published surveys of Mexican murals, from preconquest to the present day (Edwards 1966; Rodriguez 1969). Subsequent monographs described in detail the mural cycles of Tetela del Volcan, Morelos (Martinez Marin 1968), Epazoyucan, Hidalgo (Moyssen 1965), and Meztitlan, Hidalgo (Victoria 1985). While these are directed to the religious significance and sources of the murals, other studies of the Augustinian monasteries of Atotonilco el Grande and Actopan, Hidalgo, and Acolman, Mexico, also noted the use of classical, humanist themes (Maza 1968; Sebastian 1976). Increasingly, art historians can trace the artistic sources for colonial wall painting, drawing convincing correspondences between the subject matter and styles of Mexican murals and their European models, generally single-sheet prints or illustrated religious books, particularly Bibles. In one example, an investigative team isolated the type of Bible whose imagery inspired the Apocalyptic scenes painted on the choir loft vault at Tecamachalco, Puebla (Camelo Arredondo et al. 1964); Pierce (1987:131) has further suggested as a source for Tecamachalco an illustrated Bible from Lyons dating to after 1538. European prototypes for New World sixteenth-century art in all media has been most comprehensively treated in Sebastian (1989). Until recently, scholars concentrated almost exclusively on descriptive analyses of colonial murals and their theological or liturgical significance. Departing from this approach, I have focused more attention on three areas, the means of production, social history, and process of acculturation documented by sixteenth-century murals in Mexico. 6 The first avenue of inquiry examines the process of mural production, the

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The Paradise Garden Murals of Malinalco

creators as native artisans, their tools, schooling, and relationship with their friar-supervisors. Second, this study is based on the precept that murals, as social documents, both recorded and helped to implement the church's mandate in the New World. As the Malinalco garden frescoes make clear, sixteenth-century mendicant art cannot be relegated to church history alone. Public murals were billboard-sized proclamations of the newly introduced Christian faith that visually advertised the intentions of the Spanish friars and their imperial benefactors, intentions that implicate New Spain's economic priorities, social agenda, and governing values. Illustrative of this contextual approach is the current interpretation of the nave murals of Ixmiquilpan, Hidalgo. The intriguing battle scenes, pitting indigenous warriors and hybrid beasts, were construed as an allegorical struggle between the forces of good and evil (Carrillo y Gariel 1961). While at one level this explanation remains valid, the Ixmiquilpan cycle is now also linked to a campaign in the Chichimec War dating to 1569-1572 (Gerlero 1976). Two sixteenth-century Indian groups in the murals are specifically identified as the hostile, pagan Chichimecs and the more pacific Otomi converts to dramatize for the local congregation the victory of the Christian Otomi and, motivated by the Chichimec threat to local mining interests, to justify the battle as a "holy war" (Pierce 1981, 1987). As large-scale, propagandistic monuments, murals not only conveyed the goals of the intrusive civilization but also carried forward persistent indigenous traits. My third area of concern is the process of culture change visible in the murals; as did other works of art created by native craftsmen under European masters, they reveal the contributions of both colonizer and colonized. The tenacity of native American culture, in spite of the overwhelming imposition of European institutions, is emerging from a new direction in Latin American studies. No longer valid is the "conquest" view of New World colonial civilization, in which military defeat was fol-

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lowed by the wholesale transplantation of EuroChristian culture and the concomitant eclipse of all facets of Indian culture. 7 From documents in the Aztec language of Nahuatl, scholars can retrieve a more diachronic and complete picture of colonial society as seen from below and within. Anthropologists, linguists, and historians are discovering preconquest social and political patterns as well as traditional Nahua religious beliefs and moral codes that endured into the sixteenth century and beyond. 8 In this regard, colonial art history lags behind other Latin American disciplines. As noted above, a persistent weakness in the field of Mexican colonial art has been the reluctance to admit to native authorship and capability. Beyond timid acknowledgment of an Indian "presence" or "spirit," there was no serious consideration of Moreno Villa's (1942) tequitqui, or the art created by the native under European masters, until McAndrew (1965:174) emphasized the artistic validity of the colonial syntheses as "striking new statements compounded of old words" and described the attendant style features. The characteristics of tequitqui in colonial sculpture included flat zones of relief, certain metronomic and repetitive patterns combined with horror vacui, and an "Indian quality" of line which McAndrew (1965:198-201) saw as fundamental to preconquest carving. To these admittedly elusive style features was added an extensive iconography in Reyes-Valerio's (1978) inventory of 120 pre-Hispanic motifs on some sixty-six sixteenth-century buildings. ReyesValerio attached the name Indochristiano to any monument manifesting the collaborative efforts of Indian and European, while heeding the difficulty of factoring out one from the other. However, art historians remain divided on the definition and utility of either of these terms. Tequitqui is deemed racist for singling out the Amerindian contributions, when, in fact, by the second and third generations, mestizos composed a greater number of the pool of artisans (Gonzalez Galvan 1982); tequitqui is also dismissed altogether, with the argument that so-

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Introduction 7 called native survivals are in fact only inferior reproductions of European models (Manrique 1982:57). Nevertheless, the term has gained general acceptance when applied to a hybrid architectural sculpture of the sixteenth century that displays a certain ornamental modality (Vargas Lugo 1982). Neither designation is entirely satisfactory. The concept of tequitqui is too restricted to sculptural traits, thereby omitting manuscript and mural painting; on the other hand, by embracing all religious art created by native American artists (the largest corpus in the sixteenth century), the value of the term Indochristiano is diminished in its very inclusiveness. It would be more constructive to forgo labeling a discrete body of works as native in style and to recognize instead the pervasive and creative role of native American artists in shaping and, wherever possible, manipulating the production of art to which they had access. Although there is general assent on the participation of native artists and the identity of certain pre-Hispanic style modes and imagery, the most challenging and disputed issue remains not what has survived nor where, but how and why. The nature of these retentions, their meaning, and the mechanics of transformation need to be considered in light of the present theories of acculturation. The "conquest" line of thinking, in which European supplants indigenous culture in toto, divides society into donor and recipient; it reduces native artists to passive receptacles, denying them the ability to be inventive and claim an identity. One current view suggests that cultures are being constantly reformulated and "negotiated" (Clifford 1988: 273), an approach that also amplifies our notion of acculturation as an equally dynamic, mutually affective process to which many sectors contribute. 9 In an arena of continual change, improvisation and transformation become coping mechanisms that permit the disenfranchised to both adapt and survive. Clearly, the making of pictures by the colonized is one such tactic, a "visual strategem" to avoid being eliminated by the dominant culture (Klein 1990:107).

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The working relationship between native and European on collaborative projects has been most fruitfully characterized as a dialogue. 10 This bilateral interaction is underscored by Burkhart (1989) in her study of religious texts written in sixteenth-century Mexico. In translating Christian catechistic and doctrinal writings into Nahuatl, "each side was affected by the continual feedback from the other" (Burkhart 1989:23), and the texts ultimately conveyed a different message from the original one intended by the friars. The very use of the Nahua language reshaped Christian ideas to conform to, and thus communicate, older Nahua concepts of morality. Such joint native-friar projects, similar to the collaborative mural paintings, demonstrate not only the sustaining power of older indigenous views, but their viability, capable of effecting subtle transformations from the Nahua to the Christian and back again. As active participants, native scribes and artists helped to shape Christian texts and imagery to reflect their own world view and belief system. The various combinations of Nahua-European traits, found primarily in religious contexts, presuppose the Nahuatlization of Christianity (Dibble 1974). As practiced from the sixteenth century down to the present day in some regions of Mexico, Christianity was, and is, an amalgam of orthodoxy with deep-rooted indigenous beliefs and rituals. In the colonial period, the outward devotion to Christianity masked responses that ranged from partial understanding to complete rejection of Christian tenets (Klor de Alva 1982). The dynamics of cultural interchange prompted a variety of artistic responses. Precontact images and concepts in the sixteenthcentury murals of central Mexico can be grouped into two broad categories or types of responses within a preponderantly Euro-Christian context: that of juxtaposition and that of convergence and syncretism (Peterson 1987a). Juxtaposed indigenous motifs were allowed to coexist relatively unadulterated within the conventions of European imagery. In their appear-

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8

The Paradise Garden Murals o/Malinalco

ance or shape, these motifs and glyphlike symbols are related to Aztec-style relief sculpture and illustrated manuscripts. Within this category, toponyms or place names are the largest group to retain their original significance, such as Malinalco's place glyph in the painted medallion on the monastery stairwell vault (plate 5). However, most of these formal survivals in murals, such as the frequently used chalchiuhuitl, or jade symbol, are reduced to decorative elements; the authenticity of their meaning is indeterminable from our perspective because they are isolated from a relevant context. The inability to assess continuity or disjunction of meaning in these fragmentary survivals, however "pure" their preconquest form, had led many art historians to discount the survival phenomenon in colonial art as rare and insignificant.11 Within the larger and more complex category of convergence and syncretism, pre-Columbian and European features come together in varying degrees; the blend can be one of form and/ or meaning. Moreover, the interpretations brought to a single image can either merge or differ, dependent on the discrete readings given the image. The ability to distinguish native from Euro-Christian iconography requires not only knowledge of both cultures but also a large enough wall painting sample, preferably a mural cycle, to reconstruct the overall composition and theme, thereby securing the meaning of the individual components. 12 In convergence, interpretations by the native and European cultures may coincide in icons that share a similar form. That is, when an object's bicultural significance is alike, a pictorial rendering of that object will often elicit the same (but never identical) association of ideas. For instance, the owl in the Malinalco murals (fig. 104) carried similar connotations for both native American and European cultures, as the owl's nocturnal habits made it a commonly feared omen of death. Convergence is not limited to specific artistic motifs, but can occur on a broader scale when entire themes are motivated by the same ends.

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Chapters 6 and 7 explore the convergence of the paradise-garden metaphor in colonial Mexico as a positive reward and a means of social control exploited by Aztecs and Spaniards alike. Syncretism involves incorporating elements from the Euro-Christian into the existing native cultures and vice versa. This process is a truer synthesis and therefore more difficult to detect. The fusion of idioms can involve covert encoding that may defy discovery or interpretation altogether. Klein (1990:108-109) refers to the use of Christian iconography for native purposes as "visual bilingualism," but it should be noted that the reverse, the use of Nahua forms for Christian purposes, is almost as common. Where each culture brought a different set of associations to the same object, it is probable the sixteenth-century native painter and viewer retained the interpretation derived from his or her own heritage, in spite of a veneer of Christian symbolism. This process Lockhart (1985:477) has called "double mistaken identity." To give but one example of this phenomenon, which is elaborated in chapter 5, the two monkeys in the garden frescoes are set within the cacao, or chocolate, tree (fig. 95). Both monkeys and cacao were exotic and prized Aztec tribute items. However, this positive association within the enduring Nahua value system would have had little relevance to the prevailing Christian symbolism in which the monkey signified the devil and, more relevant to the paradise murals, original sin. In another variant of syncretism, native and Euro-Christian images are merged to create a new and ambivalent icon. In the Malinalco stairwell painting of a pelican-eagle, the muralist reformulates the Christological pelican symbol in the guise of the eagle, the most powerful Aztec symbol for royalty, a warrior class, and celestial deities (plate 5). Described by Adorno (1981195) as "taking the signs away from the sign-makers," Christian icons are appropriated for native usage. Moreover, Adorno (1981, 1990) demonstrates that the use of certain Christian icons, sometimes hybridized, succeeds in reversing co-

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Introduction 9 lonial stereotypes, linking Europeans to corruption and native Andean culture to morality. A final form of syncretism uses uniquely indigenous forms to convey Christian themes, yet due to their long-established native usage, the species undoubtedly retains the older meaning. When a New World plant as important ritually to the Aztecs as the zapote fruit tree is cast as the Tree of Knowledge in the Malinalco paradise frescoes (figs. 22 and 74), the substitution must have conveyed a non-Christian meaning to the native viewer that, at the very least, compromised the original Christian message. C u m mins's (1988) study of Kero vessels likewise finds that native Andean elements intended to implement colonial authority, yet, by their very Andeanness, unwittingly subverted it. The survival of pre-Columbian traits in the Malinalco frescoes are assessed in the context of the confrontation and compromise that occurred in every facet of viceregal Mexico. In order to make their faith and the Spanish way of life more palatable and relevant, the regular clergy sought to reinforce ties with the native communities. They actively looked for ways to relate their teachings to existing indigenous factors in their congregations. Murals reflect these interdependencies and adaptations to the peculiar features—ethnic, historical, and ecological—of the local community. Although much that persisted did so covertly, without the knowledge of the Spanish authorities and friars, known preconquest rituals and imagery were tolerated when they were assumed to be consistent with Catholic ideology. Native features were permitted in mural painting in the hope that they would advance the cause of colonial church and state, yet ultimately they worked to undermine the orthodoxy of the message. The garden frescoes provoke many questions of both intrinsic and extrinsic consideration, in spite of the subject's seeming neutrality. The valley of Malinalco was a key region in Aztec imperial designs and mythology; chapter 2 traces the transfer of power to Spanish rule and highlights the continuities in social, economic,

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and educational institutions that were similarly exploited by both the Aztecs and their successors in order to establish political hegemony. The ambitious Augustinian program was imposed at a high cost to the very constituency it intended to serve; among other burdens it sustained, the native population shouldered the building and financing of the Malinalco monastery. Chapter 3 examines mural painting as a sensitive index for determining the identity and training of the artists. A team of native artists at Malinalco was exposed to varying degrees of European schooling yet remained familiar with the pictorial script of the ancient profession of tlacuilo, or scribe-painter. Like those at Ixmiquilpan, the works at Malinalco not only support the case for native authorship, but suggest as well a continuation of other pre-Hispanic practices: the training in special schools of an elite group of artists, the familiarity with various techniques of mural painting, and a tradition of working in teams under itinerant masters. Based on stylistic, iconographic, and chronological ties, a "Sahagun connection" between Malinalco and the Franciscan school of Tlatelolco is proposed. Chapter 4 will make clear that the native artists exercised some control over their artistic sources, drawing from nature, ornamental prints, and, possibly, a tapestry design for the garden frescoes as they skillfully transferred this monumental herbal to a wall surface many times the size of a manuscript or graphic. The three subsequent chapters explore the iconography of the fresco imagery on different levels. In chapter 5, the individual flora and fauna components of the garden subject matter are identified as accurately as possible. If the artists were allowed to use freely the rich natural life that abounded in their own setting, this freedom of choice sheds light on the relationship between artist and friar-supervisor, on the cultural significance of the plants and animals selected, and on Malinalco's longstanding tradition of medicinal plants and witchcraft. In separating native from imported species, the

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io

The Paradise Garden Murals o/Malinalco

discrete (or convergent) cultural value and symbolic import of the flora and fauna can be more readily determined. The garden frescoes were encoded in subtle and sometimes occult ways with both indigenous and intrusive traits. This chapter most directly provides evidence for a variety of acculturative responses. The several allegorical uses of the garden theme are then sought in chapter 6, where gardens are linked to curing, to cosmological constructs, and, most important, to paradisiacal ideals. The rich cluster of associations evoked by the paradise garden was originally derived from medieval cloister and Hispano-Islamic gardens, and, once transferred overseas, was enhanced by the importance accorded royal and temple gardens in Aztec Mexico. These connotations, however relevant to the illusory ideals projected onto the New World, do not address the underlying social and political factors that motivated the creation of the garden frescoes. Questions of patronage and audience are next examined. Chapter 7 explores how the allied goals of church and state shaped their programmatic strategy. In the paradiselike afterlife suggested by the Malinalco murals and reenacted in theatrical morality plays, the friars discovered a potent incentive to implement their goals among the native population. Although in many respects the murals at Malinalco are unique, variations on Utopian themes did occur elsewhere. In chapter 8 these correlations become stronger by surveying the corpus of wall paintings in the public and private sectors of Malinalco. Analogies with other Augustinian murals establish the eschatological message of the garden frescoes and their intended audience. The final chapter considers the degree to which

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the fate of both sixteenth-century frescoes and the mendicant mission were one and the same. Two of the most prolific periods of wall painting in Mexico used murals as a potent medium to carry the message of the governing bodies to the general public. Both sixteenthand twentieth-century muralism drew on the indigenous tradition of fresco painting. Although in the early colonial period the use of the native fresco medium was a matter of pragmatic efficiency, in the 1920s and 1930s it was revived self-consciously to evoke pride in the ancient Mexican legacy. The architectural contexts for murals in each period were not as dissimilar as they may at first appear. Those sixteenthcentury murals that were accessible to the community at large were painted in public areas that served as classrooms, hospitals, and hostels— the same buildings set aside by the post-Revolution government for twentieth-century murals. The mural movements in both centuries succeeded violent overthrows of existing polities, although the processes and motives of conquest and revolution are diametrically opposed. These upheavals created the need for restructuring social order, for transferring control of the economic bases of power, and for instilling confidence via new ideologies. Sixteenth-century murals were framed in terms of a "spiritual conquest"; however, like the mural campaign of this century, they were also intended to disseminate dogmas that would bring about a new social order. 13 It is in the light of the Spanish success, or lack thereof, to convert and Hispanize the native populace that the production and ultimate purpose of sixteenth-century Mexican mural painting are to be understood.

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Chapter Two

MALINALCO AND AUGUSTINIANS

THE

. . . that with the glory of the buildings, with the wealth in the churches, with the solemnity of the festivals, and with the divine cult . . . they [the Indians] should forget their past work and . . . their paganism. J U A N DE G R I J A L V A

(\^2\\22\)x

Much of Malinalco's importance over several millennia can be appreciated from the perspective of its geographical and ecological setting. Located in the southwestern section of the presentday state of Mexico, the valley of Malinalco affords easy access to the basin of Mexico and Lake Texcoco, the central hub of both the Aztec and Spanish colonial empires. Along with the valley of Toluca, Malinalco's fertile crescent forms part of an east-west corridor between the central cultures and the western reaches of Mesoamerica. The land here and its people have always been a coveted resource. There are some remarkable parallels in the historical harnessing of these resources by its successive early landowners. It is important for our purpose to appreciate the continuities that have existed in the valley of Malinalco from the preconquest into the colonial periods and, in some cases, to the present day. CONQUEST AND OF M A L I N A L C O

CONTROL

As it has under several cultures, the modernday town of Malinalco still serves as the cabecera

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municipal, or principal town, of nine outlying villages in the municipio of Malinalco. The municipality extends over 266 square kilometers to include all of the valley and is bordered by the district of Tenancingo on the west, by the municipio of Ocuilan on the northeast, and by the state of Morelos on the southeast and south (fig. 1). Although contained within a series of broken, precipitous volcanic cliffs and ridges, the valley floor itself is lush and green, having been domesticated by generations of inhabitants. A temperate climate and abundant water supply, provided by the Chalma River, several streams, and countless springs, promote the optimal conditions that have attracted agrarian settlements to the Malinalco valley since the middle Preclassic period in the first millennium B.C. Crops of corn, rice, sweet potato, and sugar cane flourish, as well as a variety of fruits: guava, plum, zapote bianco, wild grape, papaya, apple, orange, and banana. 2 Within this valley there was an ample food supply to support the ancient settlement of Ocuilan (de Arteaga) and its dependency, Chalma, and later two flourishing Spanish colonial haciendas or estates, Jalmolonga and Tepopula, as well as twelve smaller

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12

The Paradise Garden Murals of Malinalco

livestock ranches. It was to this semitropical paradise, a "very rich land because of the fertility of the soil" (Zorita 1963 1268), that the Augustinian friars were attracted soon after their arrival. Pre-Hispanic

Malinalco

The geographical position of Malinalco made it both a locus of exchange and a buffer zone between competing regions. In the preconquest period Malinalco was vulnerable to the cultural influences, demographic pressures, military incursions, and political ambitions of both those people to the west, principally the Tarascans of Michoacan, and those to the east, who by turns held control of the central plateau of Mexico. Based upon linguistic studies and archeological ceramic sequences, Malinalco's pre-Aztec history formed part of a generalized cultural entity known as the Matlatzinca civilization. 3 The shifting alliances and power struggles characteristic of the Postclassic period in central Mexico necessitated defensive positions and fortresslike structures that were features of the major Matlatzinca administrative and religious centers, including one at Malinalco itself. The rise in the mid-fifteenth century of the powerful Triple Alliance of the Lake Texcoco cities of Tenochtitlan, Texcoco, and Tlacopan shattered the loose alliance of city states in the Matlatzinca confederation. The Aztecs of Tenochtitlan had long eyed the agrarian wealth of the plains to their west as the pressure grew to feed their own urban population. Additionally, the threat primarily from the Tarascan nation, and secondarily from the Matlatzincas themselves, became intolerable to the security of the Triple Alliance. In 1474 the Aztec army under the ruler Axayacatl conquered Toluca and two years later secured the remainder of the Matlatzinca federation. 4 To maintain peace and a dependable flow of tribute stuffs into the capital city, the subsequent ruler Ahuizotl sent in Aztec colonists, tribute collectors, and military garrisons. In the expanding Aztec empire, Malinalco appears to have been singled out as a unique site

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worthy of a privileged relationship with the Aztec ruling class. In addition to its economic and military importance, Malinalco had genealogical ties with the ruling lineage in Tenochtitlan. Several early colonial manuscripts include the Malinalcas as one of the original tribal units, or calpulli, of the migratory Aztecs. 5 The Malinalcas were also said to have made up one of the eight parts of "Old Colhuacan," the mythological Teocolhuacan (Chimalpahin 1965:65-66). Malinalco had early contact with Culhuacan when a branch of Nahua speakers from that city went to populate Malinalco and Ocuilan in the late twelfth century. 6 Since the Aztecs consistently stressed their ties with Culhuacan, the heir to Toltec civilization that bestowed legitimacy on Aztec rule, the early infusion of Culhua blood into Malinalco made it all the more attractive to Aztec imperial ambitions. Malinalco figured in the Aztec migration legend of the sister of the Aztec tribal god Huitzilopochtli. This sister, a sorceress named Malinalxochitl, or "flower of the rnalinalli," was abandoned by the Aztec (or Mexica) tribe en route to their final destination because she threatened Huitzilopochtli with magical powers and destructive spells (Duran 1967, 2:30-32). After her band was forced by Huitzilopochtli to leave the main body of wandering Aztecs, Malinalxochitl settled in Malinalco ("place of the malinalli"), where she married the local ruler, Chimalcuauhtli (Tezozomoc 1949:30-31). The Malinalxochitl myth additionally appears to have dramatized an actual struggle for power between rival groups. The subjugation of Malinalxochitl by Huitzilopochtli may, in fact, describe a historical defeat of the southern regions by the Aztecs that occurred not during the early Aztec migration but at a critical juncture in their consolidation of power (Klein 1988). In addition, Malinalxochitl's heirs may have reinforced blood ties between the ruling lineages of Tenochtitlan and Malinalco. 7 One of the more important clues to Malinalco's unusual position within the Aztec imperial scheme is the cliffside archeological site for

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Malinalco and the Augustinians which is it justifiably famous. This complex was erected on partially man-made terraces engineered by the earlier Matlatzincas halfway up a granite mountain, some 100 meters above the valley floor. The Aztec ruler Ahuizotl began the Aztec center in 1490; crews of stone masons were still working there as late as 1515.8 Townsend (1982:136) identifies the well-preserved monolithic Temple I of Malinalco as a shrine and council room and emphasizes that the architecture served to incorporate Malinalco into the "larger social-sacred space of the [Aztec] imperium" (fig. 2). The symbolic components of the stone-carved eagle and jaguar thrones endowed the site with not only cosmic but imperial meaning. According to Townsend, it was in Temple I that autosacrificial rites of new rulers took place. These blood offerings made by the newly installed governors were intended to propitiate the earth and sanctify the transference of power. In addition to serving as a reminder of Aztec military might, Malinalco was made to conform to an Aztec paradigm that sought to secure the territorial acquisitions of the empire within an orderly and justifiable cosmic scheme. That Malinalco also functioned as an Aztec military center is supported by accounts of the Spanish expeditions sent by Cortes to conquer Malinalco in 1521. These describe the cliffside site, or "high hill," as a "place used for war" (un lugar que era deguerra; Ixtlilxochitl 1975, 1:474). Cortes (1962:201) himself wrote to Charles V that the Malinalcas were pursued "right up to the walls of Malinalco which is perched on a very lofty peak too steep for the horses to climb." Here, too, he notes that "within the city at the top of the peak . . . there were many springs of excellent water producing very fertile vegetation." From these reports, pre-Columbian Malinalco incorporated two zones, a flourishing town on the valley floor, with its own temples, and an upper settlement on the adjacent moutain that supported an elite population and a fortified, well-developed religious and administrative center (the present-day archeological site of Malinalco).

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13

Under Spanish Rule The Spaniards, as had their Aztec predecessors, discovered the populous Malinalcans to be organized as a stratified society. Out of purely pragmatic considerations, the new conquerors deliberately used the existing sociopolitical institutions, already well developed, as the means for implementing their own authority. The mechanisms for tribute collection were left intact and the hierarchy that enabled this economic system to work was often altered only by replacing key personages in the chain of command. In many cases, Spaniards intensified trends that had already been initiated by the Aztecs, further nucleating and imposing greater tribute demands in goods and labor on the local population. Both Aztecs and Spaniards used similar means for establishing control. Under Aztec rule, the process of acculturation was accelerated by the common usage of the Nahuatl tongue; in viceregal Mexico, Spanish became the lingua franca and an important vehicle for implementing European traditions and concepts. Long-term ideological control for the Aztecs was ensured by an active program of indoctrination at schools for the children of the local nobility (Durbin 1970:195). A comparable educational role would be taken over by the Spanish monasteries, but with a dramatically different philosophical and theological message to impart. It was, in fact, in the realms of cosmology and religion that the stated policies of the two colonizing powers, the Aztec and the Spanish, differed most dramatically. Although at the time of conquest, the Aztecs burned the enemy's temples and carried the principal god to Tenochtitlan, after this symbolic act of victory and incorporation, local worship to regional deities was tolerated. The Catholic church, in contrast, insisted on the complete eradication of all traces of the "pagan" religion. For the Spaniards, conversion to Christianity was the principal justification, if not always the primary motive, for the conquest of the New World. There was, therefore, great anxiety on the part of the Spanish

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14

The Paradise Garden Murals o/Malinalco

religious and secular authorities alike that the movement to proselytize should succeed. After the conquest, the more overt aspects of pre-Hispanic religion were exterminated as rapidly as possible; temples were destroyed, the native priesthood dismantled, and the public ceremonies that most appalled the Spaniards (such as ritual sacrifice) outlawed. To fill this vacuum, certain practices of the Catholic church were gradually substituted and, in appearance at least, enthusiastically adopted by the natives. The vast majority of Indians who were distant from centers of intense Hispanization selectively adopted Christianity to meet their own needs while privately retaining many of their traditional religious beliefs. The new faith was accepted by the indigenous populace only if useful and broadly compatible with their own established beliefs. Klor de Alva (1982:351-352) has charted a typology of Aztec responses to Christianity, ranging from apostasy, through various degrees of accommodation, to complete conversion. The most widespread response, prompted by only partial understanding of Christianity, was an incomplete conversion characterized by participation in both the old and new religious systems. These responses inevitably fostered a process of clandestine syncretism that kept the Spanish authorities at bay while satisfying the traditional needs of the worshipper. When confronted with the monumental task of converting thousands of "pagans," the early friars also looked for ways in which to fuse compatible pre-Hispanic beliefs and practices—including religious processions and liturgical music and dance—into acceptable Christian solutions. These convergences often produced, and continue to inspire, unorthodox interpretations. Preconquest polytheism was replaced by a spectrum of Catholic saints altered in name and accoutrements, yet fulfilling the ancient functions of the village patron deities. Soon after the Spaniards had secured central Mexico, the spoils of war were split among those who had participated in the campaign. As succinctly stated by the colonial lawyer Alonso

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de Zorita (1963:267), "after the Spaniards had conquered the land, they divided the people and land among themselves." Of the thirty-five towns in the valleys of Toluca and Malinalco, almost all were held in encomienda by private parties. Officially encomiendas were not land grants but groups of Indians entrusted to Spanish patrons who were held responsible for their physical and spiritual welfare. The encomenderos were entitled to require that their subjects provide tribute in labor and kind. As often in the early period, the encomiendas were divided among multiple recipients; in the valley of Malinalco initially both Malinalco and Ocuilan were split among two encomenderos each. Malinalco was shared by Cristobal (Sebastian) Rodriguez de Avalos, one of the original conquistadores, and Cristobal Romero (Garcia Icazbalceta 1904: 152-153). Tribute in Malinalco was collected in the form of labor, money, and supplies of corn, evenly divided between Avalos and the crown, which soon appropriated Romero's share. In order to coordinate tribute collection effectively and to carry out religious instruction, native populations were sometimes consolidated into more manageable communities. The imperative for these programs of relocation, called congregaciones, grew in response to the demographic changes that were occurring in the New World (Gerhard 1972: Table D). It is well known that the native population suffered catastrophic declines in the century between 1520 and 1620. In addition to disease, the abuse suffered by the indigenous peoples claimed many lives. Although the Spaniards correlated the high mortality rate among the Indians with divine retribution for their paganism, their own exploitative labor policies can likewise be blamed. We can cite as one example the practice of taking groups of natives (still organized as communal work crews, or tequios) to unfavorable climatic zones. From Malinalco itself natives slated for construction work were transported to the higher altitudes and colder temperatures of Mexico City, where the Malinalcans "suffered greatly" (Garcia Icazbalceta 1904:152).

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Malinalco and the Augustinians According to the Augustinian chronicler Grijalva (1924:204, 214), five out of six Indians in central Mexico had died by the middle of the sixteenth century. The dramatic loss of life not only imposed greater physical hardships on the remaining population but produced a psychological effect that was demoralizing to the conquerors and devastating to the recently conquered. Pressured by property owners and the clergy, Spanish authorities responded by nucleating the dispersed and weakened populations closer to the monastic centers. THE A U G U S T I N I A N

PROGRAM

Monasteries were located in cabeceras, or principal towns, that, like Malinalco, had been residences of pre-Hispanic lords; these areas of jurisdiction also contained smaller villages called sujetos or estancias. O n the cabecera-sujeto pattern, the Spanish based their apportionment of tribute and labor, encomienda boundaries, and both civic and ecclesiastical jurisdictions. Malinalco, for instance, made up a parish (doctrina or parroquia) that was composed of the cabecera and its sujetos, the latter called visitas de doctrina by the church. The parish could be headed by a secular priest or, more commonly in the midsixteenth century, ministered by members of a regular order, as was the case in Malinalco. As a cabecera, Malinalco in 1571 included about 2,000 adult male tributaries, 760 of w h o m lived in the town itself, with the remainder spread among the ten villages, or estancias, that were separated by a distance of from one to six "leagues." Colonial Malinalco retained the preHispanic divisions of wards, or calpulli, although the number of wards (counted as barrios) varies in different accounts from six to ten. Today the town of Malinalco conserves eight original barrios, all with their own chapel and most with their own neighborhood leadership and council. 9 In New Spain, as everywhere, there were two branches of the church. The secular clergy or parish priests were organized into bishoprics,

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15

diocesan divisions headed by an archbishop and bishops. The regular clergy, living under a rule (regula), was composed of the various orders, each divided into "provinces"; those in turn were subdivided into monasteries (conventos) under a prior or (with the Franciscans) father guardian. The provinces varied in size from order to order and were administered by elected "provincial generals." The Mexican monasteries were not cloistered but acted as the headquarters for the friars' multiple pastoral duties; concomitantly the adjacent monastic churches generally acted as the parish churches. The regular clergy in the early colonial period were given wide-ranging prerogatives, powers that in Europe had been relegated solely to the secular clergy. As the Spanish civil population grew and the secular clergy consequently increased in number, the spheres of influence of regulars and seculars impinged on each other, bringing on forseeable conflicts. Ultimately, the struggle for power between these two facets of the ecclesiastical presence would affect the fate of sixteenth-century monastic murals. The Augustinian friars were the last of the mendicant orders to arrive in the New World, preceded by the Franciscans in 1523 and the D o minicans in 1527. Seven Spanish Augustinian friars (fewer than the usual symbolic party of twelve) arrived in Veracruz on May 22, 1533. Led by fray Francisco de la Cruz, they held their first chapter meeting in Ocuituco, Morelos, the following year. Subsequent arrivals of small groups of friars brought their number up slowly, and in three decades there were over two hundred Augustinians in Mexico. 10 As latecomers, the Augustinians were forced to select areas for proselytism not yet claimed by their fellow mendicants. Malinalco and Ocuilan, for example, had been visited by the Franciscans as early as 1525 from their Cuernavaca monastery in M o relos (Mendieta 1945, 2:94), but it was left to the Augustinians to occupy the region permanently. By 1537 the Augustinians had identified three general areas to penetrate and evangelize: to the north into the present-day state of Hi-

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The Paradise Garden Murals ofMalinalco

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FIG. 3. Principal Augustinian monasteries in central and western Mexico. dalgo, to the south into what is now Morelos and Puebla, and, finally, westward into Michoacan and Guanajuato (fig. 3; see also Appendix A). The monasteries of Malinalco and Ocuilan were founded as part of a chain of m o nastic establishments linking the earliest western houses of Tiripetio and Tacambaro, Michoacan, with central Mexico. Monasteries were founded with dizzying rapidity. By the end of the sixteenth century, about 80 Augustinian monasteries had been erected, out of a total of between 270 and 300 houses built by all three orders. 11 The years 1540 to 1560 saw one peak in the quantity of Augustinian houses established and the decade of the 1570s still another, but the building fever abated by 1580. The last four or

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five foundations were approved between 1590 and 1595 (Vazquez Vazquez 1965:80-83). Two of the criteria used to locate new Augustinian monasteries included the presence of important native centers and major routes of communication between cities or other mission houses. In addition to the monastic establishments of central Mexico, erected in existing indigenous units and surrounded by settled communities, foundations were planted in less hospitable frontier regions where they served as the first official Spanish presence. Additionally, sites were chosen for their cultic as well as their commercial importance. It is difficult otherwise to explain the proximity of monasteries such as Malinalco and Ocuilan, founded only three

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Malinalco and the Augustinians years apart and within a 15-kilometer radius; the Chalma hermitage between Malinalco and Ocuilan added a third Augustinian-sponsored establishment in that relatively small area (fig. 1). Colonial monasteries were frequently built not only on pre-Hispanic sites that had sacred significance for the local populace, but often on top of the foundations of existing temples. Preconquest masonry blocks and stone "idols" were also used in the actual construction of the new Christian edifices (Motolinia 1970:209). 1 2

Monasteries and the Evangelistic Program The practice of erecting church structures over pre-Hispanic temples betrays a generalized mendicant attitude that locked the friars in a constant struggle against "the devil." Since in this battle for native souls the cross and the saying of mass were "power tools" in a very literal sense, the erection of an altar or church on the exact spot thought to be inhabited by the devil proclaimed the superior power of Christianity. Triumphant warfare with pagan devils was also expressed with military concepts that had architectural ramifications. With crusaders' zeal, the friars likened themselves to soldiers of Christ, overseeing and bringing about the "spiritual conquest" of a "militant church." The chronicler Grijalva opened his history of the Augustinian order in Mexico with a passage that pitted the forces of light (i.e., Christianity) against those of darkness (or paganism), a confrontation that marked the beginning of the "spiritual conquest" in the New World. 13 The church militant is boldly announced in the monumental size, cubic contours, and crenellated profile of sixteenth-century Mexican monasteries, aptly designated "fortresschurches." The psychological impact of these imposing structures was calculated to dominate the landscape as well as the minds of the new converts. The chronicler Escobar (1970:358) wrote that the merlons that crowned the church and cloister of Cuitzeo, Michoacan, not only were beautiful but also gave "authority to the immense and massive building." Nor was this

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significance lost on the viceroy Don Antonio de Mendoza when he wrote, according to the friar Torquemada, that "the monasteries with friars were walls and castles with which the whole land was defended, because with their example [i.e., of the friars] and their sacred sermons and admonitions, they conquered the spirit of the Indians, . . . and monasteries with religious were more valuable than fortresses with soldiers in the towns" (in Maravall 1949:223). Although during an assault the inhabitants of a town might take refuge within the church, its battlemented walls bestowed divine rather than physical protection. 14 The awe that the fortified appearance of the monasteries must have inspired in the new converts was abetted by their grandiose design and the wealth of their appointments. All the orders, to varying degrees, were guilty of constructing and decorating edifices that went beyond the exigencies of their own personal use and their mission. Overly ambitious building plans were almost irresistible, particularly in the first decades, given the ready supply of quarried stone and laborers. Somewhat longingly, Escobar (1970:358) looked back on this initial period of plenty when monasteries were not so "costly" because of the greater availability of stone, lime, and sand as well as the "multitude of workmen [peones]." The Augustinians were by far the most predisposed to erecting ornate churches and oversized cloisters. Unlike the Franciscans, the Augustinians were not required to take the vow of poverty and their extravagances therefore did not overtly challenge the orthodox rules of their order. Critics both within the church (particularly the seculars) and among the civil authorities complained about the friars' tendency to overbuild at the expense of the indigenous population, with the Augustinians singled out as the worst offenders. In a letter to Philip II, Dr. Anguis complained about "the excesses that are here evident in the buildings that are too sumptuous, where neither God nor Your Majesty nor the men [natives] here can take advantage of them" (in Cuevas 1975:261-262). While

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The Paradise Garden Murals of Malinalco

overstating his case, Dr. Anguis correctly criticized the overblown size of the monasteries given the few friars who occupied them. In Malinalco, only three friars occupied the eight lower-story cells in 1571 (Garcia Icazbalceta 1904:151), an average figure for most monasteries according to Motolinia (1950:260). Later in the century, after the addition of eight more cells in the second-story cloister of Malinalco, there were still only four friars and a prior in residence there (Grijalva 1924:636). Compared with the Franciscan monastery in Cuernavaca, a community with 8,000 tributaries, Malinalco's construction was pretentious for a mediumsized town with only a quarter of that number of tributaries. The regular clergy themselves justified the size and magnificence of their monasteries to win over a populace conditioned to the grandeur of their own ancient ritual. The daily and monthly rituals of preconquest Mexico were dedicated to a large pantheon and included song, dance, processions, and offerings to celebrate seasonal agricultural cycles, placate various natural forces, and validate the existing social and political system. These were deeply rooted traditions the friars sought to adapt to the Christian liturgical calendar. Even the Franciscan code, in spite of its avowed dedication to the ideals of poverty and simplicity, advocated "the necessary ornament and the pomp of the churches to elevate the spirit and move them [the native worshippers] to the things of God" (Codice Franciscano, in Penalosa 1969:83-84). In dazzling the worshipper with the splendor of the architecture and the pageantry of the service, the friars' expressed hope was that the natives would readily accept the new faith in place of the old. Sensitive to growing disapproval, particularly from the increasingly hostile seculars and bishops, the friars insisted that they did not allow the wealth of their churches to "tarnish" their reputations as mendicants. Instead, they claimed to contrast the stark simplicity and deprivation of their private lifestyles with the more opulent public appearance of the monasteries.

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Sources of Income and Labor In theory, according to the financial arrangement reached under royal patronage, one-third of the cost of new monasteries was assumed by the crown and two-thirds by the encomendero and Indians. As the encomendero in the valley of Malinalco, the supportive role of Cristobal Rodriguez de Avalos was acknowledged in the first name given the monastery of Malinalco: San Cristobal. In truth, monasteries were built and sustained primarily with tribute monies. The Indians in the end bore all of the burden since royal contributions were also taken from locally generated funds. The monasteries also benefited from lands that supported crops and livestock, from sugar mills, and from urban properties. Even on Spanish properties, however, a major share of the required labor was provided by native workers. Other sources of income that were used to support construction costs (as well as clerical salaries and church supplies) included the fees charged for certain of the clergy's services (burials and marriage ceremonies, for example) and, peripherally, the episcopal tithe (diezmo). The diezmo was a 10 percent income tax primarily levied by the bishops as a way of supporting the secular clergy (Ricard 1966:252). It was divided between the secular and regular clergies according to a very complex formula and was their most bitter point of disagreement. Although tithing was required of all Spaniards but not of the Indians, the bishops felt that "as citizens" Indians should pay their share. The regular clergy took a very strong stand against the tithe as an unfair burden on the native population already paying tribute (Ennis 1957:158-160). Bureaucratic mismanagement and Spanish laxity in paying the tithe often forced the tribute payments to be raised in order to meet outstanding expenses. Once again, it was the native population that ultimately sustained the monastic enterprise. Further support included an allotment of corn for each cleric (Penalosa 1969:174-175) and the royal grants made to each of the orders; 12,000 pesos annually went to the Augustinians (Gri-

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Malinalco and the Augustinians jalva 1924:122). An unofficial source of income was the funds siphoned off by the friars from the municipal treasuries of the Indian towns (Ricard 1966:148-149). Lastly, charitable gifts (limosnas) and alms begged by the friars also provided additional financing. Most religious chroniclers emphasize the generosity of the native gifts in the form of coins, food, candles, and ornaments; at times they claim these gifts completely subsidized the monasteries. Native labor was also directly involved in the building and maintaining of the monasteries. The mobilization of the labor force in the early period assumed two coexisting forms, voluntary labor and forced labor drafts (corvee or cuatequil labor); both were used by the mendicants. Labor that was at once "voluntary" in nature and simultaneously fulfilled tribute demands was not viewed as contradictory. Clearly a selfserving delusion, the Augustinians claimed that the natives happily gave of their unpaid personal service in addition to discharging their tribute obligations (Grijalva 1924:219). At times, the local encomendero allowed labor due him to be diverted to monastery construction. After 1550, when the epidemics began to take their toll, a type of rotational work force (repartimiento) was generally adopted in response to the shrinking labor supply as well as the growing Spanish population. Colonists and ecclesiastics alike abused native laborers. The Franciscan Torquemada (1975, 5:66), wrote that natives worked "as a favor" on his order's mother house in the capital, receiving no pay then (1525) nor for many years later, and were given food to eat, but "not regularly." Torquemada himself was guilty of inhumane demands on both common laborers and experienced craftsmen. In a legal suit filed by a group of ten painters from the Franciscan monastery of Santiago de Tlatelolco against the then-prior, Torquemada, the painters complained that they had been consistently unpaid, made to work on Sundays and holidays, and subjected to corporal punishment (Reyes Valerio 1978:301-305). The Augustinians were not exempt and came under sharp attack for their

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extravagant expenditures of capital and manpower. Escobar (1970:109-no) decried the fact that native artisans, both painters and stone masons, often went unpaid by the Augustinians. Role of the Augustinian

Friars

The interaction between friar and native must be understood in the light of attitudes toward non-Christians already formulated in Spain. From the time of Spain's first overseas discoveries, a polemic had raged over the inherent capacity for "savage" natives to reason. This debate had important economic and political implications: if considered reasonable people, as opposed to brutes, natives could be taxed as royal subjects. Theologically, the conclusion that pagans could reason entitled them to receive all of the sacraments and to live in liberty, as decreed by papal bull in 1537 (Cuevas 1975: 85-86). The mendicants equivocated on this official stance. Basalenque (1963:39) insisted that the sacraments were difficult to teach to the natives, because the latter lacked intelligence, as "people of little reason" (gente de poca razon y cuenta). Grijalva (1924:135) never hid his disdain for the uneducated state of the indigenous peoples, professing that "the preacher in everything is superior to the Indians." The latter also vindicated the use of corporeal punishment (whippings, for example) by pointing to the low mentality of the native population (Grijalva 1924:223-224). Another Augustinian claimed that the peoples of Mexico were incapable of even learning Castilian because of their "limited natural ability" (poca capacidad; Gonzalez de la Puente 1907: i n ) . In a seeming about-face, the regular clergy nonetheless were predisposed to find in the American Indians the raw material with which to create an idealized Christian state. Native Americans were said to be "inclined to all virtue" (Motolinia 1950:165) and to live in a state of "simple goodness." There existed, however, a disparity between the friars' stated ideals and the reality of their policies toward the converts. The "goodness" of the native was often interpreted by the friars as naivete, cooperation as

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The Paradise Garden Murals ofMalinalco

vulnerability to evil influences, and docile submission as the mark of an inferior being. All of these qualities in the Indian population justified the use of forceful, dictatorial control. The relationship of friar and native subject was a paternalistic one, clearly verbalized by Grijalva (1924:223), who explains that the clergy "amicably rectify offenses and punish their [the natives'] errors like fathers, even when they do not have to do with religious matters; although I have sometimes seen complaints from the secular justices saying that the ecclesiastics are usurping an alien jurisdiction, I do not know with what reason to say so, for when the friars carry out these functions they do so not as judges but as fathers." The mendicants' paternalism led them to try to impose a variety of controls on the native American population. Though unsuccessfully, they tried to limit the Indians' physical interaction with the lay Spanish community. The friars regulated their educational opportunities, attempting to affect their lifestyle and language. Their monopoly on the education of the provincial Indian was a major tool in seeking to design for the natives a lifestyle that was both Catholic and distinctly Spanish. The aggressive policy of indoctrination took children of the elite as young as five years into the monastery schools, with the friars assuming the role of fathers. The impressionable children became an effective means of evangelization, as they campaigned against the sins of their idolatrous elders (Trexler 1982). The educational curriculum was centered on the teaching of the catechism, or doctrina. Four requirements fulfilled the basic doctrina: the learning of the prayer " O u r Father," the Creed, the Ten Commandments, and five of the seven sacraments—baptism, confession, communion, viaticum, and extreme unction (Basalenque 1963:36-42). Additional doctrinal beliefs listed all seven of the sacraments and the seven mortal sins. Once the neophytes had been baptized and the friars were satisfied that they understood the doctrina, the converts could enter the church (Grijalva 1924:231). Surely as important as the

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doctrina was the Hispanization of the natives by implanting "good manners" and "good customs." The word most frequently used in the chronicles to describe the inculcation of social norms was policia, a Spanish word now outmoded but meaning a properly ordered way of life. The friars taught the Indians "moral and political customs: in short, all that is necessary for human life: since the populace was so untutored that they did not know even how to eat, dress, or speak to each other, at least with courtesy and humanity" (Grijalva 1924:53). Instruction included all practical skills necessary for policia. In addition, like the Spanish artisans who were also a source of European trades, the friars taught such crafts as carpentry, shoe making, iron casting, and painting. The adoption of Spanish customs and technical skills promoted stability and contributed to the economic success of the colony. The mendicants, then, played a dual role, both spreading Christianity and, simultaneously, helping create loyal and useful subjects for the local Spaniards and the crown. By the middle of the sixteenth century, Charles V thought of the clergy, and not the encomenderos, as the most "trustworthy royal agents at the local level in the Indies" (Liss 1975:90). In light of their highhanded tactics and punitive methods, it is paradoxical that of the three orders, the Augustinians were the most liberal with the sacraments and had the most confidence in the natives' spiritual life. Augustinian requirements for giving confession and extreme unction were less stringent; communion was given to anyone with some instruction in the Christian faith and with the "proper frame of mind" (Ricard 1966:107-108). The Augustinians were enlightened, too, in their establishment of hospitals and schools for Spaniards and natives alike. Of the four Augustinian schools that offered a higher or secondary education, at least two were known to welcome students from both the elite and nonelite native population. 15 Sermons were given in the local dialects, ten of which the Augustinians claimed to have mastered.

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Malinalco and the Augustinians Monastic Architecture Monastic art and architecture by and large was the creation of a cadre of anonymous artisans. This was certainly the case at Malinalco, where few names have been recorded for posterity that we can identify as the actual builders. However, we can extrapolate some possible alternatives from the evidence offered by betterdocumented monastic histories. Moreover, from the working relationship between Augustinian friars and artisans elsewhere, certain generalized practices can be applied to the construction and decoration of the monastery. Since there were no professional architects in Mexico before 1550, the job of designing and erecting monasteries took one of two courses. Either the responsibility lay fully with a friararchitect or it was taken on by a lay master (maestro) or journeyman (oficial) in the craft of stone masonry. We have the names of at least three talented but strictly amateur Augustinian architects who assumed the full responsiblity for the design of monasteries: Diego de Chavez, Andres de Mata, and Juan de Utrera. 16 Basalenque (1963:155) lauded Utrera's talents as a "great architect" of Ucareo, and Escobar (1970:440) detailed his ability to discern proportion and design "like a skillful painter." In the Mexican guilds established along the lines of Spanish corporations, craftsmen were advanced to rank of oficial after four to six years in apprenticeship; the title of maestro required more seniority and the passing of a qualifying exam. In Mexico, as in Spain, custom and the laws of supply and demand, rather than the guild ordinances, regulated most aspects of artisan life (Carrera Stampa 1954:10-11, 25-60). Above all, we must remember that craft guilds were not well organized in Mexico until very late in the sixteenth century. It appears that the most frequent arrangement was for the friar in charge, generally the prior of the monastery, to work closely with a more experienced native or mestizo master mason from Mexico. It is not always clear to what degree the

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21

friar was responsible for the design or was directly involved in the work itself. Early colonial writers, especially the friar-chroniclers, are often ambiguous about this distinction, preferring to give all the credit for the construction and decoration of the monasteries solely to the members of their own orders. Master masons worked either under the supervision of a friararchitect or independently, attaining reputations as "lay architects" (Gomez de Orozco 1927:42, 51; McAndrew 1965:125). At Yuriria the maestro, Pedro del Toro, left his portrait indelibly carved into the portal of the church in order to "perpetuate his memory" (Escobar 1970:315-316). Native oficiales, or journeymen, were also given the posts of chief architects, although ostensibly they were not allowed to use the title of maestro (Carrera Stampa 1954: 223-224). At Cuitzeo, Michoacan, the journeyman can be identified as a native in a carved inscription on the cloister portal that reads Fr lo Metl me Fecit, or executed by Francisco Metl, a baptized Nahuatl-speaking native (McAndrew 1965:586). Basalenque (1963:187) states that the Augustinian monasteries in Copandaro and Cuitzeo, Michoacan, were constructed by the same native oficial from Mexico. Since the style of Cuitzeo has also been compared to that of San Agustin in Mexico City, this single journeyman may have worked for, or been trained under, the Augustinians in the capital and then sent out when needed to supervise a number of works in the countryside. Architectural enterprises, then, were directed in a variety of ways. If a friar had enough time and confidence in his own abilities, he supervised every aspect of the construction following a trial-and-error process. The friars with an architectural bent were few in number and in great demand; generally, two or three monasteries are credited to each of them. More likely, however, the mendicants were so busy with other aspects of the missionary program that they required the help of a master mason, generally sent from the capital, to supervise on a daily basis the materials and crews ofnative laborers in situ. While the personnel directing

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The Paradise Garden Murals ofMalinalco

them may have varied and included black and mulatto specialists as well, the work crews were unquestionably made up of native laborers. Much of the success of the artistic output in Mexico rested on the extraordinary ability of the native population as technicians and copyists. Whatever the friars' reservations about the mental aptitude of the indigenous peoples, their delight and surprise at their mechanical proficiency were effusive. The native charges were praised for the ease with which they handled new techniques and an entirely foreign artistic vocabulary. Motolinia (1970:104) remarked on this facility to imitate "like monkeys . . . even in the crafts, they become experts f maestros] just by watching." C O N S T R U C T I O N OF T H E M O N A S T E R Y OF M A L I N A L C O Although the final products were criticized as being too grandiose, the incipient building phases of the monasteries were generally very modest. A temporary adobe and thatch church (Jacal) and small mendicant residence sometimes sufficed for years before the money, manpower, and supervisory friars were free to direct construction. There was no prescribed time schedule; the initial phase could be as brief as seven months or, more commonly, construction would take a decade or longer. 17 This accounts for the time lapse that often occurred between the year a monastery was founded and its recorded date of completion. The monastery of Malinalco was founded in 1540 under the leadership of the vicar-provincial, Jorge de Avila, but was not established as a parish until the Augustinian chapter meeting of 1543.18 There are no documented building phases at Malinalco and it is possible that construction at Malinalco, like its Augustinian neighbor at Ocuilan, was not begun until a decade or two after its foundation date. McAndrew (1965:153), on stylistic grounds, dates the severe classicism of the faqade of the church to c. 1565; however, the foundations and walls

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were undoubtedly started well before the facade ornamentation was designed and executed. The architectural style of Malinalco's buttressed cloister and its discontinuous cornice and roof level likewise favor dating the church to after 1560 (Kubler 1948, 2:274, 349). We do know that by 1568 both Ocuilan's and Malinalco's churches were ready to have installed their main altarpieces (retablos) by the prestigious Flemish painter Simon de Pereyns, then in Mexico City. Simon Pereyns' large oeuvre included retablos for at least seven Mexican monasteries, three Franciscan, three Augustinian, and one Dominican, of which only the one in Huejotzingo, Puebla (dated to 1586), is extant (Victoria 1986a). At Malinalco, Pereyns collaborated with Francisco de Morales and reputedly worked there longer than at any other location (Toussaint 1967:134-136). A letter penned at Malinalco on January 29, 1571, provides us with a more definitive termination date for the monastery. The friar Juan de Tapia wrote: "The church is finished, is vaulted, and has its altarpiece installed. The cloister is also almost finished and is also vaulted" (Estd la iglesia acabada y es de boveda y con su retablo. El rnonasterio estd tambien cast acabado, y es de boveda; Garcia Icazbalceta 1904:151). Since Tapia already knew by 1571 that the adjacent cloister (monasterio) was vaulted, we can be certain that the first story of the cloister was all but completed and the lower walls were ready to be covered with a painted design. It is immediately apparent that Malinalco's upper cloister story was a later addition, although probably no later than the 1580s. Two building phases are indicated in the absence of a uniform design scheme and in the structural alterations of the two cloister levels, a chronological difference supported by the variations in the techniques and subject matter of their frescoes. In the lower story, arches are set between heavy, squared pier buttresses (fig. 4). The interest in classical detailing is apparent in the articulation of cut-stone columnar moldings that form the compound jambs and archivolts of the

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Malinalco and the Augustinians

23

FIG. 4. View of cloister patio and two-storied cloister interior, Malinalco.

bays. Neither the architectural detail nor the technical finish is given as much care in the upper story. Moreover, the spacing of the four upper arches and the lower three-arched arcade are not synchronized or visually aligned (plate 3). Further evidence for a second, slightly later building stage is seen in portions of the wall murals that are trimmed and obscured by the doorway to and architectural supports for the monumental staircase (fig. 5). To date, neither the certain identity of Malinalco's founders nor its builders has emerged from the documents. It is reasonable to assume

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that the same two friars who founded neighbor ing Ocuilan in 1537, Diego de Chavez and Jua n de Roman, first "claimed" Malinalco for th e Augustinians. Although both Chavez and Ro man immediately pushed on westward to estab lish new missions in Michoacan and Guerrero , Diego de Chavez may have returned to hel p design Malinalco. Kubler (1948, 2:274) ha s named Malinalco as one of several Augustinian churches that display a discontinuous cornic e and roof level between the sanctuary and th e nave, an architectural characteristic associated with not only Chavez but with the friar-

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24

The Paradise Garden Murals ofMalinalco

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FIG. 5. Lower cloister entryway, Malinalco. Barrel vault construction for stairwell is superimposed over and partially obscures mural painting. architect of Ixmiquilpan, Andres de Mata. Juan Cruzate, an Augustinian known to have served as prior ofMalinalco, may have overseen at least part of Malinalco's construction. Cruzate was also associated with three other monasteries in the state of Morelos, in Zacualpan Amilpas and Jonacatepec at the time of their construction (Kubler 1948, 1:119) and in Tlayacapan in 1563 (Grijalva 1924: xlv). The permanent monastic complex of Zacualpan Amilpas has been dated to 1550 (Kubler 1948, 2:524). Not until twenty years later, in 1571, was Jonacatepec completed; it was there that Cruzate died and was buried four years later (Grijalva 1924:500). During the estimated period in which Malinalco was being built, between 1550 and 1570, the Augustinian Cruzate would have been geographically accessible to supervise several monasteries under con-

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struction, a not uncommon event. 19 Two later priors of Malinalco are named in the chronicles. Juan de Penaranda served as prior of three monasteries—Malinalco, Huachinango, and Molango—sometime after his arrival in Mexico in 1547, although the dates are not given for each office. Most likely Penaranda was not prior until after the major building phases of Malinalco, as he was responsible for outfitting the interior appointments of the sacristy and augmenting the rental properties (Garcia 1916:17). The most illustrious prior ofMalinalco was Juan de Grijalva himself, who served there in 1629, after completing his early Cronica of the Augustinian order (Grijalva 1924: vii). A brief analysis of the architectural style of Malinalco not only confirms the dating of the permanent monastic buildings but tells us some-

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Malinalco and the Augustinians 25 thing about the relationship of Malinalco to other Augustinian monasteries and their propensity to share design sources. Four distinct styles or ornamental vocabularies were available to the sixteenth-century Mexican architect: medieval or Gothic elements (stone vaulting, traceried windows, pointed arches, gargoyles), mudejar, or Moorish-inspired details (pyramidtopped battlements, alfiz mouldings, and geometric patterning), and two manifestations of the Renaissance, the plateresque and the more academically classical Purist. 20 The western facades of the Malinalco church and cloister are severe and sparse in their sculptural programs (plate 2; figs. 6 and 7). The design maintains a central alignment and vertical thrust emphasized at the top by the pediment and triangular gable. The planarity and symmetry of the church facade are ensured by the classical architectural features—paired pilasters, entablature, and engaged columns—that frame the main doorway and third-story choir window. The rectilinear disposition of classical features on the Malinalco

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church front indicates a strong influence from the Italianate movement defined as Purist that appeared in Mexico after mid-century. Copybooks and sketches circulated that carried the ideas and styles advocated in the treatises of Vitruvius, Alberti, and Serlio (Sebastian 1989: 78-85). The classicism evident on the faqade of Malinalco was derived from tracts or individual drawings illustrating the work of these Italian architects. Malinalco's scheme, however, is neither as monumental nor as classically correct as a textbook Purist faqade. The architect also incorporated elements of the less rigorously academic Renaissance style known as plateresque, such as the angel heads, rosettes, and shells appended to the pilaster bases and friezes (fig. 8).21 Originally, five sculpted figures of saints may have been intended for the niches in the fagade that are now vacant. In addition, curved striated bands once conjoined the central doorway cornice and the third-floor window frame, unifying the lower and upper levels of the faqade. Already faint in photographs from the 1940s, these painted bands are no longer visible. The eclectic use of style elements at Malinalco corroborates a free exchange of design sources. These sources were carried by itinerant master masons or by the friars from one monastery to the next. Architectural features similar to Malinalco's, although less Purist, are evident in the design schemes of the Augustinian facades of Ixmiquilpan and Meztitlan, Hidalgo, two monasteries that virtually replicate each

FIG. 6. West facade of Augustinian monastery of Malinalco.

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26

The Paradise Garden Murals of Malinalco

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FIG. 7. Main doorway in the west faqade, Malinalco church. Photo courtesy of J. Adrian Fernandez.

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Malinalco and the Augustinians

27

WMMHK/P**. FIG. 8. Upper portion of choir window and pediment on west fagade, Malinalco church. Note classical and plateresque design elements (shell and angel head). Photo courtesy of J. Adrian Fernandez.

FIG. 9. Faqades of Augustinian monasteries: left, Ixmiquilpan, Hidalgo; right, Meztitlan, Hidalgo. From Gante 1954: figs. 229, 233.

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28

The Paradise Garden Murals ofMalinalco

other (cf. figs. 6 and 9). Analogies will be drawn between the architects' working methods and those of the monastic muralists, who also shared artistic material and were equally susceptible to the wide choice of styles so evident in the architecture. The presence of the Augustinian mendicant order in the valley ofMalinalco as early as 1537 began the process of indoctrinating the indigenous population in the Spanish way of life. The Augustinian friars took several approaches in carrying out their evangelistic mission, both substituting Christian theology and beliefs for pre-Hispanic tenets and exploiting existing parallels between the two religions, if advantageous to the friars' program. The result was a fusion of both religious systems that has been called, like the racial mixture produced after the conquest, a "spiritual mestizaje" (Penalosa 1969:23-25). A similar process of syncretism, given the name "cultural rnestizaje," was operative in other spheres of native life (Liss 1975 194). The friars played an important role in both processes, claiming souls for the church and, simultaneously, helping develop useful citizens for the crown. Not only were the friars,

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as soldiers for Christ, proselytizing for the church militant, but as "ambassadors and ministers" (Torquemada 1975, 5 148), they were also the right arm of the colonization effort. The authority of the mendicants within the native population in the first fifty years of Hispanic colonialism was at times exercised at a high price. Not infrequently the natives' dependent state was exploited as harshly by the friars as by the Spanish lay settlers. The melange of architectural elements evident in the facade of Malinalco's church and cloister testifies to the atmosphere of experimentation that characterizes sixteenth-century art in Mexico. Stylistic features traveled great distances in the company of itinerant master craftsmen. Like the fusion of cultural and religious elements, the resultant "artistic rnestizaje" produced new and creative syntheses. N o less syncretic were the mural paintings that had similar access to several sources, both native and European, and reflected equally complex responses of accommodation and resistance to Hispanization. The mendicant friars brought to Mexico memories of a Spanish mural tradition that was altered to relay different ideologies by artists of a radically different background.

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Chapter Three

THE

PAINTERS

. . . it can be taken as a general rule that with almost all the good and unusual works that are done in all manner of crafts and arts in this land of the Indies (at least in New Spain), the Indians are the ones who exercise them and carry them out, because the Spaniards who are the masters of those crafts rarely do more than give the tasks to the Indians and tell them how they want them done. And they execute them so perfectly that one could not improve on it. JERONIMO

DE M E N D I E T A

(l945, 3:62)

Monastic murals were as much a product of the collaborative effort between the supervisorfriar and the native artist as were architecture and sculpture. With some reservations, the friars took great pride in both the quantity and quality of indigenous painting. According to one of their early instructors, fray Diego de Valades, "They [the natives] also learn to paint and to draw in colors the images of things and they manage to do it delicately" (in Palomera 1962: 276). At Malinalco, in addition to the evidence provided by stylistic analysis, native participation is corroborated by the choice of subject matter and, more convincingly, by the representation in the murals of glyphlike symbols surviving from the ancient profession of tlacuilo, or scribe-painter. In discussing the identity and training of the Malinalco painters, I will advance a "Sahagun connection" that suggests ties between Malinalco and the circle of artists working at the monastery of Santiago Tlatelolco in Mexico City. Typical of sixteenth-century monasteries, the monastic complex is situated in the central hub of Malinalco, set off from the commercial and

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residential zones by a wall and vast open courtyard, or atrio. The western faqade of the monastery faces the town's main square. Malinalco's architectural scheme consists of two basic units, a large church and a contiguous two-storied cloister located to the south (plate 2; fig. 6). Within the lower cloister walkway, murals cover all surfaces of the four inner walls and continue, in unbroken fashion, onto the masonry vaulting that spans the arcaded passageways (plate 4). Above a waist-high dado, the wall murals are organized into five horizontal registers (fig. 10). Three of the narrow bands contain an ornamental design made up of Renaissance motifs, including angel heads, dolphins, acanthus leaves, and vases. Between the upper two decorative friezes is found a band of Latin inscriptions. The eye is immediately drawn to the largest central register, where the garden frescoes represent a luxuriant array of plants, trees, and flowers as well as thirty-four different species of animals and birds (fig. 11). The flora and fauna are stylized yet naturalistic in their rendering; identifiable species inhabit the shallow pictorial space provided for them. O n each of the four walls

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30

The Paradise Garden Murals ofMalinalco

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The Painters 31

FIG. 11. East wall garden frescoes. Lower cloister, Malinalco. Photo courtesy of J. Adrian Fernandez.

FIG. 12. Garden frescoes, lower cloister wall, East 3, Malinalco. Note monkey in cacao tree to the left of the Marian medallion, and rabbit and egret on the lower right. Photo courtesy ofJ. Adrian Fernandez.

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32

The Paradise Garden Murals of Malinalco

FIG. 13. Garden frescoes, lower cloister wall, East 4, Malinalco. Note the zapote ("apple") tree to the left of the Augustinian medallion. Photo courtesy of J. Adrian Fernandez.

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FIG. 14. Garden frescoes, lower cloister wall, East 5, Malinalco. The tree to the right of the Augustinian medallion is interlaced with grape vines, harboring several birds; a rabbit at the lower right is eating grapes. Photo courtesy ofJ. Adrian Fernandez.

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The Painters 33

FIG. 15. Garden frescoes, lower cloister wall, North 2 and 3. Malinalco. Note the large acanthus plant, birds, and cross above the confessional arch on the right.

and set within the dense vegetation are three ecclesiastical medallions that enclose the sacred monograms of Jesus Christ, Mary as Queen of Heaven, and the Augustinian emblem (figs. 12-15).

FIG. 16. Garden frescoes, lower cloister wall, South s. Malinalco.

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The garden frescoes run the width as well as the height of the walls and are interrupted only where doorways are cut into the wall area (fig. 16). The mural design does not articulate the architecture for and on which it was painted. There is no effort to use the formal elements of the murals as a way of visually defining architectural members; few modifications are made for the arched doorways, corner breaks, and wall apertures. Instead, the murals are overlaid on all available stuccoed surfaces like a decorative veneer. Above the corridors of the cloister, the barrel vaulting is compartmentalized by transverse ribs that divide the vault into three rectangular bays (fig. 17). Vault frescoes

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34

The Paradise Garden Murals ofMalinalco

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FIG. 17. Vault murals, lower cloister, East 3. Malinalco. are located in these bays and in the corner groin vaults. Although repeating the vegetative theme of the wall murals, the floral designs found in the vaults are quite distinct in their style and coloration. The quantity and liveliness of design in the murals succeed in animating what is otherwise a very ponderous and severe claustral space. Because of their inherently nontectonic nature, the murals have been subdivided into sections in this study (fig. 18). References to a specific motif, plant, or animal will be designated according to its location, with both the cardinal direction and the number of the section used as coordinates. In the diagram, the lateral sections or bays in the barrel vaults are numbered clockwise from 1 to 3 and the directional placement is given as north (N), south (S), east (E), or west (W). For example, a fresco, or any detail therein, located in the second bay of the northern vaults will be referred to as located in vault N-2. Frescoes in corner vaults will be designated directionally: vault NE, vault NW, vault SE, or vault SW. References to frescoes on the

Peterson_345.pdf 56

cloister walls will follow a similar system, divided into sections that conform to the vault divisions overhead and that are numbered clockwise from 1 to 5 (fig. 18). Following this system, the location of a fresco section or detail found on the west cloister wall and in section 5 will be abbreviated as wall W-5. EUROPEAN AND NATIVE P A I N T I N G STYLES In order to factor out native and European characteristics in the frescoes, a stylistic analysis is an important first step and will follow Donald Robertson's (1959) basic criteria for examining early colonial pictorial manuscripts from central Mexico. In Robertson's definition of "native style" (1959:15-23, 59-67), the forms are distributed evenly over a two-dimensional field in a manner labeled "scattered-attribute" space. The handling of line and color in the native style is similarly without a three-dimensional quality. The unvarying native "frame line" encloses and defines flat areas of color, applied within shapes as solid washes. The treatment of human, archi-

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tectural, and geographical forms are based on a conceptual rather than a visual portrayal of the world. Figural and animal representations, for example, are rendered as composites of stylized parts depicted in profile or in juxtaposed frontal and profile views (fig. 19). Size, location, and posture of preconquest forms indicate their importance to the narrative, rather than responding to the requirements of illusionistic space. The stylistic guidelines that distinguish between the native and European-derived components can be applied to mural painting from the same period. Sections of two central Mexican manuscripts, the Codex Borbonicus and the Codex Magliabechiano, will be compared with the Malinalco murals as these codices share many of the native style traits outlined by Robertson, although with a greater degree of naturalism and some deviance in pictorial conventions. 1 The Aztec artist's propensity for realism (Boone 1982:158— 166) is evident when comparing, for example, the stylized treatment of a rabbit in the Codex Nuttall (fig. 20) with rabbits depicted in the Codex Borbonicus (fig. 21).

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The lower cloister murals will be analyzed separately from those on the vaults, as they reflect a different artistic background and level of professional training. Consideration will be given to the composition, line, color and shading, and the degree of naturalism and/or stylization evident in the forms. The artists responsible for the wall murals were successful in creating an impression of limited space with volumetric forms yet careful to preserve the unity of the walls' pictorial field (figs. 12-14). C o m positional units are carefully positioned to create fluid, curvilinear patterns. Few background spaces in the composition are left unfilled, in true horror vacui. The artists' interest in avoiding blank areas encouraged the use of flowers and, occasionally, birds as decorative filler elements that float rather than being logically situated. Fillers include flowers that are unattached to a vine or branch and animals that are not given a perch or groundline (fig. 22). In spite of the concern for decorative surface patterning, however, a plausible if shallow depth is achieved. This illusion of three-dimensionality is suggested by the representation of the forms themselves as volumetric by using the techniques of overlapping, shading, and foreshortening. The artists at Malinalco did not hesitate to overlap forms, thus bisecting some objects and blocking others from being seen in their entirety. In the murals, a dense network of vines and branches twist and crisscross, one behind the other. Leaves and tendrils curl behind the trunk of a tree and emerge from the other side (fig. 16). Animals are similarly superimposed or partially hidden behind vegetation, as is the duck in the upper right portion of figure 36. A serpent is coiled twice around a tree trunk, a stag is only partially visible behind a tree (fig. 97), a monkey has one leg over and one leg under a branch (fig. 95), and the talons of birds grip their branch pedestals (figs. 85, 101, 107). The overlapping of forms gives the appearance of spatial freedom, convincing enough that the

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36

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Murals ofMalinalco The Paradise Garden

FIG. 19. A, owl. From Codex Borbonicus 1974: fol. 9; B, parrot. From Codex Borbonicus 1974: fol. 9,

FIG. 20. Rabbit in Mixtec pictorial manuscript. From Codex Nuttall 1975: fol. 22.

animals appear to interact naturally with their environment. The technique of shading forms to give them plasticity and thereby suggest space was also familiar to the Malinalco artists. In the wall frescoes, animals and plants are either silhouetted against the uniformly black background or they are clearly outlined in black. Within these outlines, animal forms are contoured and highlighted (figs. 92 and 95). The artist has indicated the shaded zones with grisaille shades of black, ranging from charcoal to pale grey. The brushwork in these sensitive gradations is fused rather than being applied as separate strokes or hatching. The versatility of the artist's brush is displayed in the scumbling technique used to convey the texture and mottling on the thick coats of the two foxlike creatures (fig. 96). Tree trunks are rendered as cylindrical (figs. 14 and 97), and the surfaces of leaves are both convex and concave (fig. 74). There is little interest, however, in maintaining a single light source in the murals and, thus, to uniformly illuminate the garden scene. Nor are the effects of light always consistent even within one object. For example, shaded areas are found on the inner vein of one leaf and on the outer edge of the adjacent leaf or on one side of the lower portion of trunk and on the opposite side immediately above (fig. 69). Shaded and linear, nonmodeled forms coexist side by

side (figs. 86 and 89). Light, therefore, takes on both decorative and spatial functions. These kinds of inconsistencies suggest that the Malinalco artists either were not aware of the theoretical basis for using the pictorial technique of modeling with light and shade or that these considerations were not of primary concern to them. Space within the murals is additionally implied by the poses of the animals. Birds, rabbits, and monkeys are depicted as not only occupying a spatial niche but, because of the postures they assume, as being capable of movement within the limited area created pictorially. Animals are shown as moving from a back to a profile view (fig. 78), turning from a profile to a frontal view (fig. 104), twisting from one side to another (figs. 97 and 100) and even descending head first (fig. 27). Foreshortening is very occasionally attempted. The knee and shoulder of one of the monkeys is painted as if projecting toward the onlooker (fig. 95). Nevertheless, this tentative effort as well as the awkward posture assumed by the large tree opossum (fig. 92) indicate that the artist was not fully conversant with techniques of perspective. None of the techniques used in the Malinalco murals to create the illusion of space would have been familiar to an Indian artist prior to contact. In the preconquest painting style of central Mexico all objects are reduced to recognizable but highly stylized shapes, as evident

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The Painters 37

FIG. 21. Rabbits in central Mexican pictorial manuscripts. A, from Codex Borbonicus 1974: fol. 17; 23, from Codex Magliabechiano 1983: fol. I2r.

in the plant and animal forms in the codices Borbonicus and Magliabechiano (figs. 21, 23, 24). Objects are depicted as flat patterns without shading and are kept distinctly isolated one from the other. The insistence on clarity and legibility in Aztec work necessitated that forms maintain their integrity, with all parts clearly visible. Another variance with the precontact painting tradition is the quality of the painted line found in the Malinalco wall murals. With deft handling of brush, the muralists varied the pressure on the brushstroke and, thus, the width and intensity of the line. Robertson (1959: 16) has called this variation in linear elements a "contour line" as opposed to the more characteristic preconquest Mexican "frame line" of uniform width. A contour line not only encloses shapes but is also capable of expressing various parameters, volume being one of the most important. In the Malinalco murals, the quality of line is modulated from heavy and thick to delicate and wispy, giving curvature to objects, as in the rendering of leaves and fruit (figs. 74 and 88). The fluctuating line used to represent the veining on the grape leaves and the curved reflections of light on each of the grapes emphasize their bent and globular surfaces. The treatment of line in the frescoes is also modified to represent accurately the visual impression of natural detail. Spiky, clean lines recreate feathers and cacti spines (figs. 75 and

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100). Thick hatchmarks reproduce the impression of an animal's soft fur (figs. 93 and 96) in contrast with the consistently even, parallel marks that convey the message of "fur" in Aztec-style painting (figs. 21 and 23). Like the handling of paint to create the modeled effects of light and shade, the line quality attests to the work of muralists who are confident with the fresco medium and conversant with European techniques. It is apparent from their handling of line and shading that the Malinalco artists wished to create a scene partially based on perceptual reality, one that approximated the visual effects observable in nature. This aim is further substantiated in the degree of naturalistic anatomical detail given the many species inhabiting the garden frescoes. For the most part, each animal in the frescoes is a distinct species, recognizable

wall, North 4, Malinalco.

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3 8 The Paradise Garden Murals ofMalinalco

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FIG. 23. Deer tied to a tree. From Codex Borbonicus 1974: fol. 6.

FIG. 24. Xochilhuitl: "Feast of Flowers." From Codex Magliabechiano 1983: fol. 47r.

through the textures of hide and feathers as well as the detailed features of claws, beaks, and nails. The artists' concern with creating a convincing reality extends to the unitary treatment of animals here represented as organically coordinated creatures with their torsos, limbs, and heads forming one functioning whole. The limbs and feet of animals are differentiated as to right and left (figs. 36 and 107). Many assume very active poses, leaping, flying, or eating (figs. 78 and 112). Occasionally an animal gives indications of emotion, such as the rabbit on wall E-4 stretching in fear from its attacker (fig. 98). This dynamic and emotive treatment of animals is in contradistinction to the ideographic treatment of animals in preconquest Mexican pictorials where they are painted entirely in profile, in frontal or dorsal views, or as a conglomeration of separable parts, front and profile views conjoined without credible transitions (figs. 20, 21, 29). A comparison of the tethered stag/feline creature in the Codex Borbonicus (fig. 23) with the mural stag on wall E-3 (fig. 97) points up the similarities in stance— a profile head set on a body which is pivoted in an opposing side-view position. Nonetheless, the articulation of the Borbonicus stag appears disjointed and stiff when viewed alongside the graceful energy of the Malinalco stag.

Two divergent approaches are evident in the treatment of the plant life in the frescoes. The branches, leaves, and fruit or flowers of many plants appear organically coherent and "grow" logically from an implied groundline (figs. 13 and 14). Some of these are as realistic as the animals, identifiable by their textural differences and botanical details, from roots to stamens (fig. 69). By contrast, other plants are highly stylized and remain impervious to classification. These can be scattered as independent decorative units, earlier called "fillers," or are attached to vines or branches that belong to entirely different species (figs. 22, 89, 109). In these instances, there seems to be no interest in maintaining the botanical integrity of the plants. The plants in this second category are also flatter and less differentiated within their precise outlines. In some plants there is a fusion of both traditions. For example, the xiloxochitl (fig. 71), organ cactus, and dahlia (fig. 88) display leaves, stems, and trunks that are modeled and asymmetrically arranged according to European canons. The flowers of these three plants, however, are characterized by a geometric simplification similar to that used by preconquest Mexican artists when depicting flowers. The linearism and concentric circles of the stamens on the xiloxochitl and organ cactus flowers, for example,

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The Painters 39 can be compared with the flowering tree in Codex Magliabechiano (fig. 24). The two distinct treatments given the plant life, one highly naturalistic and the other stylized, point to the muralists' experimentation with various sources. O n the one hand, the painters accurately observed and then replicated plants in their natural setting. On the other, they copied from models, European or native, that were being used as source material. Some artists felt bound to copy diligently or were only capable of imitating prescribed traditions; others had the self-confidence, training, or authority to incorporate fresh and unique elements into the mural composition. Vault Frescoes The murals found in the barrel and groin vaults of the lower cloister offer a valuable contrast to the cloister wall frescoes. In the vault frescoes the handling of spatial composition, line, color, and the stylization of elements more closely approximate Aztec-style pictorials or screenfolds. Further, there are also more direct ties with the native iconographic tradition. In the vaults foliage, flowers, and symbolic elements are isolated in a manner that is neither organic nor three-dimensional. Evenly distributed units are set in relief against a black background, close to preconquest "scattered attribute" pictorial space. The muralists were conscious of twodimensional relationships and there is a continuous flow between arabesque patterns (fig. 17). The techniques that create an impression of a slight recession in the wall paintings, such as light and dark shading and perspective foreshortening, do not exist in the vault frescoes. Instead of the grisaille tones that model forms in the wall frescoes, an aquamarine blue in the vaults is applied arbitrarily to details creating an ornamental rather than volumetric effect (plates 4 and 6). Leaves occasionally overlap or curl back on themselves, but these details do not break radically with the narrow constraints of the patterned composition. The lack of convincing space, the overall distribution of forms, and

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the flat use of color conform to native Mexican conventions rather than to the requirements of European illusionism. The line quality of the vault murals more closely resembles the uniform frame line of Aztec-style painting, although there is some variation in width and intensity, as seen by comparing a detail from Codex Borbonicus (fig. 19) with a portion of vault S-2 (plate 6). In the rendering of the stems and veining of the leaves, for example, the lines expand and then taper at the tips of the vegetation (fig. 67), yet they are less expressive of contour than the linear elements in the wall frescoes. In comparison with the wall frescoes, the native qualities in the vault paintings—the "scattered attribute" space, uniform treatment of line, and the greater degree of abstraction—are readily evident. European and Native Style

Traits

It is apparent that the primary muralists of the wall frescoes had received training in European iconography and stylistic conventions. The versatile, sure handling of the brushstroke, the awareness of illusionistic space through the techniques of contour line and shading, and the naturalistic rendering of flora and fauna point to artists well acquainted with the tenets of the imported art. Stylistic inconsistencies, however, also indicate that these adopted traits had not been completely assimilated. Certain areas in the murals reveal tensions between the interest in two-dimensional rhythms and the attempt to create depth. Not all the transitions between frontal and profile views are smoothly effected. In the three-quarter pose of the owl on wall of E - i , for example, there is an abrupt juncture of the bird's abdomen and its wings and legs (fig. 104). Since in pre-Hispanic pictorial manuscripts owls in general were depicted with frontal heads set directly on profile bodies (fig. 19A), the three-quarter pose was experimental for the native artist. These passages in the wall frescoes indicate some misunderstanding of Renaissance pictorial theory and technique. European and native traditions are sometimes

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40

The Paradise Garden Murals of Malinalco

FIG. 25. Rabbit eating a pomegranate, garden frescoes, lower cloister wall, North 5, Malinalco.

We can conclude that, although the muralists at Malinalco had received training in the new styles, their exposure or schooling varied in length and intensity. European material was assimilated by the artists with varying degrees of comprehension and competency. The most dramatic evidence of the discrete native and Spanish traditions can be found in the stylistic break between the wall and vault frescoes. The comparison between the two areas reveals the wall frescoes to be more Europeanized, as contrasted with the treatment and disposition of the motifs in the vault paintings. The vault painters appear to have received only cursory exposure to European art, although they were technically well versed in native painting styles. THE ARTISTIC TEAM

THE juxtaposed on the same wall in the cloister frescoes. There are multiple representations of the rabbit in the murals, each with slightly different features (paws, heads, tails), that allow us to detect several hands. All but one of the five rabbits are rendered according to European canons (figs. 36 and 98). The exception is painted within a floral setting on wall N - 5 , hovering in midair and eating an equally buoyant pomegranate (fig. 25). In its proportions, crouching profile, and taut outline, the north-wall rabbit is comparable to the rabbit "in the moon" in Bernardino de Sahagun's Florentine Codex (1979, 7: fol.2r). However, the native-style Malinalco rabbit is even closer to preconquest renderings in its circular staring eye and blunt nose (fig. 21). A similar juxtaposition of two artistic traditions occurs behind the pool of water and the egret in the foliage of the water lily plant (fig. 36). Below and to the left of the pool, a second water lily flower is represented as a frontal image, petals open and clearly defined. The flower's frontality, flattened shape with outlined silhouette, and oversized proportions relative to the birds and pond are elements more closely associated with native than with European traits in this context.

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AND

TLACUILO

The gradients of skill and mastery of the new iconography suggest a hierarchy within the group of artists active at Malinalco, with one or several artists qualified to paint according to the European conventions placed in charge of assistants or apprentices. At Malinalco the more thoroughly trained painters were given the responsibility of the wall murals, with apprentices relegated to secondary areas, details in the wall frescoes and the vault paintings. The exact number of artists who made up the Malinalco team of muralists can be reconstructed from a careful comparison of the wall and vault sections. The eastern and southern walls appear to have been executed by one hand, hereafter called Artist A. Artist A was intensely exposed to Renaissance tenets; he was equally the most inventive and observant member of the team. Artist A drew on the local fauna and flora for inspiration, using the greatest number and variety of such animals as monkeys, deer, lizards, hummingbirds, falcons, and the tlacuache (figs. 12, 13, 14, 16). He incorporated his garden motifs into a readable scheme with the expert shading and complex interweaving of compositional elements that endow the eastern and southern walls

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The Painters 41 with a persuasive sense of life. Because of his facility with European methods of illusionism and his bold incorporation of both native and imported imagery, Artist A may have been given command of the entire team of muralists. By comparison, the painter of the north wall, Artist B, was more conservative in his choice of subject matter and in his composition. Artist B derived his floral motifs from secondary, European sources, depicting them with less consideration for their botanical accuracy (figs. 15 and 22). From the animal world, birds are used almost exclusively on the northern wall. The repetitive rendering of certain floral and faunal images produces a less imaginative final result. In keeping with the artist's preference for copying decorative elements from models of ornamental design rather than working from nature, the northern wall is also more compressed and

"spaceless" than either the eastern or southern walls. The northern and western walls may have been apportioned to a single individual just as the eastern and southern walls formed a unit. Unfortunately, this is impossible to appraise, as the west wall has suffered such damage that it is almost illegible. While technically highly qualified, Artist B may not have held the same status as Artist A. Although this professional distinction is not possible to prove, Artist B's conservative choice of subject matter and greater timidity in his use of Renaissance spatial elements indicate that he was neither as confident in his own skills nor given as much leeway in his choice of imagery as Artist A. Regardless of their ranking, however, both artists had contact with, if they did not attend, an art center or school with a European curriculum. Stylistic differences within the vault murals ^;«^r;>;

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FIG. 26. Vault murals, lower cloister, West 3, Malinalco.

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The Paradise Garden Murals ofMalinalco

• • • • **' - ; ';'"^!8K^? &^'Hi ;-

4 "N*£•'• iy%'t M V • \ ^ J n S : ^ « ^ - ^ J S FIG. 27. Vault murals, lower cloister, North i, Malinalco. Note trilobed glyphs, lower center. that cover the four corridors suggest at least three other muralists. These three assistants will be referred to as Artists C, D, and E. Each of the vault frescoes has a slightly different handling of the vegetative subject matter. These style differences are detectable in the selection, proportions, and distribution of motifs, as well as in the handling of the pigment. The individual treatment of the vault paintings is most noticeable when comparing the western with the northern segments. The west vault bays are tightly organized with a dense but delicate handling of the floral motifs that gives the impression of filigree (fig. 26). The west vault paintings will be attributed to the hand of Artist C. By contrast, Artist D, who painted the north bays, used a much simpler, broader approach (fig. 27). In Artist D's work there are fewer and larger forms; heavy outlines define each shape and more of the uniform black ground is al-

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lowed to appear. The murals in the eastern and southern sections of vaulting stylistically fall between the features of the western and northern vaults and appear to form one stylistic unit (fig. 17). The east and south vault murals may have been executed by a single artist, here designated as Artist E, just as the walls beneath appear to have been assigned to one hand (Artist A). In short, the creation of the vault frescoes involved no fewer than three artists, and perhaps more. Within the style components of the entire mural sequence, then, there is evidence of a team effort made up of at least five different artists. Two painters were responsible for the majority of the wall frescoes, Artists A and B. They appear to have had the skills and responsibilities commensurate with master artists as designated under the guild system. Although rigid guild restrictions were not enforced in

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The Painters 43 Mexico at this time, the system of hierarchical ranking reflected the division of labor in the colonial period. At Malinalco Artists A and B assumed the roles of master painters or journeymen, using three less qualified assistants or apprentices, Artists C, D, and E. These apprentices aided in the painting of the walls and were left to execute the vault murals in their entirety, where native traits are more exaggerated. Although without citing evidence, Gerlero (1989: 75) has postulated an even more specialized division of labor in the muralist teams according to subject matter, with different individuals assigned to painting only the wainscoting, vaults, ornamental borders, epigraphy, and human figures. One must exercise caution in factoring out native and European components based on style alone. It is dangerous to assume that divergence from Renaissance canons proves the untutored hand of a native artisan rather than the provincialism of an untrained friar. The preceding discussion, therefore, has emphasized those features in the murals that have deviated stylistically from European traits and were common to pre-Hispanic painting. However, it is necessary to go beyond formal characteristics to demonstrate native workmanship. At Malinalco the native hand can also be detected in the persistence of pre-Hispanic mural techniques and certain iconographic conventions. Since all arguments rest on the consistent premise that the Augustinian friars relied heavily on native labor in all aspects of monastic art, the training and working conditions of the painters must also be examined. The Native

Painters

The Franciscan friar Mendieta (1945, 3:75) credits almost all early colonial Mexican artwork to the native craftsmen: "Who built the many churches and monasteries . . . if not the Indians with their own hands and sweat? And who provided the churches with ornaments . . . and everthing else they have as equipment and decoration, if not these same Indians?" As did

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all friar-chroniclers, Mendieta exaggerates the exclusivity of native involvement, omitting the important role of other ethnic groups, namely blacks and mestizos. Yet native Americans were largely responsible for the construction of the monasteries as well as their painted and sculptural decoration. The labor-intensive tasks of quarrying and transporting enormous quantities of materials, such as the lime and sand used for wall plaster, certainly required great native manpower (Reyes-Valerio 1989:15-22). The preeminent role of natives in craft work is dramatized in the evolution of the guild system and its ordinances. Established by the peninsular craftsmen and based on Spanish precedents, the Mexican guilds were founded to promote certain standards, conserve orthodoxy in religious imagery, and protect the craft professions from native competition. This is patently clear in the progressively tighter restrictions set by the painters' and gilders' guild. According to the guild's first ordinances (1557), the hierarchy of master, journeyman, and apprentice was regulated based on skill and tenure. All applicants were examined for their qualifications. By these rulings, Spanish painters were not allowed to farm out work to nonguild, native painters; an individual who was not Spanish could not pursue an apprenticeship nor could an "Indian" who had not been "examined to determine the perfection of his skill" sell his work (Barrio Lorenzot 1921 .-21-25). 2 The commercial implications of these ordinances are curiously reinforced by the frequent substitution of the word tienda (store) for taller or obrador (workshop). Torquemada (1975, 5:317) was well aware of the economic threat posed by native artisans when he wrote that the native craftsmen took away the business of the European craftsmen, so "exquisite were their [own] crafts." Spanish hostility grew so intense that the Spaniards hid new techniques from native artisans (Motolinfa 1970:98). In many guilds, written restrictions were placed on the positions held by native Americans, mestizos, and blacks. Only "clean" (i.e.,

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The Paradise Garden Murals ofMalinalco

pureblooded) Spaniards, born in Spain or America, were allowed to take the exams required to attain the most advanced rank of maestro. Although in title the higher echelons of the craft guilds were closed to non-Spaniards, the reality of the situation forced an accommodation (Cruz 1960:36; Gibson 1964:397-402). It is important to stress that these ordinances were recorded on paper to placate the European artists and assuage their fears; in the marketplace and in the monasteries, they were unenforceable. In fact, the guilds were already in the hands of Creoles, mestizos, and Indians in the sixteenth century, and by the seventeenth century guild membership was completely of mixed blood (Carrera Stampa 1954:225-226). The demand for works of art in the new colonies far surpassed the productive capabilities of European artists. The number and aptitude of the natives were such that they were rapidly assimilated among the practitioners of the Spanish crafts. Moreover, any pressure that guild organizations might have exerted on the urban artistic community was diluted to the point of extinction once removed from the environs of Mexico City. Malinalco and most provincial monasteries, by virtue of their locations, would have been out of the range of these discriminatory policies. Although some monasteries, including Malinalco, were wealthy enough to order altarpieces, or retablos, from European artists in Mexico City, many altarpieces were attributed to Augustinian friars and natives alike. As free-standing altarpieces incorporated painted panels, usually in oil, with ornately carved wood frames and painted figural sculpture, their execution required specialized skills less familiar to the Indians. Even so, one of the earliest native painters of retablos was Marcos Cipac de Aquino, who was working in Mexico City by the 1540s (Maza 1972:17, 35). At least one Indian's work, that of Miguel Mauricio, was putatively more highly esteemed than that of the Spaniards (Torquemada 1975, 5:314). The chronicles remain somewhat ambiguous as to the extent to which the friars personally carved and painted the al-

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tarpieces. The Augustinian fray Joan Vicente at Patzcuaro was credited with the construction of the monastery and was also, in 1576, the individual who "had made the retable and the ornaments for the sacristy" (hizo el retablo . . . y en la sacristia hizo ornamentos; Basalenque 1963:218). In this context, the Spanish verb hizo is better translated as "had made" rather than "made," as it is probable that friar Vicente only supervised their production rather than personally crafted them. 3 Of all the arts, murals received less attention in the writings of the friars than altarpieces, as they ranked lower in preciosity. Ironically, under layers of subsequent whitewashing, they have endured the centuries far more successfully. As with the other arts, it was the mendicant friar who generally set forth the overall program, dictating the compositional format and themes of monastic murals. The Augustinian prior San Geronimo at Charo, Michoacan, is said to have directed the painting of the cloister, selecting the mystical themes for the frescoes and paintings on cloth. Father San Geronimo twice ordered the cloisters painted (mando pintar and mandaba pintar) and once is reported to have painted (pinto) a corner scene in the cloister (Escobar 1970:421, 436). Just as the Augustinian friar from Patzcuaro could not have single-handedly made the retable and sacristy ornaments, here too the use of the action verb "painted" should not be taken literally to imply that San Geronimo was himself wielding the brush. This same prior, it was claimed, "built the church to the level of the windows and constructed the cloister" (levanto la Iglesia hasta las ventanas, hizo el Claustro; Escobar 1970:421). Like most chroniclers, Escobar imputed to the priors direct, manual involvement in the construction of the monasteries, whereas their role was often more administrative and acquisitive than creative. Unfortunately, there are even fewer documentary references to the working arrangement between friar and native painter. To date, historical records have substantiated the name of only one indigenous muralist, Juan

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The Painters 45 Gerson, who worked at the Franciscan monastery of Tecamachalco, Puebla (Camelo Arredondo et al. 1964:13-35). Francisco de Burgoa (in Mullen 1975:106) also records the fact that an Indian painter was responsible for the cloister walk frescoes in Cuilapan, Oaxaca. Within the general guidelines established by the friars, it cannot be assumed that native talent merely copied slavishly. In those murals whose imagery reveals a high degree of native input, the artists likewise assumed a prominent role in the creative process of selecting and composing the subject matter; such is clearly the case at Malinalco, as we will see. The familiarity of the native artists with various media for wall painting encouraged their participation and expedited their training. In Malinalco itself, the Aztec temples that were originally stuccoed and painted may have been still visible after the mid-sixteenth century. In spite of the destruction of the majority of preHispanic murals, technical knowledge was retained. Within a generation after the conquest, the mendicant friars were using the skills and materials of native muralists to adorn their monasteries. Certain pre-Hispanic techniques persisted into the colonial period, some coinciding with those already familiar to the Spaniards, others uniquely American. The quality of preconquest pigments was as impressive to the conquerors (Cortes 1962:88) as was their derivation from a wide range of mineral and organic substances. Of the manufacture of pigments, Hernandez (1945:82) in the sixteenth century commented that there were "many [colors] unknown to us [the Spaniards] that they make of flowers, fruits, roots, leaves, bark, stones, wood and others that one cannot ennumerate." Pigments during the colonial period continued to be derived from "plants and earth," according to the Augustinian Escobar (1970:109); some of the colors that were used the Spaniards could not begin to imitate, such as the hues of black as "dark as ebony or obsidian" (cf. also Anderson 1963). Although their palette was limited, the six major colors used in monastic murals were iden-

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tical to the dominant shades in preconquest murals: black, white, turquoise blue, ochre, earth red (almagre), and vermilion. In colonial murals, however, black and white prevailed, with the four remaining colors used as secondary accents. While pre-Hispanic pigments and hair brushes were retained, the continuity of indigenous wall painting techniques is more difficult to assess. It is important, first, to distinguish between the three separate techniques of true fresco (affresco or buon fresco), dry or "false" fresco (fresco secco), and, finally, tempera painting (al temple). In colonial documents these methods are not always differentiated, but instead are improperly classified under the rubric of fresco painting. In true fresco, the painter applies the pigment, dissolved in lime water, to a wet plaster (lime and sand plaster). When true fresco dries, the pigment forms an integral part of the plaster and, thus, of the wall. In both "false" fresco and tempera, the artist paints on a dry stuccoed surface. The difference is in the emulsion for the paint: water is used in the fresco technique and an agglutinate is added in tempera painting. In tempera painting, however, the adhesion of the viscous pigment and agglutinate mixture can be so firmly bonded that it is difficult to distinguish it as a distinct layer apart from the dry plaster wall. Tempera, thus, can appear to be true fresco. Further, in both pre- and postcontact periods, a high gloss was characteristically achieved by burnishing the surface with a stone. The final polish given the walls enables both dry and tempera techniques to masquerade as real fresco. In other words, to discriminate between the use of tempera, real fresco, and dry fresco, all murals would have to be subjected to chemical tests and microscopic scrutiny. Such investigation is underway, but the use of the term "fresco" continues to be misleading in most current publications on Mexican wall paintings. All three methods of mural painting were known and used, sometimes side by side, by both pre-Hispanic and colonial muralists. Mural painting had great time depth in pre-Columbian Mesoamerica. True fresco techniques were used

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The Paradise Garden Murals of Malinalco

as early as the Classic period, beginning in A.D. 200, at the site of Teotihuacan in central Mexico (Miller 1973 :175-177), and both fresco and tempera techniques were used by the Maya and Aztecs (Rodriguez 1969:62). Assuming the European friars had some training in the medium, they would likewise have been familiar with all three mural techniques. The most common wall painting technique in Spain was a combined method that overlaid details in fresco secco on a base design executed in true fresco. By the mid-sixteenth century, with the influx of Italian muralists to Spain, true fresco in its purest form was reintroduced, although the ease and speed of dry fresco methods continued to make it, or some combination of dry with true fresco, the preferred medium. 4 The methods of fresco and tempera painting persisted in colonial wall painting. The outdoor chapel of the monastery of Tlaxcala had the earliest recorded mural cycle. In 1539 the chapel was frescoed (pintaron al fresco) in four days, "for thus the rains will never wash away the paintings" (Motolinia 1970:238), an indication that the more durable true fresco technique was used. The Crucifixion mural in the New Cloister of Acolman, Mexico, has also been analyzed as a true fresco (Carrillo y Gariel 1946:72). However, recent studies have shown that sixteenth-century painters in Mexico were abandoning true fresco in favor of the more expeditious dry techniques, including tempera, and at times several techniques were used together on the same wall. 5 The Malinalco murals have not been subjected to chemical tests, but, based on qualities of sheen and durability reported by the 1983 restoration team, the lower cloister garden paintings appear to be in true fresco. A technique that combined true and dry fresco must also be considered, although when the top coat or painted layer is only 10 to 50 micrometers thick, as is the case in most colonial wall painting, this distinction is difficult; tempera painting, with its palpable brushstrokes and uneven relief, can be ruled out because of the smooth surface texture of the lower cloister paintings.

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The upper cloister murals at Malinalco, on the other hand, are executed in some combination of dry fresco with tempera painting. Certain uniquely preconquest painting materials, unrelated to European practices, did persist into the colonial period. In tempera painting, for instance, the colonial muralist inherited the traditional indigenous agglutinates: sap from the orchid, the maguey, or the tuna (baba de nopal), oil from the chia plant, human blood, and egg whites. The pre-Hispanic practice of using stencils whose outlines were marked by a stylus or thinly painted lines also continued into the sixteenth century. The incorporation of such native materials as amate (wild fig) paper, maguey paper, and even actual sections of codices or pictorial manuscripts into fresco designs additionally point to Indian workmanship. 6

Native Painters and the Profession o/Tlacuilo Pre-Hispanic painters were associated with the honorable profession of scribe, or tlacuilo (pi. tlacuiloque) in Nahuatl. Tlacuiloa means both "to paint" and "to write" in Nahuatl, and tlacuilo—if not modified—means either "painter" or "scribe." In view of the pictorial nature of pre-Hispanic texts, it is not surprising there was no distinction between writing and painting. In his description of the "good tlacuilo," Sahagiin (1950-1982, 10:28) states that he "paints, applies colors, . . . creates works of art." PreHispanic painters were not simply craftsmen but were considered wise men with access to a body of esoteric ritual, calendric, and genealogical knowledge. According to Sahagiin (19501982, 5:4), "They who were readers of day signs embellished their book of days with their representations which they placed in the middle when they painted them." Although the relationship is not clearly understood, it is thought that the scribes were closely related with the priestly class. Torquemada (1975, 1:47) emphasizes that literacy was limited to priests (rabinos) and masters (maestros) who were skilled in the execution of pictographic script. The Nahuatl metaphor for the pictorial manuscripts produced

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The Painters 47 by the scribe-painters means "their black, their red" (Sahagun 1950-1982, 6:259). Black and red ink, in turn, were equated with the cumulative wisdom of the "way of life . . . of our grandfathers" (Sahagun 1950-1982, 6:258) and had a connotation of high birth. Motivated by the need to preserve orthodox imagery, it is likely the priesthood oversaw the painters' education in a variety of media: painting on paper or hide, baked clay, or lime-plastered walls. Moreover, pre-Columbian scribe-artisans undoubtedly shared a corpus ofdidactic imagery with the muralists. Support for these hypotheses comes from the regional similarities of subject matter, style, and composition between pre-Hispanic pictorial manuscripts and murals. The altar frescoes at Tizatlan, Tlaxcala, for example, have been compared to the style of the Borgia group codices. 7 Both pre-Hispanic murals and manuscripts were intended to preserve certain information as well as edify their audience. 8 In sixteenth-century Mexico, scribes performed an important task as transcribers of Nahuatl documents. Additionally, tlacuiloque continued to rely on their traditional tools, media, and pictographic symbols in manuscript paintings (Boone 1983:2-4, 21-28). From Inquisition records it has been possible to determine that many of the early colonial manuscript painters were drawn primarily from two circles: the nobility and the priesthood (Robertson 1959, 27:35-40). The roles of the manuscript tlacuilo and muralist continued to be closely related if not interchangeable in the early colonial period, as evident in sixteenth-century frescoes. In the Franciscan monastery of Cuautinchan, Puebla, for example, a fresco shows the Annunciation scene but is flanked heraldically by an eagle and a seated jaguar (Kubler 1967). The identical animals in a similar compositional format are found on a page from the Historia Tolteca-Chichimeca, a historical codex written in Cuautinchan between the years 1550-1570 (Kirchhoff 1976: fol. 19V). This time period coincides with the likely execution of the murals in the monastery, suggesting that similarly trained artists were in-

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volved with both projects. Furthermore, at that site also, Mendieta (1945, 1:107) recorded seeing a painted calendar, or tonalamatl, in the portal of the Cuautinchan monastery. Neither the mythically paired pre-Hispanic jaguar and eagle nor the ritual calendar were subjects that a Spanish artist would have elected to paint. Malinalco had long been noted for its painters. In 1519, when the Aztec emperor Moctezuma II required a painted version of the strange white intruders on Mexico's shores, the first tlacuiloque to be sent to the Gulf Coast were from Malinalco (Duran 1964:269). Because of Malinalco's long-standing reputation as an art center, it seems likely the muralists for the monastery were selected from among the local population of artists. Intriguing evidence in the frescoes links at least one of the Malinalco muralists securely with the tlacuiloque tradition. In addition to the native-style painting characteristics already noted, pre-Hispanic symbols are incorporated into the floral design of the vault frescoes familiar only to an artist acquainted with the preconquest hieroglyphic system of central Mexico. These symbolic elements include flanged song scrolls (figs. 67 and 83), trilobed symbols (fig. 27), and three celestial

FIG. 28. "Bee" and song scroll with glyphlike symbols, enlarged in inset; from left, ilhuitl, shell, and flower. Detail of vault frescoes, lower cloister, South 2, Malinalco.

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The Paradise Garden Murals ofMalinalco

FIG. 29. Illustration of Fourth Day tonalpohualli celebration. From Codex Borbonicus 1974: fol. 4.

FIG. 30. Detail of song scroll in illustration of tonalpohualli celebration. From Codex Borbonicus 1974: fol. 4.

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The Painters 49 symbols found within one of the song scrolls (fig. 28). All of the motifs are rendered with the geometric abstraction characteristic of preHispanic Mexican pictorials. Although the trilobed symbols appear singly in the murals, they also take on the appearance of winged insects and bees (fig. 118), as elaborated in chapter 6. Speech scrolls appear in many colonial murals, often as S-shaped scrolls emerging from the mouths of figures or animals. As such, they resemble the comma-shaped scrolls used by preconquest painters and sculptors to indicate speech, as in several folios of Codex Borbonicus. They are also related to phylacteries or ribbons inscribed with words or quotations in medieval European art and, therefore, would have been a device familiar to the friars. The flanges or appendages on the Malinalco scrolls, however, indicate song rather than speech. This distinction is readily apparent in the illustration for the fourth week of the Codex Borbonicus calendrical section, in which a drummer is singing and faces the Aztec coyote deity, Huehuecoyotl (fig. 29). The drummer's incantation is represented by a scroll surmounted by a stylized flower. Like the Malinalco fresco scrolls, the Borbonicus song scroll is divided into eight sections, each partitioned by one or two transverse strips (fig. 30). These evenly spaced divisions are interesting in view of the preoccupation with metric regularity and with the eight paired-verse sequence in Nahuatl poetry. 9 As if to confirm their ties to poetry as song text, the majority of the song scrolls in the Malinalco vault paintings have eight divisions (figs. 67 and 83). A few scrolls in the murals are represented with only seven compartments (fig. 80), an aberrant form that also appears in Nahuatl poetry. Three celestial symbols found within one of these song scrolls form the most telling link with the identity of the Malinalco painters. These symbols appear in three of the eight compartments of a scroll behind one of the winged insects depicted in vault S-2 (plate 6). The symbols are clearly drawn and depict a shell, an eight-petaled flower, and a configura-

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tion known in Nahuatl as an ilhuitl (fig. 28). The ilhuitl is formed by two parallel but inverted hooks placed on a diagonal; it signifies, in Nahuatl, "day," "ceremonial day," or "sun's orb" (Molina 1977:37V). These three symbols together rnay have astronomical significance; however, the ilhuitl glyph was additionally linked to pre-Hispanic scribes. 10 The ilhuitl symbol is also found on the same folio of the Codex Borbonicus illustrating the fourth week of the ceremonial calendar mentioned above. The symbol is repeated in each of the compartments of the drummer's song scroll (fig. 30). Whoever was born under the sign of the fourth-week period was augured to become a "singer, a bearer of joy . . . an artisan" (Sahagun 1950-1982, 4:23). The ilhuitl glyph, then, is associated with the pre-Hispanic profession of singer as well as with the class of artisans and painters. In fact, the ilhuitl symbol is used specifically to indicate the profession of tlacuilo in several instances. In Codex Mendoza (fig. 31) and in Codex Telleriano-Remensis (1964: fol. 30), the ilhuitl is inscribed in the block on which a tlacuilo is writing. Further, in Codex ToltecaChichimeca (Kirchhoff 1976: fol. 54) a scroll very similar to the one depicted in the Malinalco frescoes contains ilhuitl symbols as a toponym for the place Tlacuilotecatl or "place of the painter." In the Malinalco frescoes we may have the first known instance of a tlacuilo-artisan leav-

FIG. 31. Tlacuilo or painter-scribe ("Pintor") with writing block and ilhuitl symbol. From Codex Mendoza 1964: fol. 70.

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The Paradise Garden Murals ofMalinalco

ing a sign of his profession—some fifty years after the conquest. TRAINING

OF N A T I V E

ARTISTS

Prior to the conquest, children of the governing and religious elite entered the calmecac, the pre-Hispanic school located in or near each district's main temple. In the calmecac they followed a rigorous curriculum that included history, astrology, and religion as well as the tools of painting needed to preserve this knowledge. In the feather working district of Tenochtitlan, children of the upper strata were placed under the priests for instruction and the acquisition of artisanship (toltecayotl\ Sahagiin 1950-1982, 9:88). Following this pattern of the temple school, children of the noble class were first singled out by the friars to receive a Spanish education. Although one of the earliest goals of the evangelistic program was to reeducate these future leaders, entrance into the conventual schools was soon made available to able young male adults of all classes.11 The Monastic Art Schools and Urban Guilds The best documented centers for training the large cadre of native artisans were located in monastic schools established primarily by the Franciscans and Augustinians. The famous Franciscan trade school in Mexico City was held in the atrium of the chapel of San Jose de los Naturales, adjacent to the monastery of San Francisco. Functioning as early as 1526, it was here that the Flemish lay brother Pedro de Gante "taught all the arts," from embroidery and jewelry-making to painting and sculpture (Valades, in Palomera 1963 158). The exclusivity of student selection from the upper classes may have been confined to the early stages of the mendicant program and to their liberal arts programs rather than their schools of arts and crafts. At San Jose de los Naturales, the conventual school that taught "reading and writing" to the young elite was quite separate from the center for the teaching of "arts and crafts." Men-

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dieta (1945, 4:54) does not specify whether the art students were aristocratic but simply states that those in attendance were "Indians." Torquemada (1975, 5:316) more specifically calls the art pupils mozos grandecillos or half-grown youths. Among the students were young men who brought with them the crafts taught by their "fathers" (Mendieta 1945, 3:59). The use of the word "father" in colonial documents is ambiguous and may have had a double implication. In the most literal sense of biological father, some students in the monastery schools may have been sons of tlacuiloque, singled out to receive special training because of the skills and status of their paternal inheritance. Or the reference may have been to the calmecacs priestteachers, or "spiritual fathers," who supervised every aspect of the elite education from as early an age as five years (Reyes-Valerio 1989:51-53). We can be certain that the first-generation friars had for pupils former students from the calmecac program. A second Franciscan school, the College of the Holy Cross (Colegio de Santa Cruz), opened at Santiago Tlatelolco in 1536. Its curriculum as a school of higher learning offered the seven liberal arts and within a few years also added courses in theology, medicine, painting, and music. These two Franciscan schools, San Jose de los Naturales and Santa Cruz in Tlatelolco, vied as centers for teaching the oficios, or manual arts, recognized as critical for rapid integration of the native into the colonial economy. There must have been productive interchange between the two as well. We know that the well-known teacher and designer fray Diego Valades was an assistant to fray Pedro de Gante at San Jose and also served as a faculty member at Tlatelolco. Both institutions were recognized as painting schools in an official cedula of 1552, but Viceroy Velasco designated San Jose de los Naturales as the primary institution, where native painters were to be examined to ensure that their images were not "injurious to God" (in Maza 1972:36). It was from these schools that a new generation of native and mestizo artists emerged. Gradu-

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The Painters 51 ates of Tlatelolco returned to their provincial hometowns in order to help teach in outlying monastery schools (Kobayashi 1974:363). The Augustinians likewise established a college of higher learning and a seminary, the C o legio del Nombre de Jesus, at their mother house in Mexico City. There is no record of the Augustinian college having included an art school, or at least one that attained the respect accorded the Franciscan schools. The Franciscans claimed that San Jose de los Naturales was the center where "images and paintings for churches in all the land were made" (Mendieta 1945, 4:54). However, in the competitive spirit that marked much of mendicant history in Mexico, this boast was challenged by the Augustinians. They sought the same genetrix role for their Michoacan monastery of Tiripetio as the "workshop for the entire province" (Escobar 1970:75). Founded in 1540, Tiripetio was touted as the Athens of the Augustinian order, promoting the growth of other branches of learning as far away as Puebla, Acolman, and Actopan (Basalenque 1963 :68). O n a localized level, the Augustinians also fostered the teaching of different trades. As part of their program of living en policia, or in a "civilized manner," many crafts, including painting, were introduced in almost every monastery. Depending on their needs, the Augustinians used two primary methods to train their students. The first was to invite skilled artisans from the city schools or larger monastic programs out to the more isolated monasteries. Even at the Augustinians' famed Michoacan art school of Tiripetio, Spanish tradesmen were brought in from "outside," probably Mexico City, to instruct the native pupils (Basalenque 1963:60). Grijalva (1924:223), on the other hand, states that for those indispensable crafts that could not be taught in the villages, the friars sent certain natives into Mexico City and "put them under masters." Although a monastic setting was preferred for the new converts to avoid contaminating contact with secular Europeans, urban artisans were likewise utilized.

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Spanish workshops employed natives as apprentices on a three-week rotational basis as part of their tribute obligations and also more permanently. 12 Although Escobar (1970:109110) mentions both options for the proper schooling of craftsmen, he stresses that painters, unlike stone masons, were trained in Mexico City, where he claims they were equal to the Europeans in skill. Motolinia (1950:241) confirms the concentration of talent and the high caliber of painting instruction in the capital, stating that "especially fine are the painters in Mexico City." The bishop of Michoacan, Don Vasco de Quiroga, wrote to thank the Augustinian fray Alonso de la Veracruz for having sent him " Indian painters from Mexico City [emphasis mine] who could paint 'de romano' " (in MacGregor 1955:35). For the Augustinians in Malinalco, therefore, two alternatives existed. Since a monastery with a reputation such as Tiripetio in Michoacan was not accessible, the friars could either import teachers (native and nonnative) from Mexico City or send their more adept students into the capital to learn their crafts, particularly painting. Cultural interchange between Malinalco and Mexico City was already in place. The convents of both Malinalco and Ocuilan had been chosen as locations for altarpieces executed by Simon Pereyns, a major European artist working in Mexico City. The friars' reliance on the schools in Mexico City indicates that they recognized their own amateur status. Documentation does not clarify for us just how much, if any, artistic education the mendicants brought with them from Europe. Most friar-architects assimilated what they could from European craftsmen already in Mexico and received "on the j o b " training. One Franciscan architect, fray Martin de Valencia, is recorded as having designed several buildings in Spain before he emigrated (Kubler 1948, 1:116). Likewise, only one friar, Andres de Mata, was reportedly a painter in Italy (Gerlero 1976:17). As founder and prior, Mata is credited with the construction of the Augustinian houses of

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Actopan and Ixmiquilpan, Hidalgo, and it is probable that Mata also directed (and helped execute?) the murals in those two monasteries (Pierce 1987:158). At the very least, if not trained professionally, many of the European friars were sensitive to the arts of their homeland. Basalenque (1963 :149) describes the landscape around Charo, Michoacan, as recreating those "Flemish countrysides painted in a framed canvas." We can conclude that the majority of friars who directed the sculpture and painting programs in the monasteries were autodidacts who benefited from the vast native talent available. Painting sources, primarily devotional graphics, illustrated Bibles, and pattern books, discussed in the next chapter, were carried from place to place by intinerant master craftsmen. The striking parallels between the fagade designs of Acolman, Mexico, and Yuriria, Michoacan, point to shared designs carried by traveling masons. Yet the degree to which entire crews of workmen traveled from one site to another is debatable. We have documentation that small groups of artists working on altarpieces were sent from Tlatelolco to Xochimilco, Michoacan, and as far distant as Oaxaca (ReyesValerio 1978:305). Whereas specialized training, tools, and materials were required for altarpieces, the techniques of stone masonry and fresco painting were indigenous. Consequently, local teams of craftsmen could have been utilized for these art forms if provided with the necessary guidance in thematic programs and designs. The "Sahagun

Connection"

Given Malinalco's proximity to the capital and the ready pool of local talent, one or two "master" painters from Mexico City could have trained the Malinalco muralists either in the capital or in situ. It will be argued that there existed ties between the artists in Malinalco and those scribe-painters working in the Royal College of the Holy Cross at Santiago Tlatelolco. In order to erect a chronological framework for

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this connection, we should keep in mind that the college at Tlatelolco had already established itself as a center for medical research with the production in 1552 of the Libellus, or Herbal, of Martin de la Cruz. The floral illustrations in the Cruz herbal are by a native hand (Cruz 1964:6-7, 316-317). Subsequently, Bernardino de Sahagun's volume on natural history was first conceived at the monastery of Tlatelolco as part of his multivolume Historia general de las cosas de Nueva Espana, an encyclopedic record of life in Aztec Mexico. The seven native doctors used as informants and the necessary scribes and artists needed to transcribe the data were already at Tlatelolco in the 1560s (Lopez Austin 1974:210211). After the prohibition imposed on Sahagun's work from 1571 to 1575, his treatise on natural history became Book XI of the second bilingual edition of the General History, now known as the Florentine Codex.13 We can safely presume the garden frescoes were begun shortly after 1571, when the cloister vaulting at Malinalco was almost completed, as stated in fray de Tapia's letter (Garcia Icazbalceta 1904:151). The inspiration for the murals' garden subject may have also come at this time, after a research visit by the Spanish naturalist Dr. Francisco Hernandez. Hernandez, Philip II's ranking physician (protomedico) and primary investigator, arrived in Mexico in February of 1571 to begin his six-year scientific mission. 14 His royal assignment was to survey the plants, animals, birds, and minerals of New Spain with an emphasis on their medicinal or curative uses. From Mexico City Hernandez traveled to the provinces accompanied by a large entourage that consisted of native doctors, translators, and at least three native painters. His initial trips were to the state of Morelos, where he headquartered at Cuernavaca and made exploratory excursions to Ocuilan and Malinalco. Hernandez, wherever possible, took residence in monasteries while carrying out his field work. By 1576 Hernandez had sent to Philip II sixteen illustrated volumes that comprised the results of his comprehensive research.

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The Painters 53

FIG. 32. Huacalxochitl. From Cruz 1964: fol. 18. Reproduced with permission of the Instituto Mexicano del Seguro Social, Mexico City.

Hernandez visited Malinalco sometime between 1571 and 1573,15 coinciding with the 1571 completion of the Malinalco cloister. The presence at Malinalco of a naturalist and doctor of such stature, accompanied by his books and staff, may well have stimulated the painting of the garden frescoes as a monumental herbal on the new but still blank walls of the cloister. Once the subject matter for the mural cycle was decided, the Augustinian administrators may have then communicated with Santiago Tlatelolco in Mexico City, the monastic center most renowned for previous botanical research and considered one of the two best art schools in the capital. The execution of the Malinalco murals after 1571 would have additionally coincided with a hiatus in Bernardino de Sahagun's work between 1571 and 1575, when the team of artists at Tlatelolco who aided Sahagun in the copying and illuminating of the General History would not have been occupied in that project. The final edition of the General History, or the Florentine Codex, is dated between 1578 and February of 1580 (Nicolau D'Olwer and Cline 1973:195198). Prior to that, during the early 1570s, the

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Tlatelolco artists ostensibly would have been free to offer assistance, either direct or indirect, to the muralists at Malinalco. Having established a compatible chronological framework, we can also draw parallels between the working methods of the Tlatelolcan illustrators and colonial muralists. The stylistic variation of the Florentine Codex images argue for their being the product of a group of artists of diverse talent and training. 16 Because of distinct qualitative differences in their draftsmanship and their control of Euro-Christian iconography, Sahagun's team included master draftsmen who directed less experienced, perhaps apprenticed artists, similar to the proposed makeup of the Malinalco muralist team. The hierarchical organization of labor at Tlatelolco would have facilitated the assignment of one or more mas-

FIG. 33. "Garden." From Florentine Codex, Sahagun 1979, 11: fol. 189. Reproduced with permission of the Archivo General de la Nacion, Mexico City.

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The Paradise Garden Murals ofMalinalco

ter artists to the job of training the Malinalco painters. The most persuasive argument for a Sahagun connection is in the affinity between certain illustrations in the natural history volume (Book XI) of the Florentine Codex and the Malinalco frescoes. As painting styles evolved in early colonial manuscripts, the native pictographic tradition was gradually abandoned in favor of the newer European mode. The increased use of Renaissance spatial tenets in the representation of plants becomes evident if one compares the early postconquest Codex Borbonicus (fig. 23) to the 1552 Libellus of Martin de la Cruz (fig. 32) and the Sahagun tine material of the mid-15 70s. Not only are the individual plants increasingly given more substance and specificity in the later works but, in some instances in the Florentine Codex, they are set into a landscape (fig. 33).

It is equally apparent from the murals that the Malinalco artists, like the Florentine Codex painters, were intent on providing the detail and modeled form characteristic of living specimens. A comparison of the same kinds of fauna and flora from Malinalco and the Florentine Codex will demonstrate this point. In both works the contour of the plant called the "heart-flower," or yoUoxochitl, is simplified, but the interiors of the flowers and leaves are shaded and accurately detailed, as seen in the resemblances between figures 69 and 70. Rooted trees emerge from an implied ground line, their trunks extending the full height of the frame line or mural panel, as depicted in Malinalco (figs. 14 and 16) and in Sahagun's work. The rendering of parrots from the murals (figs. 100 and 101), when contrasted with those of the Sahagun manuscript (fig. 102), indicates a similar interest in combining sche-

FIG. 34. Cacao tree and monkeys. Detail of garden frescoes, lower cloister wall, East 3, Malinalco.

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The Painters 55

FIG. 35. Ogomatli (monkey). From Florentine Codex, Sahagun 1979, 11: fol. I5r. Reproduced with permission of the Archivo General de la Nacion, Mexico City.

matic representations with the accurate appearance of birds. Correspondences in subject matter also exist with Sahagun's Book XI. Several vignettes and specific animals in the frescoes can be favorably compared in pose, anatomical detail, and treatment of line and shadow with those same animals in the Florentine Codex, such as the owls (figs. 104 and 105), rabbits, and the treeclimbing "rats" in both (figs. 93 and 94). In one such comparison, the monkey in the frescoes has the same outstretched, grasping arms, pinwheel leg positions, and realistic head detail as the large monkey in the Florentine Codex (figs. 34 and 35). Another parallel is the egret, standing on one foot in a pool of water, painted in the Florentine Codex and on wall E-4 of the cloister (figs. 36 and 37). In both, the U-shaped feather markings and one-legged stance of the

FIG. 36. Rabbit eating fruit, egret with fish in pond, and duck behind reeds. Detail of garden frescoes, lower cloister wall, East 4, Malinalco.

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56

The Paradise Garden Murals of Malinalco eral references to the sharing of facilities and expertise between the regular clergy. In other words, intellectual, if not collegial, exchange between scholars took place. Indeed, all three mendicant orders used the native graduates in grammar and Latin matriculating from the Franciscan college of Tlatelolco. 17 The jealousies between the Mexican regular clergy notwithstanding, given the reputation of a Franciscan art school and library and the needs of an Augustinian monastery at Malinalco, the possibility of artistic assistance and even collaboration must be given serious consideration.

FIG. 37. Aztatl (snowy egret). From Florentine Codex, Sahagun 1979, 11: fol. 28. Reproduced with permission of the Archivo General de la Nacion, Mexico City. egret are remarkably similar, as is the carefully demarcated border around the pool of water and the convention for water conveyed by parallel linear swirls. Thus, there is convincing, if not conclusive, evidence binding the Malinalco project with the school of Tlatelolco in their synchronous time frame and parallel working methods. A relationship that included direct artistic assistance is strengthened by ties of shared subject matter and stylistic traits between works of art at the two sites. Any hypothesis of collaboration between mendicants must take into account the friction that existed between the three orders and the potential problem in having an Augustinian monastery solicit a Franciscan school for assistance. Yet less publicized efforts at cooperation did exist. Grijalva (1924:670-671) makes sev-

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With their ambition to supervise every other sphere of native life, there is no question that the friars carefully oversaw the program and execution of the murals. Painting in general, as the most approximate representation of the visible world and, therefore, the most vulnerable to error, was the colonial art form most diligently scrutinized by the friars. The stylistic influence of European art has also been pointed out in the garden frescoes, although these learned traits were not always fully understood or assimilated. And yet technical, stylistic, and iconographic aspects of the garden frescoes endorse their native authorship. In order to determine exactly how much freedom the Malinalco artists were permitted in the selection and rendering of their painted images, we must identify the sources available to them in various media. The fidelity with which the prototypes for the garden frescoes were followed will also confirm the identity of the artists, their innate artistic aptitude, and the thoroughness of their training in European styles and iconography. In the end, the very models that inspired the form and content of the Malinalco frescoes also provide us with clues to the murals' ultimate meaning and function within their monastic context.

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Chapter Four

THE

SOURCES

Since the Christians came, they [the Indians] have become great painters; since the samples and images have come from Flanders and Italy, that the Spaniards brought, . . . there is no retable or image, no matter how fine, that they cannot imitate and copy, especially the painters of Mexico City. T O R I B I O DE B E N A V E N T E M O T O L I N I A

Sources for the Malinalco garden frescoes fall into two categories. There was, first, the generalized influence of mural painting from sixteenth-century Spain and pre-Hispanic America. The Mexican friars fell heir to a bicultural tradition of polychroming both civic and religious buildings. A second and more direct influence on monastic murals, however, was exerted by portable works of art available to the colonial artists. These primarily European sources acted as the specific models for much of the style and subject matter of wall paintings in Mexico. From an early age native artisans in conventual schools were grounded in orthodox theological imagery and imported Renaissance modes of expression. An eclectic array of Spanish, northern European, and Italian graphics, illustrated manuscripts, and oil paintings provided a wealth of material from which artisans copied the artistic language of their conquerors. In the case of Malinalco, there was the additional inspiration of tapestry, whose influence on monastic frescoes has just begun to be investigated. x Before its sources can be traced, the layout

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(1970:97)

and internal composition of the mural cycle in Malinalco's lower cloister must be described. The frescoes begin at ground level with a waisthigh wainscoting or dado of 1.3 meters painted solid red. Above the wainscoting, the murals are organized into five horizontal registers of varying widths (fig. 10). Three of these bands contain an ornamental design made up of Renaissance motifs such as angel heads, dolphins, acanthus leaves, and vases, which together are referred to as "grotesque" (grutesco or de romano) in style. 2 Grotesque friezes frame the top and bottom of the central register and bracket the uppermost band of Latin inscriptions. Between the upper two decorative friezes are quotations in Latin taken from biblical and theological texts. The capital letters that spell out these inscriptions are separated by elaborate fine-line scrollwork and foliage. It is in the widest central register of the wall fresco (2.6 meters in height) that the profuse foliage of the garden scene is painted. Although a few of the same species are repeated, no two leaves or flowers are exactly alike. Birds alight or fly among the intertwining trees, shrubs, and

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The Paradise Garden Murals ofMalinalco

FIG. 38. East wall, with composition of the three medallions in the garden frescoes. Lower cloister, Malinalco.

climbing vines. Small animals eat fruit from hanging branches or chase each other, contributing to the scene's vitality. Set within the vegetation on each wall are three medallions that enclose the Christian monograms of Jesus Christ and that of the Virgin Mary as well as the Augustinian emblem. The two sacred monograms are of Mary, Mother of Christ and Queen of Heavens (M interlaced with M; fig. 12), and the first three letters for the Greek name for Jesus, IHS, or Ihsus, which in the sixteenth century was also used as an acronym for Iesus Hominum Salvator, or Jesus, Savior of Men (fig. 11). The Augustinian emblem is traditionally represented as a heart penetrated by three arrows that produce three bleeding wounds (fig. 14). The three ecclesiastical medallions are equidistant, spaced regularly across the width of each of the cloister walls (fig. 38). Only the western wall, with its multiple monumental entry ways, breaks with this format. The medallions dominate the compositional field and act as primary focal elements. Located between and below each of the medallions are acanthus plants that are larger in scale than the other plants and act as secondary accents. It is the rhythmic spacing of the medallions and acanthus plants that loosely organizes what at first glance appears to be a bewildering array of vegetative and animal motifs. PRE-HISPANIC AND SPANISH MURAL PRECEDENTS From the earliest periods, pre-Hispanic cultures painted civic buildings and temples with

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mural imagery that conveyed the dominant message of their governing elite. The zealous and systematic destruction of indigenous masonry architecture by the Spaniards all but destroyed any vestige of native wall painting. Once the Aztec capital had been razed, the vivid impressions of Tenochtitlan's polychromed buildings were preserved only in the chronicles. Murals of solid colors, striped panels, and figurative designs are described; temples are said to have been "decorated with evil paintings," including animals, monsters, and human figures.3 After the conquest, every effort was made by the friars to avoid dangerous "pagan" images in their own places of worship. With the exception of a few monasteries such as Malinalco, neither the style nor subject matter of indigenous wall painting overtly influenced colonial murals. What did persist was the native familiarity with ancient mural techniques, certain conventions that governed the arrangement of murals, and a symbolic ideographic language, unfamiliar to the friars, that endured among the scribe-painters late into the sixteenth century. From the literature it would appear that Spanish wall painting played only a minor role in the development of colonial muralism. Art historians have persistently asserted that the tradition of wall painting lay almost dormant in Spain from the late fourteenth century until shortly after the mid-sixteenth century, when Philip II imported Italian artists to execute the ambitious murals in his palace outside Madrid, the Escorial. 4 Consequently, historians of Latin American art questioned the existence of any Spanish

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The Sources 59 prototypes for Mexican frescoes (Kubler 1948, 2:377). As more Spanish murals from this period are being discovered, earlier appraisals are being reversed. From historical texts and from little-known examples of fresco painting, it is possible to describe at least some of the late fifteenth-century and early sixteenth-century murals that existed in several regions of Spain, including the southern province of Andalusia, the point of departure for the New World expeditions. The void in our knowledge about Spanish murals during this period stems from several factors. All religious art, but particularly the fragile frescoes, suffered significant destruction during the French occupation of Spain in 1808 and, subsequently, during the suppression of the religious orders when they were expelled and their property confiscated in 1835. Those frescoes that have survived were hidden under coats of whitewash, as in the Mexican monasteries, or were located in cloistered convents to which outside access traditionally has been denied. 5 Additionally, fifteenth-century Spanish frescoes have been neglected due to a lack of scholarly interest in the local artists who generally painted outside official circles. Official commissions by church and state during this period were principally for panel paintings and retables rather than for mural cycles. This was in part a structural decision, dictated by the lack of wall space in High Gothic interiors that were laced with windows and soaring arches. With several well-known exceptions, murals in Spain were thus relegated to monasteries and chapels and were executed by provincial, often anonymous artists. It appears that while mural painting did become a secondary art form by the fifteenth century, it never disappeared altogether. Certainly, sixteenth-century Spanish Augustinian friars were not strangers to frescoed walls. In the period before their departure for the New World, murals decorated the universities where they were being educated (Salamanca and Alcala de Henares) as well as the churches, palaces, and monasteries in their

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hometowns of Toledo, Leon, Valladolid, Granada, and Seville (plates 7 and 8; see also Appendix B). Andalusia appears to have been the region with the strongest impulse to polychrome both interiors and exteriors. In historical accounts of Seville the Augustinian, D o minican, and Franciscan monasteries from the period of colonization are all described as having wall frescoes.6 Unfortunately, the majority were destroyed when the buildings themselves were razed or secularized; only a fraction of the originals testify to this strong mural tradition. Although the custom of wall murals was fresh in the eyes and minds of the European friars as they sought to recreate their monastic environments overseas, one must ask how accurately they transferred this tradition. Rarely do the Augustinian friars even cite specific Iberian churches as design sources for their Mexican establishments. One exception is Grijalva's (1924: 211) comment on the Augustinians' use of St. Jerome in Salamanca as the prototype for their main mother house in Mexico City, San Agustin. 7 References to mural antecedents in Spain are rare and more oblique. After the wall frescoes were completed in the open chapel at Tlaxcala for the Easter festivities of 1539, European observers commented that it was "among the loveliest of rooms of a kind that existed in Spain" (de las mas graciosas piezas que de su manera hay en Espana; Motolinia 1970:238). Although this reference may allude to Spanish interiors similarly decorated with murals, this is far from clear. Nonetheless, wall paintings, like the architecture of their homeland, remained strongly imprinted on the friars' minds; we can find many basic features recreated in Mexico as ''remembered patterns" rather than direct quotes, as McAndrew (1965:168) observes in colonial architecture. Parallels between Spanish and Mexican wall paintings can be detected in the murals' technical aspects, styles, architectural settings, and compositions. The closest point of juncture between the Hispanic and colonial traditions lies in their biblical themes, in part traceable to similar source material avail-

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6o

The Paradise Garden Murals ofMalinalco

FIG. 39. Crucifixion mural in testera niche, upper cloister, Huatlatlauhca, Puebla. Reproduced with permission of the Instituto Nacional de Antropologia e Historia.

able to the muralists on both sides of the Atlantic. The most dramatic points of departure between the two are found in the function and ultimate meaning of murals painted in the public sectors of the monasteries, a divergence that can be attributed to differences between patron, artist, and audience in Spain and Mexico. O n the other hand, the persistence of actual preconquest imagery was far more subtle and covert. The impact of pre-Hispanic murals on Mexican colonial frescoes indicates that what was retained from the native pictorial language often coincided with the friars' own Spanish artistic conventions and thus proved useful to them; or was deemed harmless; or went undetected. Those features from the two cultures that did converge in viceregal monastic murals were technical and compositional in nature; by and

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large, in style and subject matter, Hispanic traditions superseded native ones. The pre-Columbian knowledge of both buon fresco and fresco secco techniques as well as tempera painting survived virtually intact and were combined with wall painting techniques familiar to the mendicants, as discussed in chapter 3. The color schemes in colonial murals, however, repudiate the mural heritage of both cultures. As a rule, sixteenth-century murals were painted in black and white, with color applied only as a secondary accent. Spanish frescoes, on the other hand, were generally executed in many colors (plate 8) and only rarely in black and white (Serrera 1982:327). Nor were pre-Hispanic frescoes monochromatic, although they adhered to a restricted palette. This propensity by the colonial muralists to follow a

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The Sources 61

M

fV*J. it

nt

FIG. 40. Southwest corner of lower cloister with testera niche, Malinalco.

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The Paradise Garden Murals ofMalinalco

FIG. 41. Painted dado on cloister wall, Patio de los Muertos, c. 1450, San Isidoro del Campo, Santiponce, Seville.

FIG. 42. Murals on west wall of upper cloister walkway, c. 1545-1550, principal cloister, Convento de Santa Ines, Seville.

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The Sources 63 black and white scheme can only be explained by their reliance on European graphic sources. Throughout Malinalco only three colors, an aquamarine blue, an ochre, and a brick red were applied, highlighting details in the Latin inscriptions, the vault paintings, or the hair of the figures in the upper-cloister biblical scenes. The colors in the well-known Augustinian murals at Epazoyucan, Hidalgo, are not original but were added in the twentieth century (Moyssen 1965:24). There are additional similarities with the donor cultures that were retained in their architectural contexts and compositions. Given their monastic settings, the locations for Mexican murals had to follow Spanish rather than native models. These duplicated their Spanish prototypes, typically placing murals on the inner walls and corners of monastery cloisters, in chapels, and in the apses of churches (on the halfdomes and side walls). C o m m o n to both Spain and viceregal Mexico, a favored location for painting biblical and devotional scenes was the end walls or heads {testerae) of cloister walkways (plate 9). Sometimes, in Spain, arched or rectangular panels were recessed in the testerae to act as niches for sculpture. Where sculpture was unaffordable, the inset niches were covered with murals. 8 Both solutions likewise occur in the decoration of testerae niches in Mexico, although the use of the painted panel occurs far more frequently (fig. 39). The most pristine examples can be found in the lower cloister of Epazoyucan, Hidalgo, although large portions of murals are also visible in such monasteries as Huatlatlauhca, Puebla. At Malinalco these arched recesses in the lower cloister are now missing their original paintings (fig. 40). Because of their liturgical and architectural prominence, murals in the testerae niches were susceptible to replacement by wooden sculptures or oil panel and canvas paintings. In general, Mexican monasteries provided greater wall space for murals than did Spanish establishments, not only because construction was less fenestrated but also because there were new additions to the monastic establishment,

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such as the open chapels and prominent entryways, that required painting of some kind. The availability of more surface area for painting was only one of several reasons that a strong mural tradition flourished in early colonial Mexico. In both native American and Spanish traditions, the main body or central theme of wall paintings was located above a dado. In Spain, this dado was flush with the wall and either painted or tiled (fig. 41); in pre-Hispanic architecture, the dado was marked by a sloping panel, or talud, that was also painted. In both traditions there was a tendency to organize wall murals in horizontal tiers or demarcated zones. A type of continuous narrative treatment was common in pre-Hispanic frescoes and comparable to the layout and flow of a pictorial screenfold. The friezelike format, evident in the garden frescoes, can also be found in the nave frescoes of Ixmiquilpan, Hidalgo, and Huejotzingo, Puebla. A continuous frieze design occurred as early as the Romanesque period in Spanish murals, but a modified version of this compositional format was more frequent by the sixteenth century. The latter scheme articulated a horizontal band on the wall surface with a row of pictures, individual units separated by frames, as seen in the convent of Santa Ines in Seville (fig. 42). In the upper story of the Santa Ines principal cloister, Old Testament scenes alternate with grotesque designs, both bracketed by standing figures of saints and church fathers (plate 8). The modified-frieze format of contiguous but distinct panels was likewise adopted for Mexican frescoes, as evident on the cloister walls of the Augustinian monastery of Charo, Michoacan. Iberian artistic styles and source materials provide the most explicit European elements in Mexican murals. Although Spanish art borrowed extensively from several European movements, the overriding influence on painting by the end of the fifteenth century was Flemish and German in origin because of increasingly close political and cultural ties. By the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, Spanish murals also reveal the impact of the Italian Renaissance,

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The Paradise Garden Murals ofMalinalco

FIG. 43. Pieta. Mural on corner wall of cloister walkway, c. 1525, upper cloister, La Concepcion, Toledo.

'^fSf^^W^**^-,,

;^^^tfcv;

FIG. 44. Pieta. Mural on northeast corner wall of upper cloister, Atotonilco el Grande, Hidalgo.

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The Sources 65 especially from the Florentine muralists. 9 Although both Italian and Flemish artists worked in Spain and, conversely, Spanish artists traveled particularly to Italy in order to acquire proficiency in new artistic developments, the exchange of style elements occurred primarily through the widespread diffusion of engravings. The influence of German prints was particularly marked on woodcuts and painting. Even during the third decade of the sixteenth century, when High Renaissance characteristics were already manifest in Spanish art, there was a Gothic revival in Andalusia due to the popularity of the German prints of Martin Schongauer, Albrecht Durer, and Lucas van Ley den. 10 The impact of the graphics of Heinrich Aldegrever, for instance, has been noted on the biblical murals in the convent of Santa Ines in Seville (Serrera 1982:328). The importation of foreign prints influenced not only painting and murals in Spain but its own circle of printers and illustrated books, resulting in wholesale imitation of German, Italian, and French works. As valuable commodities, woodcut blocks were transferred from one printer to another throughout Europe and reused in Spain (Lyell 1926:3 8-40). In short, Spain had available a wide assortment of printed illustrations and graphics that provided as broad a stylistic spectrum for Spanish muralists as they would overseas for the colonial artists. Due to the sharing of artistic styles and graphic sources, parallels between Spanish and Mexican murals are occasionally startling. One such comparison is the Pieta mural found in the secondstory cloister of the convent of La Conception in Toledo, Spain,11 and the same scene depicted in the second-story cloister of the monastery of Atotonilco el Grande in Hidalgo, Mexico (figs. 43 and 44). Both the Spanish and Mexican Pieta form part of a sequential Passion narrative of eight scenes that occupy the eight corner walls of the walkways. In both examples the figural compositions are placed within a semicircular frame defined by an arch and flanked by columns. Latin inscriptions border the architectural members and explicate the action taking

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place. The murals in each case are executed in a linear black and white technique suggestive of graphic prototypes. Both the Spanish and Mexican renderings can be generally characterized as Renaissance in style, without enough specific details to pinpoint their sources. The Pieta in Atotonilco, executed around 1586, displays greater Mannerist influence than its Spanish counterpart from the first half of the sixteenth century, as exemplified by the elongated figure of Joseph of Arimethea to the right of Christ's body (fig. 44). ILLUSTRATED BOOKS AND GRAPHICS Locating the precise models for sixteenthcentury monastic murals is challenging for a number of reasons. For one, there was no standardized iconographic scheme, although conventions of theme and context for the murals were loosely established by all the orders. These conventions were reinforced by the sharing of source material between monasteries rather than by the imposition of, or strict adherence to, a defined theological program. The diversity in monastic murals reflects the autonomy of the prior or friar-supervisor in selecting his own themes; it also reinforces the role of the native muralists in selecting and adapting subject matter to the locale's ethnic constituency and unique regional history. The latitude given the supervisory personnel and the range of small-scale artworks that were disseminated for copying encouraged inventive and heterogeneous artistic combinations. In addition to the very breadth of sources, the job of tracing exact prototypes for monastic murals is hindered by the ephemeral nature of the material itself. Only a fraction of the perishable models, in paper, parchment, wool, and cotton, has survived. The prototypes for Malinalco's garden frescoes, therefore, will be proposed as broad comparisons. In their similarities of style, composition, and subject, the murals are faithful to the sources, but derivations are generic rather than specific.

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That the works of art being used as models by the Mexican friars came from many regions of Europe is clear from the friars' own writings, even when the exact media are left ambiguous. "Images," "examples" of artwork, and "pictures of saints" were said to come from Flanders, Italy, and Castile (Motolinia 1970:313; Torquemada 1975, 5:313). European illuminated manuscripts were in circulation in Mexico, although in short supply. One student at the Franciscan school of San Jose de los Naturales, when given a manuscript to copy, astonished his teachers by accurately imitating both the calligraphic style and the miniature painting of the Virgin and Child (Mendieta 1945, 3:62). Paintings on canvas and wood panels, executed in tempera or oil, also made their way to Mexico. Their relative rarity and preciosity, however, would not have made them appropriate as instructive pieces. European single-sheet graphics and illustrated books were the most portable and affordable works and are now recognized as the most frequent sources for the iconography and style of all aspects of Mexican colonial art, including mural painting. 12 Not only was there a lively book trade from Spain to its colonies, but the influx of engraved and painted images remained steady throughout the sixteenth century. By royal concession, the German printing house of the Crombergers in Seville was given the initial monopoly on the book trade with the New World; however, in 1542 at least thirteen booksellers in Seville exported books to the Americas (Leonard 1949: 95-99). In these shipments the greatest percentage was books of a religious nature and publications originating in Lyons, Paris, Venice, and Antwerp. The flow of art objects and paintings into the New World can be measured after 1572, when an edict required that captains of ships, passengers, and crews be interrogated for the contents of their books and "images." This edict was prompted by the Holy Office of the Inquisition in Spain as it attempted to control and censor Flemish graphics or "small pictures" with possible Lutheran (i.e., heretical) interpre-

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tations. 13 Independent printers in Mexico soon severed their ties to Spanish printing houses and also began producing books with their own woodcut illustrations. 14 Printed books formed part of every friar's personal belongings, and libraries were established by each of the mendicant orders. The importation of single-cut prints to the Spanish-speaking world was equally brisk. From the earliest Hispanic penetration of Mexico, engraved images on paper of the Virgin and the Catholic saints were in ready supply. Prints with religious figures were given to the natives as gifts at the time of Cortes' landing in Veracruz (Diaz del Castillo 1956:63). Countless sacred prints of the Virgin Mary and the Crucifixion

FIG. 45. Agony in the Garden. Engraving by Benedetto Montagna (c. 1506-1507). Rosenwald Collection, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

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The Sources 6j

pr*

FIG. 46. The three Marys. Detail of Crucifixion (plate 8), testera mural, southeast corner, upper cloister walkway, Malinalco. were set up in temples and over domestic altars to supplant pagan deities as apotropaic devices to ensnare the devil and as a signal that the Euro-Christian culture was superior. 15 The use of woodcuts as devotional images was a persistent medieval Spanish tradition. Graphics, often produced by monasteries, were sold at shrines in Spain; small-sized woodcuts were marketed as souvenirs, and the larger ones decorated the walls and altars of both homes and chapels. Similar religious images were in the possession of all mendicants in Mexico. Typical was the Augustinian friar Gregorio who, lauded for his simple, frugal life, was said to possess no worldly goods other than his engravings. It was reported that "in his cell he had nothing of value; he only had some prints on paper and in the infirmary they gave him a statue of the infant Jesus" (Garcia 1916:48). The native artisans in Mexico

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soon learned to duplicate European engravings: "They [the native artists] have made woodcuts with very perfect images, so much so that everyone who sees them is astonished, because from the first, they make them perfect" (Motolinia 1970:312). Circulating in viceregal Mexico, then, were illustrated books of an international provenience as well as popular fifteenth-century German prints and the more current sixteenth-century imports from Italy, Flanders, and Spain. The friars and master muralists selected and recombined elements from various sources freely. The graphic designs of Martin Schongauer and Albrecht Dtirer acted as the prototypes for some biblical mendicant murals, while illustrations or prints originally copied from either Schongauer or Durer were the sources for others, as has been pointed out for Tecamachalco, Puebla

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The Paradise Garden Murals ofMalinalco

FIG. 47. Crucifixion. Engraving in Epistolas i Evangelios by Ambrosio Montesino (Toledo: Juan de Villaquiran y Juan de Ayala, 1535). From Lyell 1926: fig. 172. Reproduced with permission of Hacker Art Books.

(Camelo Arredondo et al. 1964:58-59), Epazoyucan, Hidalgo (Moyssen 1965:25), and Ixmiquilpan, Hidalgo (Pierce 1987:131-148). This was probably the case for the Passion scenes painted in the testerae of the upper cloister of Malinalco, dated to the second building phase, or the decade of the 1580s. In the mural of Christ praying in the Garden of Gethsemane (plate 10), the position of the kneeling Christ figure and the pyramidal composition and poses of the three sleeping apostles reflect a standard iconography ultimately based on an interpretation of Martin Schongauer's engraving Agony in the Garden (c. 1480). It appears that the Malinalco mural of the Agony in the Garden relied on an intermediary print, one such as that of 1506-1507 by the Italian Benedetto Mon-

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tagna (fig. 45). Montagna's work was affected by Durer's graphics, but the Italian artist amplified the draped figures and situated them plausibly in a deeper space. Comparable with the Italian Montagna print, the Malinalco muralist also established greater depth and gave the forms a rounded fullness. In addition to the influence of more conservative graphic images, primarily from Northern Europe, after the mid-sixteenthcentury Mannerist graphics from France and Flanders also made their way first to Spain and then to Mexico. 16 That source material was used with little concern for stylistic homogeneity is evident in the frequency with which discrete styles coexist in Mexican murals; the muralists drew on whatever sources were available with little concern for unorthodox mixtures or j u x tapositions of style. Like single-sheet graphics, illustrations in printed religious books likewise sustained changes in the process of being reused and copied in Europe before being reinterpreted by Mexican printers and muralists. Another corner mural in the upper cloister of Malinalco, the Crucifixion (plate 9), demonstrates this common phenomenon. In the Crucifixion scene the figure of a praying St. Augustine is painted at the base and to the left of the cross. At the feet of Christ, Mary Magdalene, identified by her free-flowing tresses, clings to the base of the cross; to the right of the cross, Mary, the mother ofJesus, is being comforted by Mary, mother of St. James the less, and St. John, standing behind and almost erased (fig. 46). Several elements in the mural, including the grouping around the Virgin Mary, rely on a composition similar to the woodcut for the Crucifixion in Epistolas i Evangelios, published in Toledo in 1535 (fig. 47). The design for the Crucifixion woodcut in this Spanish edition depends, in turn, on Durer's composition in his Large Passion edition of 1511 (Knappe 1965: plate 190). The Malinalco Crucifixion mural was derived secondhand from an engraved illustration found either in a liturgical text, such as the Toledan Epistolas i Evangelios, or in a sixteenth-century Bible. Variants on this Crucifixion scene, including the arrest-

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The Sources 69

FIG. 48. St. Augustine with members of the order. Badly restored mural in prior's room or library, upper cloister, Malinalco.

ing pose of Mary Magdalene, were repeated in many Augustinian monasteries such as Yecapixtla, Morelos, Huatlatlauhca, Puebla (fig. 39), and Acolman, Mexico. The sharing of printed material among muralists can be followed through the repeated m o tif of St. Augustine as protector of the order. As depicted in the Malinalco rendering of this theme on the wall of the prior's cell or library, St. Augustine wears the miter as Bishop of Hippo (A.D. 396-430). A heavy-handed and inept restorer has mistakenly overpainted a torch in St. Augustine's right hand and a book of the rule in his left (fig. 48). A photograph of the mural taken in the early 1940s preserves the prerestoration image, with St. Augustine holding his more typical attributes, a church and crosier, the staff held by a bishop or abbot re-

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sembling a shepherd's crook and symbolizing his pastoral duties (Kubler 1948, 2: plate 347). The friars, churchmen, and saints of the Augustinian order kneel beneath his outstretched arms. The theme was adopted by the mendicant orders for their founders from medieval images of the Virgin of Mercy, sheltering the faithful under her outstretched arms and cape.17 St. Augustine as protector appears on the frontispiece of a book by the preeminent theologian and leader of the Augustinian order in Mexico, Alonso de la Veracruz (fig. 49). The frontispiece, including the lateral columns, is replicated in other Augustinian monasteries (fig. 50). Another portrait type of St. Augustine, also derived from woodcuts, depicts him standing alone with a crosier in one hand and supporting a church in the other (fig. 51). Images of St. Au-

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The Paradise Garden Murals of Malinalco

FIG. 49. St. Augustine. Title page of first edition of Phisica Speculatio by fray Alonso de la Veracruz, Augustinian (1557). Reproduced with permission of the Nettie Lee Benson Latin American Collection, The General Libraries, The University of Texas at Austin.

gustine holding his attributes appear as early as 1554 in Mexico and were repeated in a series of publications (1575-1577) commissioned by the prior of the Augustinian mother house in Mexico City, Fray Juan de la Anunciacion (Garcia Icazbalceta 1954: plates 30, 92, 101). The singlefigure St. Augustine is a frequent subject in Spanish murals of the first half of the sixteenth century (plate 8) and was duplicated in many Augustinian monasteries in Mexico (fig. 52). Faithful mural renderings of the graphic include the cloud formation in the upper right corner, with the hand of God holding an arrow whose rays pierce the heart of St. Augustine (cf. figs. 51 and 52). Colonial muralists closely followed European illustrated books and graphics for the painted ornamental borders and friezes known as "grotesque" (grutesco). Grotesque designs utilized a playful and sometimes bizarre combination of

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antique motifs including candelabra, festoons, small naked figures, and hybrid creatures that were often composite creations with plant, animal, and human attributes (fig. 53). Through the diffusion of single-cut graphics, grotesque ornament spread from Italy to Northern Europe, to France, and, after 1500, to Spain. The designs were reinterpreted in engravings, illustrated books, and tapestries, only to reappear in the fresco media from which they were initially derived (Dacos 1969:61-99). In sixteenthcentury Spanish books, grotesque ornament appears as full-page or marginal designs that enframe the central text or illustration. The repertory of ornamental patterns includes fanciful cupids on rams or griffins, sphinxes, cornucopias, wreaths around escutcheons, and ugly menacing heads. The grotesque designs of several Italian painters and engravers are apparent in the ornamental panels of the frescoes of the Santa Ines convent in Seville, as seen by comparing figures 53 and 54. The Santa Ines muralists borrowed freely from a group of Italian prints, recombining and selecting imaginatively. 18 This eclecticism was extended by the Mexican muralists, who, without exception, incorporated a variety of grotesque designs into almost all of their monasteries' decoration. The fresco artists working at Malinalco were relatively conservative in their use of grotesque ornamental prints. Two basic design units are repeated in identical fashion throughout. The first design makes up the lowest frieze in the wall paintings, immediately beneath the garden scene, and is found again in the church choir. This frieze design consists of two dolphins that flank sprays of acanthus leaves and are separated by vases (fig. 55). The dolphins' heads and tails are transformed into florid acanthus leaves. The second frieze design at Malinalco is narrower in format and not only is found in the upper two bands that enframe the Latin inscription of the cloister walls but also runs the length of the inner corridor walls (figs. 56 and 57). This leitmotif also incorporates dolphinlike creatures that are metamorphosed into leaf and vine elements

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The Sources

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FIG. 50. St. Augustine shielding order. Mural in lower cloister, Huatlatlauhca, Puebla. Reproduced with permission of the Instituto Nacional de Antropologia e Historia.

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FIG. 52. St. Augustine. Mural on pier of lower cloister, Totolapan, Morelos.

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The Paradise Garden Murals ofMalinalco

with dragon snouts and tails that terminate in scrolled leaves and flowers. The dolphins' heads heraldically flank winged heads of angels that are set on a vase and pedestal. Both frieze designs are visual quotations from the borders of printed books known to have had a wide distribution in multiple editions. The double dolphin and angel-head motif, for example, can be found in the upper margin of Triumphs of Petrarch, a Venetian publication of the late fifteenth century. 19 The more florid treatment of the dolphin visible in the lower mural friezes of Malinalco is likewise depicted in an ornamental border design, as shown in a widely dispersed Spanish publication, General History of Spain (1541-1543) by Florian de Ocampo (fig. 58). Both grotesque combinations reappear in similar locations in other Augustinian and Franciscan monasteries (fig. 59). Further, the upper margin design in Ocampo's General History of Spain may have also provided the model for an unusual motif of a pair of putti riding seahorses backwards with flanking vases (fig. 60), found at Actopan and Ixmiquilpan, Hidalgo. 20 The monasteries ofMalinalco, Actopan, and Ixmiquilpan represent geographically distant Augustinian houses that appear to have relied on a single publication for two different ornamental motifs, once again highlighting the sharing of books and prints between monasteries. The plateresque column was also derived from the frontispieces or ornamental borders of books (fig. 58) and was a common decorative element. Plateresque columns were candelabralike formations, draped with swathes of cloth, tassels, ribbons, and leaflike scrolls, as painted on the walls of the upper cloister walkway at Malinalco (fig. 61). In monastic murals these painted columns had a tectonic function, serving as the lateral members of simulated architectural frames around painted figurative scenes and demarcating areas set aside for other forms of decoration. The Malinalco plateresque columns are painted below the brackets of the barrel vault ribs, creating the illusion of supporting elements. A second source for the plateresque column is the

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FIG. 53. Ornamental panel inscribed "Victoria Augusta," by Giovanni Antonio de Brescia (1516). Courtesy Rosenwald Collection, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

illustrated architectural treatise. Although volumes on architectural design by Vitruvius, Vignola, and Palladio found their way to the New World, Libros tercero y cuarto de arquitectura (Third and Fourth Books on Architecture, 1537) by Sebastian Serlio appear to have exerted the most profound influence on muralists (Sebastian 1989:

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The Sources 73

FIG. 54. Grotesque panel. Detail of wall murals, upper walkway, principal cloister, convento de Santa Ines, Seville.

*••*; .^wewwi^w FIG. 55. Grotesque frieze with dolphin. Detail of wall mural, lower cloister, Malinalco.

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The Paradise Garden Murals ofMalinalco

FIG. 56. Grotesque frieze with dolphins and angel heads. Upper registers of mural in lower cloister, Malinalco.

FIG. 57. Grotesque frieze with Latin inscriptions. Upper registers of mural in lower cloister, Malinalco.

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The Sources 75

FIG. 58. Title page with grotesque ornament. In Los quatro libros primeros de la cronica general de

Espana by Florian de Ocampo (Zamora: Augustin de Paz y Juan Picardo, c. 1542). From Lyell 1926: fig. 191. Reproduced with permission of Hacker Art Books.

78-85). One of the most widespread Serlian traits is the painted coffers in varied polygonal geometric shapes that are highly visible on Malinalco 's barrel vaults (plate 9), as in the great majority of monastery vaults. The influence of illustrated imprints is additionally seen in the Latin inscriptions painted in nearly every Augustinian monastery. At Malinalco the Gothic letters are set off in white against black and interlaced with a filigree design of slender branches and flowers (fig. 57). In Spanish publications initial letters that introduced paragraphs of text were Gothic in style, white on black ground, and elaborated with branches and flowers. Although it may not always be possible to pin-

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point the precise sources for these ornamental border designs, it is clear that they formed part of the stock repertory of liturgical or devotional books and architectural tracts. While European-style prints formed the basis for the Malinalco ornamental panels, to what degree did the artists also use imported illustrations for the primary garden scene frescoes in the lower cloister? Surely in their black and white rendering and decorative arabesque patterns the garden imagery betrays at least partial reliance on a graphic medium. Late Gothic and Renaissance ornamentalists working in Germany and Italy combined curvilinear vegetation with parrots, herons, monkeys, and fantastic animals. A favorable comparison can be drawn between a section of the north wall at Malinalco (fig. 62), for example, and the ornamental panels by Martin Schongauer or Agustino Veneziano (fig. 63). Both display the scrolled spikey leaves of acanthus, vines with large stylized flowers, and a similar rendering of various birds. The three medallions embedded within the foliage in the Malinalco frescoes may have also been derived from an illustrated liturgical book. Manuel Toussaint (1936:24, plates 16 and 17) traced to a 1569 Confessionary a similar ecclesiastical monogram of Christ (IHS) painted in a circular wreath at Acolman, Mexico. Many Franciscan and Augustinian monasteries incorporated sacred monograms, including emblems of their orders, in both grotesque painted designs as well as in relief sculpture. Because of the naturalism evident in the floral representations, the influence of illustrated herbals on the garden frescoes must also be considered. In sixteenth-century Europe, plant life was interpreted in two concurrent but distinct graphic styles; one was ornamental, like those incorporated into grotesque designs, and the other was increasingly more true to life. The interest in greater specificity was particularly apparent in printed European herbals after 1530, reflecting the Renaissance interest in both the natural sciences and in greater optical realism. 21 The more scientific illustrators were not

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The Paradise Garden Murals ofMalinalco

FIG. 59. Grotesque frieze with dolphins. Lower cloister murals, Huejotzingo, Puebla.

FIG. 60. Grotesque frieze with angels and seahorses. Cloister stairwell mural, Actopan, Hidalgo.

only concerned with botanical truth, presenting whole plants in various stages of florescence, but they tried to capture their three-dimensional volume. All these traits can be found in the Malinalco murals, particularly in those plants specific enough to be identifiable. Most parts of the plants are shaded; several are depicted with their roots intact (fig. 14),22 and others are represented in differing stages of flowering, from the buds to the full blooms, as seen in the yolloxochitl (fig. 69). Although the indigenous plants and animals in the Malinalco murals would not have appeared in any European herbal or bestiary, native artists may have been stimulated by botanical texts to recreate the visual appearance

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FIG. 61. Plateresque column mural, upper cloister walkway, Malinalco.

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The Sources 77

Detail of garden frescoes, lower cloister wall, North 4, Malinalco.

FIG. 63. Panel of ornament. Engraving by Agustino Veneziano (c. 1535). The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, 1924. (24.10.16).

of their natural subjects. As described in chapter 3, these herbals may have been made available either by contact with the Tlatelolco library or through the 1571 research visit of the Spanish naturalist Dr. Francisco Hernandez. Although there are convincing correlations between graphics and the floral designs of portions of the Malinalco garden frescoes, neither graphics nor herbals adequately account for the murals' theme and overall composition. 23 The care taken by the muralists to create a coherent and rhythmic composition out of many unrepeated elements suggests a larger prototype based on similarly organized components. For that we must go to the medium of tapestry, to

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which the garden frescoes are not only closer in iconography but in placement and meaning as well. VERDURE AND TAPESTRY

ARMORIAL

The relationship of tapestry to the Malinalco murals warrants investigation because of the striking resemblance of the garden frescoes to European armorial tapestries with a verdure background. There are logical ties between tapestry and frescoes, both being used as largescale wall coverings, hung or painted over wainscoting panels.

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The Paradise Garden Murals o/Malinalco

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European

Tapestry

Tapestries in sixteenth-century Europe functioned as decorative and commemorative works that were displayed indoors and out, provided much needed insulation, and acted as room dividers. In churches they were hung on the walls and in the apse or choir to separate those spaces from the nave. Both tapestry and murals rely for their design in great measure on engraved prints as well as on paintings. In sixteenthcentury Europe, for example, Albrecht Dtirer's religious and apocalyptic scenes were very influential, although Italian graphics also played an important role, as evidenced by the use of grotesque motifs in tapestry border designs (Cavallo 1967, 1:66, 74-75). Moreover, the media of tapestry and mural painting were interchangeable in Europe. Where neither time nor adequate funds were available for wool tapestries, frescoes were acceptable imitations. This reciprocity occurred in late fifteenth- and sixteenthcentury Spanish murals. There are examples of Spanish wall painting that overtly imitated tapestry, using similar compositions, borders, and even painted fringes and tassels.24 Medieval and Renaissance tapestry designers frequently turned to geometric and vegetative patterns in addition to figural and biblical scenes. By the sixteenth century, tapestries of the non-

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figurative type that were quicker and cheaper to produce were no longer exclusively manufactured for the nobility. Tapestry designs based on plant themes developed into several types. The millefleurs tapestries are composed of smallscale flowering plants, scattered as separate elements over a solid dark background with no illusion of landscape. Verdure, or verderon, tapestries, unlike the meadow composition of the millefleurs, feature a thicket of wild grasses, leaves, and bushes, a monochromatic blue-green color scheme, and some dimension of depth suggested by the very density of plant life. Verdures are either filled with fantastic plants with no identifiable botanical origin or are highly naturalistic. The "large-leaf" verdures that evolved out of the ordinary verdures in the early sixteenth century have fewer and larger plants with curled leaves. Within the foliage areflowersand fruit as well as small animals, real and imaginary. 25 The more naturalistic variants of the verdures developed in response to the same drive for veracity that was producing the new scientific herbals of the same period. Both millefleurs and verdure designs acted as backdrops for the armorial or heraldic tapestry. Armorial tapestries were one of the most common types of tapestry woven in Spanish, Flemish, and French centers and were cheaper and easier to manufacture than biblical or historiated

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The Sources 79 tapestries. Armorials were in demand by all the leading houses of Europe but could be owned by anyone who boasted a familial coat of arms. The church hierarchy likewise owned armorials, with the arms of cardinals and bishops (Digby 1980:48). In armorial tapestries the patron's coat of arms was set against geometric patterns, millefleurs backgrounds, or, by the sixteenth century, more commonly embedded into a verdure or large-leaf verdure setting. Armorials were woven in sets of as many as fifteen tapestries, so that large halls or several rooms could be blanketed with the repeated images of the owner's coat of arms. These heraldic tapestries were an indispensable part of a lord's traveling equipment, used daily as wall hangings and bed and table covers. Whenever the entourage stopped, the tapestries were hung to identify and glorify their owner (d'Hulst 1967:77).

There are several compositional and thematic parallels between the armorial type of tapestry and the Malinalco frescoes. A comparison can be drawn, for example, with the Giovio tapestry, an armorial set against a millefleurs background, woven in Bruges for the Giovio family of C o m o in the second quarter of the sixteenth century (fig. 64).26 The tapestry's long and narrow proportions (2.3 meters high by 6.6 meters long) match those of the Malinalco murals (4.5 meters high by 23.9 meters long). The tapestry was intended to hang above the wainscoting just as the garden portion of the fresco begins above a painted wainscoting or dado. Evenly disposed across the middle of the tapestry's millefleurs background are three circular wreaths with the arms and motto of Giovio of Como. These wreathed coats of arms are similar in placement and design to the Malinalco medallions with

FIG. 65. Detail of left section of Arms of Giovio.

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The Paradise Garden Murals of Malinalco

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. fir-

FIG. 66. Flemish verderon tapestry with Hapsburg shield (c. 1500-1550). Courtesy Instituto Diego Velazquez, Madrid.

their ecclesiastical symbols. Among the flowering plants in the Giovio tapestry are birds and various animals, including a stag, rabbits, and pheasants, likewise depicted in the Malinalco frescoes, where they are more naturahstically integrated into their vegetative setting. Finally, the Giovio tapestry is bordered by ornamental panels that, like the ornamental friezes of the Malinalco frescoes, are Italianate in design with such grotesque elements as cornucopias, garlands, and putti riding dolphins (fig. 65). Although there are striking similarities between the Giovio tapestry and the Malinalco frescoes in proportion and layout, the triad of medallions, and their border designs, the major discrepancy lies in scale and profusion of the plants evident at Malinalco. For this, the garden frescoes come closer to the large-leaf verdures, which explode with a jungle of growth. Broadleafed plants dominate and regularly divide the verdures' compositions, as they do the Malinalco frescoes. Certain animal vignettes common to verdures are also found at Malinalco, such as monkeys holding or eating fruit (fig. 34) and two animals chasing each other (fig. 98).

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Most noteworthy, however, are the animals that attack and mount one another in these tapestries (see Digby 1980: plate 70), reminiscent of the two foxlike creatures, one clearly from a bestiary vocabulary, on the east wall at Malinalco (fig. 96). It is, then, to an armorial tapestry with a verdure background that we must turn in order to find the closest parallel. By the sixteenth century, the Flemish workshops in Antwerp and Brussels dominated the tapestry market, and trade was very active with Spain. Although Spain produced its own armorial tapestries, Flemish verdures and armorials were also being commissioned by members of the Spanish court and by the church. 27 One of the finest Brussels workshops to produce verdures was the de Pannemaker atelier (15351578), and one of its more avid customers was Charles V, the Hapsburg emperor. In 1540 William de Pannemaker made eight armorial tapestries for Charles V that were verdures emblazoned with the double-headed Hapsburg eagle (fig. 66). These are composed of a luxuriant ground of plants and animals among which are set the royal arms, just as the religious mono-

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The Sources grams are inserted, like shields, in the foliage of the Malinalco garden frescoes. Charles V and Philip II commissioned other armorials as well as verdures from the de Pannemaker workshop (d'Hulst 1967:120, 193-202). When Charles V retired to the Yuste monastery at the end of his life, he took with him twelve foliage verdures (Digby 1980:54). Neither the Giovio tapestry nor the Spanish armorials woven for Charles V offer one-to-one parallels with Malinalco's garden frescoes. To my knowledge, there is no extant tapestry that accounts for all the features of the murals. The correlation between the armorial type of tapestry and Malinalco's mural cycle, therefore, must remain hypothetical in spite of their strong resemblances. It is important to keep in mind that in the sixteenth century armorials were commonplace, hanging in many Spanish civil, residential, and ecclesiastic buildings. That we have but a limited sample to study today only indicates how much they were used; most armorials simply wore out and had to be discarded.

Tapestries in the New World There is documentary, but not physical, evidence that tapestries were used early in the life of the Mexican colony. Although there was a scarcity of furniture in the homes, tapestries were an abundant commodity. An inventory taken in 1549 listed twenty-one tapestries and fifteen leather hangings (guadameciles) in Hernando Cortes' summer palace in Cuernavaca. 28 Church walls were also adorned with tapestries. The first cathedral of Mexico City, erected in 1525, owned eight large tapestries depicting biblical themes (Toussaint 1967:72). Among the furnishings described in the Augustinian monastery of Tiripetio, Michoacan, were brocades and velvet hangings from Germany embroidered with scenes from the Passion of Christ (Basalenque 1963:61). The chroniclers also mention frequent shipments from Europe with rich ornaments for the conventos, including wall hangings (Basalenque 1963:74-76, 130). No document to date, however, has described a sixteenth-

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century tapestry in Mexico of the armorial type set against a floral background. 29 Mexican monasteries could not always afford the luxury of importing tapestries, and in these instances substitutes were found. These surrogate tapestries were often floral in design if not in actual composition. Mendieta (1945, 3:83) recalled that in the churches "what they lacked in tapestry, they supplemented with branches of flowers of all kinds." Designs were created with flowers that were so intricate that it was "as if they were painted in colors with a brush" (Las Casas 1971:9, 27). Herbs and flowers were worked into reed mats and composed into "images of saints, arms, letters" (Torquemada 1975, 5:314-315). The uniquely native floral tapestries, compared to Flemish tapestries by the Augustinian Escobar (1970:83), were used as both carpets and wall hangings in the monasteries and along the streets leading to the monasteries. Other substitutes for the more costly wool and silk tapestries included indigenous panels worked with bird feathers and painted cotton cloths. The Mexican colonial practice of using floral decoration and hanging wall coverings in various media derived in part from a preconquest tradition. Hernandez (1945:34, 39) described the wealthier Aztec homes in Tenochtitlan in 1520 as having painted walls; in addition, "they cover and adorn the walls of houses with cotton tapestries with multiple images and in various colors; also with feathers, with reed mats, and with finely woven cotton rugs more beautiful than ours." Cortes noted that one of the palaces in the Aztec capital was decorated with "feathers and with beautifully embroidered cloths" (in Rodriguez 1969:64). Valades also recorded that they "decorated the temples . . . with tapestries that represented animals in varied colors and covered the walls with precious woven hangings" (in Palomera 1962:218-219). There appears to have been as strong a tradition for painting or covering walls in Aztec Mexico as in Iberia. During the colonial period, it was an acceptable practice to find substitutes for tapes-

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tries, such as reed mats worked with flowers, painted cloths, or, as was done in Spain, wall frescoes simulating tapestry design. The works of art available to the Augustinian friars and native artists of the Malinalco murals ranged widely in media, quality, and style. The use of illustrated books and single-sheet graphics for the biblical themes and figurative scenes in the upper cloister murals of Malinalco seems clear. There is also a positive link between Italianate grotesque ornament found in printed sources and the ornamental friezes in the Malinalco murals. For the central garden scene portion of the frescoes, however, the Malinalco designers utilized multiple sources. Specific mural vignettes are so close as to suggest that they were copied in situ from Italian and German ornamental graphics and illustrated copy books. The degree of naturalism in the frescoes also points to the muralists' familiarity with coeval European herbals that emphasized botanical accuracy over the ornamental aspects of plants. Although no single graphic source for the garden frescoes as a whole has been located that the muralist might have quoted verbatim, several models appear to have been used. To their credit, the Malinalco artists were able to successfully integrate these into a harmonious, imaginative whole. Like other colonial muralists, they were capable of monumentalizing their sources and reproducing them on walls many times the size of the originals. The friars chronicled this ability to inflate miniature examples into heroic images

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and yet retain the proper proportions (Las Casas 1971:23; Motolinia 1970:49). Along with the reliance on graphic prototypes for portions of the garden frescoes, the most striking parallels for Malinalco's composition can be traced to the armorial tapestries that were widely used in Europe in both lay and ecclesiastical contexts. Not only were armorials regularly manufactured, but they were frequently transported with their owners' goods. Mexico's monasteries were the recipients of rich liturgical appointments from Europe, including tapestries. Weavings using flowers or feathers, painted cotton cloths, and fresco paintings were also used in lieu of more conventional tapestries. Although to date unverifiable, we cannot discount the possibility that a specific prototype of the armorial tapestry inspired the artists at Malinalco. Even if deprived of such a model, the Augustinian friars carried with them from Spain as strong a memory of this type of tapestry as they did of the frescoes that enlivened their homeland monasteries and churches. The friars' motives for preferring the armorial type of design were not restricted to its formal qualities nor to its proportions, suitable to the long, narrow walkway at Malinalco. The implications of placing their ecclesiastical arms on a garden background across all four walls of their cloister went beyond aesthetic or even theological considerations. The following chapters will explore the levels of social and political meaning given the garden murals in light of the mendicant friars' expectations for their New World mission.

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Chapter Five

THE IMAGERY: FLORA AND

FAUNA

Thus they passed their lives among flowers in such blindness and darkness, since they had been deceived and persuaded by the devil, who had observed their love for blossoms and flowers. . . . even the bark of resinous trees was revered so that it would create a good fire. The ancient blindness was such that even large and small animals, fish, and tadpoles were adored and revered. DIEGO DURAN

(1971:238-239,290)

In addition to available European design elements, the Malinalco artists drew inspiration from their immediate landscape. This is apparent from the detailed renderings of at least twenty-four recognizable native plants, many birds, and all but one of the twenty-one animals depicted in the murals. In their fidelity to the appearance of certain species in nature, the artists explicitly sought viewer recognition. To best capture their intent, we must begin by identifying the flora and fauna in the murals. If identifiable, a specimen permits inquiry into its physiological or chemical makeup, habits, habitat, and geographical distribution. The medicinal properties (reputed or proven) of a plant or animal, as well as its ritual, social, or economic importance, can then be explored. The biological determination of the fresco subject matter is only a means for arriving at the more compelling question of why the native muralists selected certain species. Our primary objective is to recover the cultural value of the flora and fauna for their sixteenth-century creators and audience. In most cases, the degree of specificity of a

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plant or animal motif in the Malinalco murals directly correlates with its importance to preconquest society. The more generalized representations drawn from imported sources played no role in the traditional cultures of central Mexico. The symbolic importance of a particular species exclusive to either the native American or European culture is determinable on the basis of its geographical distribution. Where certain flora and fauna were common to both continents, they often had an importance that can be traced to preconquest as well as to EuroChristian sources. By this means the process of syncretism that occurred following the conquest is partially measurable. Identifying the imagery and establishing a deliberate pattern of selection also allows us to clarify the interaction of the muralists with the Augustinian friars. Several characteristics of the Malinalco murals make the process of scientifically identifying the subject matter more difficult. Color, one of the most important diagnostics in determining species type, is lacking altogether. Identification relies wholly on the outline or silhouette of the plant or animal and on the delineation of

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internal details. Fortunately, in many cases, the muralists were acute observers of physiological features. In spite of this sensitivity to naturalistic appearance, a degree of stylization is found throughout the wall paintings. Details are often omitted, and within generalized shapes certain conventions are adopted. For example, the repeated use of a scallop or U-shape to render the feathers of birds tends to homogenize the bird life (figs. 86 and i n ) . Size distinctions in the murals are also unreliable as differentiating criteria. At times the animals and plants appear to be conceived as autonomous units, without being integrated into a spatially coherent whole. O n the east wall, for example, the egret standing in the pool of water is proportionately too small for the rabbit depicted to the left of the pool and the oversized bunch of grapes to the right (fig. 36). Although true-to-life proportions are not always present, relative size relationships are often helpful in confirming the identity of certain animals within the plant-life setting. I first compared the frescoed flora and fauna

at Malinalco with the illustrated texts of three sixteenth-century Mexican manuscripts: the Libellus, or Herbal, of 1552 by Martin de la Cruz, Dr. Francisco Hernandez's Natural History of 1576, and Book XI, the volume on natural history (or "Earthly Things") of Bernardino de Sahagun's Florentine Codex (c. 1578-1580). 1 Once a correspondence by means of these colonial references was established, then I could consult biologists and contemporary manuals to verify the taxonomy of the genus and, in some cases, the species itself. For example, the huacalxochitl, or "basket flower" in Nahuatl, is painted in the vault frescoes (fig. 67). The distinctive gobletlike inflorescence of the huacalxochitl is also described in the Cruz Herbal (fig. 32), in Sahagun (fig. 68), and in Hernandez (1959, 1:389-391). I checked this and other characteristics of the flower in modern botanical texts to determine that the huacalxochitl is classified as a member of the Philodendron family (Ph. affine or Ph. pseudoradiatum matudd) and is commonly found in the valley of Malinalco itself. Species I was able to identify in the Malinalco

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%bk:*m FIG. 67. Huacalxochitl and song scroll. Detail of vault, lower cloister, South 3, Malinalco.

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FIG. 68. Huacalxochitl. From Florentine Codex, Sahagun 1979, 11: fol. 194. Reproduced with permission of the Archivo General de la Nacion, Mexico City.

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The Imagery: Flora and Fauna murals are compiled for easy reference in Appendices C and D. In this chapter each is discussed in the same numerical order. The information given in the appendices includes the vernacular names of each plant and animal in English, Spanish, and Nahuatl as well as the Latin nomenclature; in addition, their location within the Malinalco frescoes is noted and the primary colonial textual and illustrative references are given. With the exception of direct quotes, therefore, references to these sources will not be repeated in the discussion below. FLORA

IDENTIFIED

Of the flora at Malinalco that are depicted with enough specific detail to make an accurate identification possible, nineteen specimens can be securely identified (Appendix C). All but five of these identifiable plants were endemic only to Mexico in the sixteenth century. Of the five exceptions, two plants were native both to the Americas and to Europe, and three, the pomegranate, the acanthus, and the rose, were introduced by the Spaniards soon after the conquest. Most of the identified species, such as the huacalxochitl, actually grow within the ecological zone of Malinalco or in adjacent valleys. Five other plants that are potentially recognizable are listed under "Possible Identifications" and given more general classifications. The remaining examples of trees, isolated flowers, and leaves in the garden frescoes are too stylized in appearance to be classified.

Native Plants Yolloxochitl (1) Four of the flowering trees that played important roles in Aztec culture were painted in their entirety at Malinalco. Among these, the yolloxochitl ("heart flower") is readily recognized because of its unusual flowers and foliage (fig. 69). Known botanically as Talauma mexicana of the Magnolia family, the lanceolate leaves of the yolloxochitl are a shiny dark green and its white blossoms, heavily scented. In the frescoes the

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flowers are depicted in varying stages of florescence, from closed buds to the loose, cuplike open flower. A further diagnostic trait is the segmented stems of the yolloxochitl, clearly striated in the frescoes as wrell as in the illustrations ofSahagun and Hernandez (fig. 70). Hernandez (1959, 2:5) mentions that the tree was very much "appreciated by the Indians, as much for its medicinal uses as for its beauty and the aroma of its flowers." The yolloxochitl was so esteemed by the natives that, according to Sahagun's informants, the tree was cultivated only for the nobility and its flowers were used in offerings to the most important deities (Sahagun 1979, 9: fol.29r). Part of yolloxochitVs importance was the physical resemblance of the unopened bud to the human heart, as expressed in its Nahuatl name. The Aztecs considered the heart the center of a person's life spirit and the animating human force. The Nahuatl for heart, yollotli, was the word most frequently translated by the Spanish friars as the soul or spirit (alma or dnima). The plant's magical powers in the sixteenth century were manifold. When dried and hollowed out, the yolloxochitl bud was filled with a mixture of other flowers and hung around the neck of travelers as a protective amulet. 2 It is not surprising that the yolloxochitl was, and in rural Mexico still is, considered to be the most efficacious medicine in heart diseases. Xiloxochitl (2) Another imposing shade tree, the xiloxochitl, reaches heights of over 20 meters and was equally renowned for its blossom. Xiloxochitl literally translates as "corn-silk flower" but is known today as the red-silk cotton tree or clavellina. In the murals the tree is rendered with its characteristic buds and unusual fringed flowers (fig. 71). The blossoms resemble the illustration of xiloxochitl in the Florentine Codex (fig. 72) and are composed of a trilobed calyx from which the tassel of pink or white stamens are "radiating like maize silk" (Sahagun 19501982, 11:206). Like the yolloxochitl, the xiloxo-

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d

^ *.

FIG. 69. Yolloxochitl Detail of garden frescoes, lower cloister wall, South 4, Malinalco.

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The Imagery: Flora and Fauna

FIG. 70. Iolloxochiquauitl (yolloxochitl). From Florentine Codex, Sahagun 1979, 11: fol. i88r. Reproduced with permission of the Archivo General de la Nacion, Mexico City.

chitl had multiple medicinal uses as well as great cultic importance. The flower was one of the principal offerings in the temples, not only for its inherent beauty, but because it was perceived as emulating the silk of an ear of corn, thus serving as a magical substitute for the principal Mesoamerican food crop of maize. The importance of both yolloxochitl and xiloxochitl can be in part attributed to their use as power symbols: both physically resembled the most essential ingredients to pre-Hispanic society's survival: the heart and maize. Cacao (3) Like the two previous trees, products from the cacao tree claimed to be restricted to the upper Aztec classes. The high value placed on cacao was based on its function as currency in preconquest exchange systems and on its use as a prestigious beverage and a stimulant. A comparison between the colonial manuscript illustrations of cacao (fig. 73) and its representation

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in the Malinalco frescoes (fig. 34) illustrates the plant's novel manner of flowering and fruiting. In the cacao tree (Theobroma cacao L.) the floral buds develop from the bark of the tree, so the fruit pods give the appearance of growing right out of the tree trunk or the larger branches. The cacao pods are accurately observed by the Malinalco muralist as oblong and longitudinally ribbed, pendant fruit. However, their unusual growth pattern is not true to life as two of the pods in the murals hang from the tips of very slender branches (fig. 95), a feat not duplicated in nature. It is interesting that this mistake was also made by Martin de la Cruz in his herbal (Cruz 1964: fol. 38V) and by the illustrators of Sahagun's Florentine Codex (1979, 11: fol. 123), where the cacao pods are almost omitted from the tree trunk altogether. Since cacao was a tree that flourished primarily in the wet lowland tropics, these erroneous representations suggest that neither the Malinalco muralists nor the manuscript artists had actually seen cacao growing in the central highlands of Mexico. Both, however, must have been well acquainted with the fruit from the marketplace and reconstructed their image of the living plant from second-hand oral descriptions. The sixteenth-century chronicler Gonzalo Fernandez de Oviedo described cacao at length, calling the tree "the most precious tree of the Indians and the most highly esteemed" (in Standley 1920:805). So prized was cacao that the Indians thought the plant to be divine. Cacao's reputation was derived primarily from a by-product of the cacao tree, the chocolate beverage made from the pods. The Florentine Codex refers to chocolate as "the privilege, the drink of nobles, of rulers"; it was also called, metaphorically, "heart" (yollotli) and "blood" (eztli), emphasizing its preciosity (Sahagun 1950-1982, 6:256, 10:93). The consumption of chocolate was allegedly limited to the wealthier upper classes, to the elderly, or to those honored for their achievements by the state. It was not only for its flavor that chocolate acquired such a reputation. The cacao bean also had a stimulating effect on the drinker because of the alkaloid

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The Paradise Garden Murals ojMalinalco

FIG. 71. Xiloxochitl. Detail of garden frescoes, lower cloister wall, South 5, Malinalco.

FIG. 72. Xiloxochitl. From Florentine Codex, Sahagun 1979, 11: fol. I9ir. Reproduced with permission of the Archivo General de la Nacion, Mexico City.

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theobromine. The effects of the cacao drink as a stimulant are referred to by Sahagiin (19501982, 11:119-120) when he writes that the beverage "makes one dizzy, confuses one, . . . deranges one." Chocolate was also known as an aphrodisiac, a conviction that prompted its continued cultivation by Spanish settlers and boosted its popularity ratings among sixteenthcentury European nobility. Cacao was not only important as a liquid medium for medications but as a temple offering (Duran 1971 .-442; Rays 19311222). Persons who had cacao trees growing on their lands were considered rich, and Aztec nobility hoarded supplies of cacao to flaunt their wealth. Its importance can be measured by the tribute demands made by the Aztec ruler for cacao from as far away as Costa Rica and by the control

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The Imagery: Flora and Fauna

FIG. 73. Cacahoaquahuitl (cacao tree). From Hernandez 1959, 1:303. Reproduced with permission of the Universidad Nacional de Mexico, Mexico City.

the ruling classes attempted to exercise over its distribution and consumption. 3 The Malinalco muralists recognized the significance of the cacao tree, for it is the only identifiable native plant they painted that was not readily visible in the environs of the highland artists. Tzapotl (4) Another prominent fruit tree painted on the east wall represents one of the several common species of sapote (tzapotl or zapote), or sapodilla, that flourish in Mexico. In the mural the tree is depicted with the lanceolate leaflets clustered around the globular fruit (figs. 13 and 74). Because of the spherical shape of the fruit and its puckered base, it is likely that the artist was representing a white sapote. The seeds within the edible flesh of the fruit, along with the leaves

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and bark of the Casimiroa, contain an alkaloid with narcotic properties that has hypnotic effects.4 The sedative effect of the white sapote was noted by the Aztecs, who called one variety the cochiztzapotl, or the "zapote that produces sleep." Sahagun (1950-1982, 11:117) describes these properties by noting that "the cochiztzapotl, puts one to sleep, calms one" and, more poetically, "lowers the stars of the night." All parts of the tree, the bark, seeds, fruit, and leaves, were used in some medicinal capacity. Perhaps due to its narcotic potential, the sapote tree played a ritual role in Aztec ceremonies that focused on rites of agricultural abundance. The branches of the sapote were used in the temples, where ears of corn were laid on them. The deity Xipe Totec, a god affiliated with fertility, wore a skirt of sapote leaves; his impersonators, wearing the skins of sacrificial victims, were seated on sapote leaves during the Aztec month feast of Tlacaxipehualiztli where they received first fruit offerings. 5 Tule (5) Two aquatic plants that were closely associated with the lacustrine setting of the Aztec capital, the water reed and the water lily, are painted in the murals. 6 The characteristic cattail flower and sheathlike leaves of the water reed are visible in the two renditions of the tule (figs. 75 and 82). Second only to the maguey (agave) or Mexican century plant, the tule was an allpurpose plant for the Aztecs. The roots of the tule were eaten, and, in addition, it was associated with medicinal powers, including the potential of heightening sexual desire. The most important practical function of the reed plant, however, was to serve as the raw material for baskets and the ubiquitous braided reed mats. These woven mats were used as seats, beds, and protective coverings. Hey den (1983a) has correlated the utilitarian features of tule with metaphors for rulership and power in Nahuatl thought. Further, the association of tule and water had implications of fertility and the potential to support a large community

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The Paradise Garden Murals ofMalinalco

FIG. 74. Detail of sapote or fruit tree, garden frescoes, lower cloister wall, East 4, Malinalco.

The water lily, by virtue of its watery context as well as its beauty and nutritional value, was noted for its ceremonial and economic importance (Lot and Miranda-Arce 1983). One representation of the water lily in the murals is located behind the pool of water of the east cloister wall (fig. 36) with enough of its pointed petals in the corolla to identify it accurately as a ninfa. A second, more stylized version of the water lily flower may also be represented fullface behind the fish held by the egret. The medicinal properties of the water lily included the mitigation of fevers and inflammations as well as allegedly helping to guard a woman's chastity; at least one species of the water lily was used as a hallucinogen.

the most exotic and novel plants in the New World. Both cacti depicted on the south wall of the Malinalco cloister were prevalent in the central plateau of Mexico. 7 Unfortunately, because of the damage sustained in the lower two-thirds of the wall, only the upper portions of the cacti are clearly visible. Originally, they must have been very conspicuous, filling the entire height of the wall, as evidenced by the traces of outline that still remain. There are many varieties of the nopal cactus; Sahagiin alone lists twelve species. The nopal (fig. 75) was best known and cultivated for its succulent fruit, the tuna or "prickly pear" (nochtli), one of which is visible in the murals. In addition, however, there were many medicinal uses of the fruit, leaves, and roots, including that of aiding in childbirth. The image of the cactus fruit, because of its size, red color, and juicy interior, was an appropriate metaphor in Aztec culture for a captive's heart at the time of sacrifice.

Nopalli (7)

Organ Cactus (8)

For the European explorers, members of the cactus family {Cactaceae) represented some of

Although not prevalent like the nopal in the immediate vicinity of the monastery, the organ

of people. Tollan, "place of the reeds," came to signify any substantial metropolis for the Aztecs. Atatapalcatl (6)

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FIG. 75. Tule and nopal cactus, garden frescoes, lower cloister wall, South 2, Malinalco.

cactus flourished in zones of greater aridity to the east and south in the valleys adjacent to Malinalco. The candelabra profile of this large plant and its typical, if exaggerated, flower identify it as an organ cactus (figs. 76 and 106). The muralist has properly observed the columnar shafts of the cactus and its spines grouped in clusters of three. Although it lacked the nutritional value of the tuna, the organ cactus root was used as a sixteenth-century remedy for toothaches. Ololiuhqui or Tlililtzin (9) The first of the three identified flowering vines depicted in the murals represents either of two species in the Morning Glory family: the ololiuhqui (Turbina corymbosa) or the tlililtzin (Ipomoea coccinea c.).8 For our purposes, this distinction is unimportant, as these closely related species share many physical features and played a leading role in the religious life of preColumbian cultures. These vines have heartshaped leaves and flowers with bell-shaped corollas and prominent faceting, pointed sepals

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in the calyx (figs. 77 and 78). The seeds were valued as intoxicants with reputedly analgesic properties. The gluco-alkaloids in the seeds are known to affect the central nervous system in a manner similar to LSD. Of ololiuhqui ("round thing"; also called coaxihuitl, or "snake plant"), Sahagiin (1950-1982,11:129) wrote thatit "maddens one" and "makes one possessed." The delirium was used as a means to communicate with the gods; the flower was itself worshipped and said to be "divine." When ground up and imbibed, it was said to give powers of clairvoyance extending to the realm of disease; those who drank ololiuhqui could "see" or ascertain the cause of illnesses and problems (Ruiz de Alarcon 1953, 5:124, 172). Tecomaxochitl (10) The long trumpet vine represented in the murals (fig. 79) has been identified with one species of the genus Solandra that grows wild and abundantly in central Mexico, the cop a de oro, or "cup of gold." 9 The showy yellow flowers of this climbing shrub, with their long

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F I G . 76. O r g a n cactus and egret, garden frescoes, lower cloister wall, South 1, Malinalco. Photo courtesy of J. Adrian Fernandez.

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F I G . 77. H u m m i n g b i r d and ololiuhqui (morning

F I G . 78. H u m m i n g b i r d and ololiuhqui of fig. 77.

glory), garden frescoes, lower cloister wall, East 1, Malinalco.

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chalice-shaped corollas, earned it the Nahuatl name of tecomaxochitl, or "jar flower." As the flower is shown in the murals, the funnel form of the corolla flares out at the mouth with five spreading or rolled back lobes to display the protruding stamens. A tea made from the leaves of the tecomaxochitl was thought to be useful in alleviating pain, and its perfumed flowers were potable in chocolate. Sahagun (1950-1982, 11:206) however, was also aware of its narcotic properties, for he reported of tecomaxochitl that "when much is drunk . . . it overexcites . . . it is deadly. As a cure, one is to drink a great amount of wine, it will soothe one. . . . " Huacalxochitl (11) The third important flowering vine, identified as the huacalxochitl, or "basket flower," was one of the most venerated of flowers by the Aztecs. Although only the inflorescence of the plant is depicted in the vault paintings (figs. 67 and 80), the distinctive "flower" alone provides unmistakable identification as a member of the genus Philodendron. The inflorescence is not a true flower but is formed by cylindrical spathes, or leaves, that envelop a shaftlike spadix in its central concavity. In addition to having medicinal value, the huacalxochitl was one of the most noteworthy ritual accessories in Aztec ceremonies (fig. 81), considered so precious and aromatic that the supreme Aztec ruler, Moctezuma II, offered the flower at the temple of the Aztec deity Huitzilopochtli. It also decorated military heroes and the tlatoani, or ruler. The value of the huacalxochitl was related to the sexual symbolism inherent in its blossom. Both Sahagun (1950-1982, 11:209) and Hernandez (1959, 1:389) reported on the carnal use of the flower by women secluded in the royal palace. Its powers of fertility continued to be recognized in the colonial period by hunters who wore the flower in their hats in order to ensure an abundant hunt.

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FIG. 79. Tecomaxochitl (cup of gold) and bird from finch family, garden frescoes, lower cloister wall, South 4, Malinalco.

Etl (12)

Only two of the plants chosen from the native flora, the common bean and the pineapple, were known principally for their nutritive value. The representation of the bean plant, orfrijol indio {etl), is the sole example of a major food crop of native Mesoamerica included in the frescoes (fig. 82).10 The diagnostic traits common to the frijoles indios are evident in the murals, as seen in the button and trilobed flower buds and the dangling bean pods. Primarily cultivated for its nutritional value as one of the primary dietary staples, the frijol nonetheless was also noted for the pharmacological properties of its roots and fruit. The beans were chewed as a purgative, often while the patient was in a steam bath, to get rid of intestinal "animals." Matzatli (13) In the vault paintings, the muralists inserted stylized renditions of the fruit of the matzatli, or

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FIG. 80. Detail of vault murals with huacalxochitl ("basket flower"), bees, and song scroll. Lower cloister vault, East 1, Malinalco.

FIG. 81. Aztec musicians and dancers, one dancer holding a huacalxochitl flower. From Florentine Codex, Sahagun 1979, 9: fol. 30V. Reproduced with permission of the Archivo General de la Nacion, Mexico City.

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FIG. 82. Tule and bean plant {frijoles indios). Garden frescoes, lower cloister wall, South 4, Malinalco.

pineapple (fig. 83). As the most useful member of the Bromeliad family, endemic to the Americas, the pineapple was cultivated by the natives for its fruit. In 1493 Columbus returned from his second voyage from the West Indies with pineapple for the Spanish queen, Isabella, and by the end of the sixteenth century the plant had been diffused throughout the tropics. Malinalli (14) Although malinalli, or "twisted grass," is not depicted in the lower cloister frescoes, it does appear painted around the frame of the medallion mural on the stairwell ceiling of the monastery (plate 5). As the toponym for Malinalco, or "place of malinalli" this glyphlike design clearly shows the interlaced strands of grass (fig. 130). More naturalistic renderings of the malinalli plant are carved in stone within four medallions above the cloister fagade (fig. 84). Malinalli can be identified as a grass (Muhlenber-

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FIG. 83. Pineapple and song scroll. Detail of vault frescoes, lower cloister, South 2, Malinalco.

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gia Schrebner) with curative functions, including aiding in childbirth. 11 As the twelfth day sign in the divinatory calendar and an earth deity emblem, malinalli was very significant in Aztec society and ritual (Peterson 1983). Plants Common to Mexico and Europe Thistle (15) The next two plants, the thistle and grape vine, were present in both the Old World and the New. The sources for the representation of these plants may have been bicultural, although their meaning at Malinalco appears to have been derived primarily from Euro-Christian iconography. Only the very distinctive flower head of the prickly thistle plant is included in the murals (fig. 85). The genus Cirsium was native to all continents of the Northern Hemisphere in the sixteenth century and was, therefore, as familiar in Mexico as in Europe. In the preconquest pharmacopoeia the thistle plant was remarkably versatile in spite of its spiny defenses. The roots were edible and had curative capabilities. In Europe, too, the Cirsium had been endowed with medicinal properties since antiquity. In Christian iconography the thorns of the thistle were associated with the sin and earthly sorrow of mankind as well as one of the events in the Passion, Christ's crowning with thorns. Grapes (16) Species of the grape plant were likewise found on both continents at the time of the Spanish overseas discoveries. In the murals the grape vine is delineated with its typical palmately lobed leaves, tendrils, and large clusters of grapes (fig. 14). Entire vines wind themselves around tree trunks; branches with bunches of grapes are scattered among other plants (fig. 21). The Mexican wild grape plant (xocomecatl or cehualchichiltic) was neither cultivated nor used for making "wine." The small purple fruit was sweet enough to be eaten, but the value of the grape plant for sixteenth-

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FIG. 84. Malinalli plant in medallion. Stone relief sculpture (c. 1570) on cloister faqade, Malinalco.

century Indians revolved more around its leaves than its fruit. The medicinal properties of the grape leaves included curing skin rashes, ridding the body of tumors, treating inflammation of the eyes, and mitigating fevers. At Malinalco the grape vine is repeated on all four walls of the cloister murals. This visibility suggests an importance of the grape plant not accorded to it either in Aztec culture or in sixteenth-century herbals. The omnipresence of the grape plant in the frescoes must allude instead to the central position of the vineyard and wine in Christian symbolism. The domesticated grape vine (Vitis vinifera L.), cultivated around the Mediterranean from antiquity, was one of the first plants introduced by the Spaniards to Mexico on a large scale for the purpose of making wine (Standley 1920:728). More important in the monastic context of the murals, the grape vine in Christian iconography had served for centuries as a metaphor for the crucified Christ and for the church itself. As a symbol for the blood of Christ, wine assumed a central role in the celebration of the Eucharist. Grapes also referred to the work of good Christians in the vineyard of the Lord and, therefore, to the evangelistic mission of the mendicants in Mexico.

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-IG. 85. Thistle and bird. Garden frescoes, lower cloister wall, East 2, Malinalco.

Imported Plants The three plants discussed in this section, the acanthus, pomegranate and rose, were not found in Mexico until introduced by the Spaniards. Only the pomegranate is naturalistic, indicating that it was painted from a living specimen probably growing in the vicinity of the Malinalco monastery. The acanthus and rose, on the other hand, are highly stylized, implying the use of an artistic model as well as a decorative and symbolic function within the murals pertinent only to European and Christian iconography. Acanthus (17) Depicted in the murals is a species of the hardiest and most common acanthus, known as "bear's breech," native to the Mediterranean at the time of contact. The deeply cut leaves of the acanthus arch upward from a common basal point and produce erect flower spikes with col-

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ored bracts; the plant may also have spines. Like the grape vine, the acanthus plant appears on every wall in the cloister (figs. 12-15). Its prominence, too, can readily be traced to European sources and iconography. The large serrated leaves of the acanthus were favored by European ornamentalists in sixteenth-century graphics and tapestry. In the mural rendering of the acanthus, the arabesque patterns of the leaves are stressed by the muralists at the expense of botanical veracity. Although the thorns of the acanthus, like the prickly protuberances of the thistle, were related to the punishment of sin in Christian thought, we must give as much attention to the formal, decorative role of the acanthus at Malinalco as to its religious symbolism. Pomegranate (18) The second identifiable plant in the murals that is exclusively European in origin is the pomegranate, or granada. The pomegranate was

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native to southern Europe and is so prevalent in Spain that it became its national emblem. Like the domesticated grape, it was introduced to Mexico soon after the conquest. The spherical pomegranate fruits are shown with their characteristic calyx composed of the pronged sepals at the ends of the fruit (fig. 93). The interior of the fruit with its many seeds is also visible, both on a full-sized tree on the south wall and in other locations in the frescoes, where it is being eaten by birds and rabbits (figs. 25 and 36). The pomegranate, like the grape, had a long association not only with Mediterranean religions but with kingship as well. The interior of the pomegranate fruit, with its innumerable seeds encased within one husk, was compared to the early Christian church, its faithful enclosed and protected within one religion. The pagan association of the pomegranate with fertility (Everett 1981:2851) gave the fruit a second set of symbolic connotations adopted by Christianity: the hope of resurrection and new life (Ferguson 1977:37). Rose (19) Although the rose family (Rosaceae) was not indigenous to Mexico, the term rosa was used in sixteenth-century writing as a synonym for "flower." Neither the flower nor the conventionalized manner in which the rose is represented in the murals (fig. 86) can have had any preconquest significance. By contrast, the rose in Christian iconography had a multitude of meanings. From the Gothic period on, the rose was one of the major devotional images in Europe. This was particularly true of the Rosa gallica, or red rose, whose color stood for the blood of martyrs and whose thorns represented the crown of thorns. The rose in the Malinalco frescoes, although stylized, is represented with five inner lobes and with outer layers of petals radiating around it. Not only were five-petaled flowers considered sacred in European thought, but the five inner petals of the rose were said to symbolize the five wounds of Christ. The rose, along with the lily, was the flower most fre-

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quently associated with the Virgin in Christianity. One of the Virgin Mary's metaphorical titles was the "Rose without Thorns," also referred to as the "Rose of Paradise." In fact, the rose became the flower of paradise in its beauty and perfection, and it is this overriding significance that will be most relevant to the theme of the cloister frescoes.12 Possible

Identifications

The five plants in this grouping are given tentative or more generalized classifications. If correctly identified, however, all were native to the Americas and were utilized by the Aztec culture. Acocotli (20) The Mexican dahlia (acocotli) was one of the imperial flowers favored by both Moctezuma and his cousin, the Texcocan king Nezahualcoyotl (O'Gorman 1961:154). C o m m o n throughout the central Mexican highlands and native to Mesoamerica, the dahlia was not grown outside the New World until a specimen was taken to Madrid in 1789 (Everett 1981:1000). The dahlia consists of a ray-type floret with composite or single form, as shown in the frescoes (fig. 87). In the mural depiction, seven to eight oblong petals with vertical striations radiate out from a circular center. There were several varieties of acocotli and acocoxochitl ("hollow stem" or "water gullet" plant) cultivated by the Aztecs for their ornamental and medicinal uses as well as for their edible tuberous roots. Cempoalxochitl (21) It is difficult to identify the flower represented in figure 76 beyond belonging to the genus Tagetes, a member of the Compositae family, like the dahlia. Because of the petals' toothed edge and single layer, the flower in the frescoes (fig. 88) has been tentatively identified as Tagetes rnicrantha,13 whose close cousin is the African or Aztec marigold, which continues to be one of the most frequently used ceremonial flowers in

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FIG. 86. Roses and bird. Garden frescoes, lower cloister wall, East 4, Malinalco.

FIG. 87. Acocotli, or Mexican dahlia (?). Garden frescoes, lower cloister wall, East 2, Malinalco.

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Mexico. Known as the cempoalxochitl ("twenty flower") or sempasuchil, the marigold was and continues to play a prominent role in the autumn festival honoring the dead. Coanenepilli (22) The hundreds of species that belong to the genus Passiflora are all tropical and non-European. The species of passionflower most commonly found in the wild in central Mexico is the Passiflora jorullensis (Martinez and Matuda 1979, 3:443-444). These flowers are highly stylized in the murals (fig. 89), yet the drawing of the layers of petals in the corolla, both filaments and petals, and the elaboration of stamens accord generally with the elaborate blossom of the passionflower. When Spanish explorers first

FIG. 88. Cempoaxochitl, or sempasuchil(?). Garden frescoes, lower cloister wall, East 2, Malinalco.

FIG. 89. Coanenepilli (coatli xochitlanense), or Passiflora (?) and bird. Garden frescoes, lower cloister wall, East 3, Malinalco.

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The Imagery: Flora and Fauna came upon this flower in the New World, they related various parts of the flower and tendrils to episodes in the Passion of Christ. For them, the five petals and five sepals referred to the ten apostles present at Christ's death (minus Judas and Peter), the fringed corona of filaments to the crown of thorns, the five stamens to his five wounds, and the tripartite stigma to the three nails used on the cross (Everett 198112502). The friars took the flower as a positive augury for their mission; this may explain its inclusion on three of the four walls in the lower cloister of Malinalco. This interpretation diverged completely from that of the native peoples, whose high estimation of the plant carried another set of associations. The passionflower was called coanenepilli

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in Nahuatl, or "tongue of serpent," a reference perhaps to the split and prominent stigma of the flower. Not surprisingly, the plant was felt to be effective in combating the venom of snake bites. The white root of the coanenepilli was used for urinary tract infections, for chest diseases, and for calming the nerves. Both the root and flower had the capability of protecting an individual from the power of witchcraft. Oceloxochitl (23) In the vaults of the Malinalco frescoes is a flower that greatly resembles, with some anomalies, a highly distinctive plant indigenous to Mexico and Guatemala, the tiger flower (Tigridiapavonia). The Aztecs named it oceloxochitl, or "flower of the ocelot or jaguar," for the dark spots on its red and yellow petals (fig. 90). Although stylized in the frescoes, its six petals, three large and three small, are depicted. A long style with a trident point emerges from the center of the corolla and compares favorably to the illustration in Hernandez (1959, 2:77). As with several of the flowers mentioned above, this flower was accorded special importance because of its resemblance to another status element in Aztec Mexico. The ocelot or jaguar was both feared and revered by the Aztecs and was linked with the terrestrial deities. Its great prowess as a hunter made the jaguar a perfect insignia, adopted by the ruling classes and by one of the high-ranking military orders. These prestigious associations endowed the "jaguar flower" with desirable properties. Not only were its bulbs, or cacomitl, considered sweet and edible but the flower was consumed in order to promote fertility. The strikingly dramatic oceloxochitl was used to make honorific crowns and garlands. Tonacaxochitl (24)

FIG. 90. Oceloxochitl, or tiger flower (?). Vault frescoes, lower cloister, South 3, Malinalco.

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Another flowering creeper depicted on the south wall of the cloister frescoes may be the little trumpet, or trompetilla (tonacaxochitl or tonalxochitl: "flower that grows with the sun") of the Bignonidceas family. The tubular corolla

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Animals

Tlacuache (1)

FIG. 91. Tonacaxochitl, or trompetillo (?). Garden frescoes, lower cloister wall, South 4, Malinalco.

of the flower ends in five rounded, spreading lobes. The scalloped edge of the trumpetshaped flower and veined leaves are clearly indicated in the murals (fig. 91) as well as in the illustrations for tonalxochitl in both Sahagun (1979, 11: fol.166) and Cruz (1964: fol.54r). The flowers of the vine were even cultivated for their pleasant odor and taste, adding a sweet aroma to the chocolate drink mixture. The flowers were also ground and imbibed or mixed into poultices for treatment of a variety of ailments. FAUNA

IDENTIFIED

The methodology in identifying the animals and birds in the murals is similar to that used for the plants, using sixteenth-century historical sources in conjunction with modern zoological references. Twenty-one identified species in the animal kingdom are described, beginning with the four-legged mammals and ending with the winged, airborne animals (Appendix D). The thirteen different species in the class of birds are placed in a separate category.

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The tree opossum is a marsupial discovered by Europeans only in the Americas. All early accounts marveled at the animal's humanlike hands, its reproductive abdominal pouch, and its medicinal attributes (Hartman 1952:5-9). In the murals there are two renderings of opossumlike animals set on tree branches and eating fruit. Neither conforms to the appearance of tree opossums in all aspects, and the two are clearly by different hands. O n the east wall is a crouching animal (fig. 92) that appears close to the native American opossum, or tlacuache (tlaquatl). Its head is "long and thin-muzzled," as described by Sahagun (1950-1982, 11:11-12), but, unfortunately, the tlacuache's small pointed ears are missing or damaged in the mural and its long hairless tail camouflaged by the curved branches on which it sits. The second rendering of a tlacuache on the south cloister wall (fig. 93) is also problematic. It too is in a tree, gnawing on a pomegranate. It resembles the opossum in its furry body, pointed ears, tail, and adept grasping hands. However, the animal's snout is shorter and its internal proportions are close to those of a rat illustrated in Sahagun (fig. 94).14 The greatest difficulty in identifying this second tlacuache as a rat rests with its large size relative to the pomegranate it is eating; in this respect, it is more like the cat-sized opossums. Although not entirely secure, therefore, the most probable determination of these two animals is with the native tlacuache. The tree opossum came to represent for all Mesoamerican cultures the archetypical progenitor. Because of the frequency of pregnancy, number of progeny, and built-in pouch to carry its young, the opposum embodied the female as generatrix principle. The tlacuache^ most important feature, its hairless tail, is unmistakably indicated in the second mural representation. It was the tlacuache's tail that made it an indispensable component of the healer's medicine chest. The medication distilled from the tail had the

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FIG. 92. Tlacuache (tree opossum). Garden frescoes, lower cloister wall, East 4, Malinalco.

FIG. 93. Tlacuache (tree opossum) or quimichin (rat). Garden frescoes, lower cloister wall, South 2, Malinalco.

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FIG. 94. Quimichin (rat). From Florentine Codex, Sahagun 1979, 11: fol. 18v. Reproduced with permission of the Archivo General de la Nacion, Mexico City. basic action of purging. The infusion not only aided constipation, cleaned the urinary tract, and helped with milk production, but also accelerated parturition. Tlacuache tails were "used by every midwife" in the early colonial period (Ruiz de Alarcon 1953, 5:171). After listing its many virtues, Hernandez (1959, 2:299) concluded: "Perhaps there is no medicine more efficacious for producing all of the above effects." O^omatli (2) The monkeys painted in the frescoes belong to one of two New World genera, the spider monkey (Ateles). In contrast to Old World monkeys, New World monkeys are arboreal. In their adaptation to a life in the trees, they developed longer limbs, grasping extremities, and a prehensile tail that was used as a fifth hand. In the Malinalco frescoes two monkeys are hanging from the branches of the cacao tree, using all four limbs and a coiled tail for balance (fig. 95). The upper monkey is partially obscured by the tree itself and by the deteriorated condition of the fresco; only its right forelimb, head, and torso are visible. The lower monkey is reaching for a cacao pod with the thin, elongated limbs and fully developed thumbs and index fingers so characteristic of spider monkeys.

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The pin wheel position of the Malinalco monkey as it clings to a high branch is almost identical to that of the monkey in the Sahagun illustration (fig. 35). Both renditions include the ruff of fur around the monkey's face that preconquest artists emphasized as well; they lack the typical beard of the second genus of New World monkey, the howler monkey (Alouatta). Both spider and howler monkeys penetrated the forests as far north as Tabasco to the southeast and Oaxaca to the south of the Aztec heartland. H o w ever, only spider monkeys survive in captivity; they were often caught and tamed by the Aztecs. Like the tropical cacao tree with which they are associated in the murals, monkeys were imported to the highlands where the Malinalco muralists must have had the opportunity to study their features and movements. The association of monkeys with human beings was a predominantly positive one in Aztec culture, in accord with the monkey's playful and nonaggressive behavior. The individual born under the calendrical day sign Monkey was always a "great giver of diversion and amusement . . . a wholehearted friend of the people esteemed by all" (Sahagun 1950-1982, 4 : 7 3 74). In Aztec cosmogony, monkeys were ancestral to mankind and endowed with vitalizing, creative powers. Given their nimble grace, songlike hoots, and manual dexterity, it is no wonder monkeys were perceived as the originators of the performing and visual arts, including the elite profession of scribes and painters. However, monkeys were also associated with the excesses of festivities, activities such as intoxication, gluttony, and lascivious behavior. Outside of certain social and ritual contexts, the latter were punished by the Aztecs. In sum, monkeys had contradictory moral and immoral connotations. Monkeys were imported from warmer climes into Europe, just as in Mesoamerica they were brought from the lowlands into the central Mexican plateau. In Europe they were kept as exotic pets or trained performers. In contradistinction to the favorable and unfavorable at-

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FIG. 95. Monkeys and cacao pods. Garden frescoes, lower cloister wall, East 3, Malinalco. titudes toward the monkey in native America, however, the Christian connotations were decidedly negative. From the twelfth century on, the ape was a symbol of a sinner. Since apes appeared to parody human actions (and humans, in turn, displayed simian traits), the ape represented the lustful nature of man, or man in a state of degeneracy (Janson 1952:29-56). Vanity, impudence, and unbridled sensuality were only a few of the vices imputed to the monkey. By the sixteenth century, the apple-eating ape was directly linked to the Fall of Man, an interpretation pertinent to the broader theme of the Malinalco frescoes. Coyotl (13) The curious pairing on the east wall juxtaposes a European-derived animal with an ob-

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served native animal (fig. 96). The upper, pouncing animal is a hybrid creation, with elfin ears and a snarling humanized face derived from a medieval bestiary. The lower animal more nearly fits the description of a coyote as given to us by Sahagun and Hernandez. The coyote (coyotl), unknown in the Old World, is a member of the Canidae family, which includes wolves and foxes. Coyotes were seen as astute hunters, woolly in pelt, bushy-tailed, and pointed-eared. Classed with other rapacious "beasts of prey," they were also, like the jaguar, allied with the Aztec warrior class. Although the coyote had a more sensuous, playful side as the animal counterpart of the god of dance and song, 15 the snarling depiction of the coyote in the murals appears to stress its rapacious nature.

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FIG. 96. Coyote (?) with composite creature on back. Garden frescoes, lower cloister wall, East 4, Malinalco.

Animals Common to Mexico and Europe Deer (14) The deer in the murals is a diminutive animal, partially obscured by a tree on the east wall (fig. 97). Deer (magatl) were as common in the mountains of Mexico and Malinalco as they were familiar to Europeans. Because of the forward curve of the horns, the stag is likely a white-tailed or Virginian deer of the genus Odocoileus, most prevalent in the Americas (Grzimek 1972-1975, 13:202). The deer played an important calendrical role as the seventh of the twenty day signs in the pre-Hispanic central Mexican calendar and as a mythological animal associated with stars and symbols of fire (fig. 23; Seler 1960-1961, 4-538-54i)- The nomadic Chichimec peoples who relied heavily on deer meat endowed their most important gods of hunting and war with deer attributes. Ceremonies of great time depth

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honoring these ancient deities were incorporated into the Aztec calendar; deer were ritually hunted and sacrificial victims were bound hand and foot like captured deer. The deer was a consistent actor in Mesoamerican creation myths, most frequently as a metaphor for the sun in its courtship of the moon (Peterson 1990:22). For the Aztecs, the deer's solar associations were with the descending sun in the West, further linking the deer/sun with the rabbit/moon and the complex of female fertility goddesses who were said to occupy the western area of the sky. Nahua thinking extended the deer's Chichimec ancestry and procreative capacities beyond the bounds of propriety to imply uncivilized behavior and excessive sexuality; paired frequently with the rabbit, the deer likewise had negative moral implications (Burkhart 1986: 118-119). With few exceptions, preconquest images of deer were rendered in profile (Klein 1976:173-174)By contrast, in Old World symbolism the

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****' .\fiy

FIG. 97. Stag below serpent and sparrow in tree. Garden frescoes, lower cloister wall, East 3, Malinalco.

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deer, especially the stag, was a Christian metaphor for the human soul thirsting after salvation (from Psalm 42:1), for piety, and even for Christ himself. The dynamic, twisting stance of the Malinalco stag and its location on the east mural wall point to the artist's use of a European model and the stag's positive role within the Garden of Eden iconography. Rabbits or Hares (5) Like deer, rabbits were found on both continents. Since the distinction between hares and rabbits in Sahagun was primarily based on size, it is impossible to determine which of the family Leporidae are being shown by the seven rabbits on the east and north walls. The movements and habits of rabbits as recorded by Sahagun are relayed by their poses and activities. Rabbits are said to run and spring up, just as the mother hare and two babies flee and run from some unseen danger (fig. 98). The rabbits' vast appetites, which if not curbed would "lay waste a house" (Sahagun 1950-1982, 5:167), are indicated by the fact that most of the rabbits in the murals are shown eating fruit—grapes and

pomegranates (figs. 25 and 36). Their wellknown proclivity to reproduce associated the rabbit with the female deities believed to control vegetation and agricultural abundance, specifically with those who governed the native alcoholic beverage, pulque, fermented from the juice of the maguey plant. Two Rabbit was the patron deity of pulque, but the entire complex of deities was called the Centzon Totochin ("four hundred or innumerable rabbits"), a name that suggests excess. Thus, although the day sign was generally considered favorable, the rabbit was also identified with drunkenness and, more broadly, like the deer, with intemperate personalities and errant behavior. The rabbit or hare was an old symbol of fecundity and lust in Europe as well. When viewed as a meek, defenseless creature, however, it was also compared to a Christian who must trust in Christ for salvation. Antithetical meanings are conveyed by pictorial representations of the rabbit as carnal desire when shown with Eve, yet as a sign of purity when depicted with the Virgin Mary (Friedmann 1980:286288). Their supposed ability to procreate by

FIG. 98. Rabbits (mother with two babies). Garden frescoes, lower cloister wall, East 4, Malinalco.

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The Imagery: Flora and Fauna 109 parthenogenesis, without loss of chastity, underscored their role as symbols of Christian virtue, a significance that would have been pertinent to the murals' larger meaning as the Christian enclosed garden. The interpretation of the numerous rabbits in the Malinalco murals is nonetheless somewhat equivocal, even within the Christian heritage. Snakes (6) Two snakes are depicted on the east wall of the murals; one is coiled around the trunk of a tree and hypnotizing a small bird or sparrow (fig. 97), while the second is being devoured by a rapacious bird (fig. 109). The serpents are generic types, with scales, forked tongues, and a twisting form of locomotion. Pre-Hispanic people felt the same ambivalence toward the terrestrial snake as they did toward the earth; it was both beneficial as a source of nourishment and potentially deadly as a representative of chthonic forces. For example, a medicinal infusion made of nonpoisonous serpents had the capability of increasing the production of semen. By contrast, the sight of some types of snakes portended evil and danger. This duality was also reflected in the varied pre-Hispanic prognostications made for the calendrical day sign Snake. The day "seven serpent" represented sustenance and the sign "one serpent" brought renown and honor. However, those born under other coefficients of the serpent sign were said to become paupers and menials. 16 For many cultures the snake was the representative of dark, underworld powers which is pitted against the creative and celestial forces incarnate in a bird. The Aztecs embodied this conflict in one of their founding myths. When an eagle with a serpent in its mouth was seen lighting on a cactus, not only did that mark the site for the future Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan, but it established the supremacy of the Aztec tribal deity. In the opposition of good and evil, Christianity emphasized the serpent as representing the devil and the forces of temptation and sin. Within the garden context of the Ma-

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linalco murals, the serpent takes on this sinister aspect. The full meaning of the image of the p o tentially destructive serpent seducing an innocent sparrow will be clarified in the context of the paradise garden. Lizards (7) Of the three lizards incorporated into the murals, two are depicted scampering up or down tree trunks (frontispiece) and one on the ground. Like the snakes in the murals, the lizards (cuetzpalin) are too generalized in appearance to narrow the classification, although the two larger lizards may be iguanas. The Aztecs viewed the agile lizard as a sign of good fortune. Born under the lizard sign, a person would "prosper without toil" like the lizard itself (Duran 1971:400). As the fourth day sign, the lizard was associated with powers of generation and rain (Seler 1960-1961, 4:674-675). According to Euro-Christian tradition, the lizard was also a positive symbol as an animal that sought salvation and as an emblem of fidelity and sincerity. Lizards appear frequently in scenes depicting St. Jerome, where they allude to the penitent in the wilderness (Friedmann 1980:268-269). Butterflies (8) Two butterflies are painted into the murals on the upper portion of wall E-4, one shown in a dorsal position with wings outspread and the other in profile view. The veining in the butterflies' wings, their jointed bodies, and curved antennae are delicately noted by the muralist. The butterfly in Aztec culture was considered "very beautiful, coveted, desirable . . . they are of intricate design, sought after, flowerlike" (Sahagtin 1950-1982, 11:94-95). The butterfly's three-step life cycle made it highly appropriate as a transformational symbol. For the Aztec culture, the butterfly's ability to transmute into a volant creature made it a suitable symbol of death and one of several winged creatures that personified the souls of deceased warriors and women who had died in childbirth. The

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Aztecs emphasized the martial aspects of the butterfly symbol (and affiliated ideas of cosmic renewal through sacrifice and death) as part of their warrior ideology. 17 As emblems for the immaterial essence of the human being after death, the preconquest meaning given butterflies converged with their Christian significance. In Christian thought not only were butterflies affiliated with the souls of the dead and capable of communication with other realms through flight, but their ability to undergo physical transformation also made them the ideal symbols for the Christian ideas of resurrection.

Birds Birds make up the largest single class of animals in the murals; they are so numerous that in places the garden frescoes take on the appearance of an aviary. Forty-eight birds are depicted, of which over half are recognizable. The remaining bird life retains a certain anonymity that suggests they were taken from imported and decorative sources (fig. 99). At Malinalco almost all of the birds held to be most important to native cultures were included. There is an unusually high correlation between the birds represented in the frescoes and the illustrations in Book XI of Sahagun's Florentine Codex. Few of the bird species, however, are endemic only to the Americas or to Mexico. In type, therefore, although some would have been far more common on the Mexican central plateau than in Spain, few would have been completely foreign to the friars.

FIG. 99. Cross in garden frescoes above confessional, lower cloister wall, North 3, Malinalco. Photo courtesy of J. Adrian Fernandez.

Parrots or Macaws (9) Four (perhaps five) members of the Psittacidae family of parrots and macaws are depicted; all are on the north cloister wall (figs. 100 and 101). The parrots are typically drawn with a shorter lower mandible in their hooked bills.18 Their viselike feet are used like hands to climb and hold seeds, and their blunt tail feathers project beyond their wings. These images can be matched to several of the parrots (toznene) illustrated in Sahagun, with one set shown preening

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FIG. 100. Parrot. Garden frescoes, lower cloister wall, North 5, Malinalco.

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The Imagery: Flora and Fauna their feathers (fig. 102). In the Aztec calendrical series of thirteen birds, a parrot and a macaw occupy the eleventh and thirteenth positions (Seler 1960-1961, 4:552). Both species of birds were prized for their feathers and kept in royal gardens for this purpose. Garments and insignia for Aztec aristocracy and military were made out of featherwork; costumes of feather mosaic were highly valued designations of rank. Because of their ability to imitate human words, parrots were sometimes included in scenes of the Annunciation as symbols of God's word impregnating the Virgin (Friedmann 1980: 128, 280-282). Parrots are also featured in the European ornamental prints suggested as models for sections of the Malinalco garden frescoes. It is not surprising that they appear exclusively on the north cloister wall, the area in which the muralists (primarily Artist B) most closely followed European prototypes. The strong stylistic ties of the Malinalco parrots with European ornamentals and their restriction to the north wall suggest that, from the European viewpoint, the birds were included primarily as decorative entities in the murals.

FIG. 101. Parrot. Garden frescoes, lower cloister wall, North 4, Malinalco.

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FIG. 102. Papagayos (parrots). From Florentine Codex, Sahagun 1979, 11: fol. 23V. Reproduced with permission of the Archivo General de la Nacion, Mexico City.

Hummingbirds (10) Within the hummingbird family (Trochilidae), fifty-nine species occur in Mexico, several of which are common to the highlands. Only two species are crested with occipital crowns like one of the two hummingbirds rendered on the east wall mural near the morning glory vine (figs. 77 and 78). Both representations assume curious frontal and dorsal positions with feet splayed as they hover to suck the nectar from flowers with their long pointed bills. The head of the crested hummingbird is twisted to assume a profile view, and only one eye is indicated. In the second hummingbird, the artist attempted to portray a complete dorsal view (fig. 103), yet included the eyes on either side of the beak. One very small rendering of a h u m mingbird in Sahagun (1979, 11: fol.24) likewise assumes this position, whereas preconquest representations are all profile in view. The hummingbird (huitzitzilin) was held in awe by Aztec society for its supposed mode of hibernation. It was said to place its beak in the

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FIG. 103. Hummingbird. Garden frescoes, lower cloister wall, East 1, Malinalco.

crack of a tree during winter hibernation, where it appeared to be "dead"; it revived only with the advent of spring and the first rains. It was at that time that the natives claimed it went to "breed and consequently the Indians say that it dies and is reborn" (Duran i97i:73). 1 9 Two aspects of this myth are important to note: the seeming ability of the hummingbird to "resurrect" and the coincidence of the hummingbird's rejuvenation with the commencement of the rainy season. For the Aztecs, these phenomena were analogous to the sun's "rebirth," or rising, every morning in the east and the season of agricultural productivity. Both of these powers were, in turn, transferred to the Aztec tutelary deity Huitzilopochtli (Hummingbird-Left), whose headdress was that of the hummingbird head. Hunt (1977:66-68) has correlated other solar attributes of the hummingbird with Huitzilopochtli: its shiny, iridescent plumage and its ability in flight to hover and move backwards, as the sun appears to hover at the solstices and reverse its celestial direction during ecliptic passages. The Aztecs also held the more generalized preconquest view that associated the

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hummingbird, along with the butterfly, with the souls of the dead. Both the hummingbird and butterfly suck flowers, an activity often included in poetic Aztec descriptions of paradiselike locales and one which directly relates to the larger message communicated by the Malinalco murals. Barn Owl (11) Painted close by the hummingbirds on the east wall is a hornless barn owl of the family Tytonidae, found virtually all over Mexico. Although gripping the branch in lateral view, the upper body and head of the owl in the murals is pivoted to confront the viewer full-face (fig. 104). The Malinalco muralist may have been aware, as was the preconquest illustrator (fig. 19A), that an owl's eyes are set frontally, like human eyes. Both the feathering around the eyes and the beak are depicted in a manner very close to the representation of barn owls in Sahagiin (fig. 105). The native convention of presenting the owl en face, moreover, associated it with the concepts of death, darkness, and the earth characteristic of other preconquest frontal

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FIG. 104. Barn owl. Garden frescoes, lower cloister wall, East 1, Malinalco.

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images (Klein 1976:126-130). The owl (tecolotl) was one of several nocturnal birds that the Indians particularly feared: "if they heard it croak or hoot over the house on which it perched, they said that some one in that house would soon die" (Motolinia 1950:153). As the companion of the death god, owls were sometimes portrayed with a skulllike head. Although the ancient European association of the owl was with wisdom, this was not the meaning given owls in religious iconography. Instead, because of its strident screech and nocturnal occurrence, the call of the owl in EuroChristian thinking similarly signaled the song of death; the owl itself replaced Satan in Christian iconography (Cooper 1978:124). Added to this sinister primary meaning, held by the barn owl in particular, was a further allusion to religious hermits because of the owl's solitary habits (Friedmann 1980:275). This significance would have made the bird particularly appropriate for a cloister mural context. Heron and Snowy Egret (12)

FIG. 105. Barn owl. From Florentine Codex, Sahagun 1979, 11: fol. 50V. Reproduced with permission of the Archivo General de la Nacion, Mexico City.

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There are three different representations of herons—on the east, south, and north walls. Stylistic differences in the three again point to a multiplicity of artists involved in painting the murals. Only on the east wall (E-4) is the heron depicted in its appropriate watery context (fig. 36). The heron in the pool of water appears to be the common heron of Mexico, of the family Ardeidae, with mottled full plumage, long legs, an arched neck, and a sharp beak. The other two renderings of herons set the birds on the organ cactus (fig. 106) and, more improbably, on a thin coiled branch of the acanthus plant (fig. 107). The latter are closer to the pure white snowy egret (aztatl) with their conspicuous occipital crests.20 Although there are many parallels between the heron in the murals and the depictions of herons in Sahagun (fig. 37), the muralist, unlike the manuscript artist, has incorrectly drawn the heron holding a fish with its foot rather than its bill (fig. 36). Perhaps this functional anomaly

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The Paradise Garden Murals ofMalinalco

F I G . 106. Snowy egret (or heron) on organ cactus. Garden frescoes, lower cloister wall, South i, Malinalco.

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F I G . 107. Snowy egret (or heron). Garden frescoes, lower cloister wall, N o r t h 3, Malinalco.

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can be explained by the importance of herons in Christian monastic iconography and the role of the heron within the murals. As symbols of vigilance and good order in the monastic life, herons (and cranes) were said to be able to stand guard all night, standing on one foot. In the other foot, the heron held a stone that it would drop if it fell asleep, in order to awaken and again maintain dutiful watch. The Malinalco muralist may have been familiar with the allegorical story appropriate to the context of m o nastic murals but replaced the legendary stone with a fish. Duck (13) The second waterfowl in the murals is a duck partially hidden behind the water lily on the far side of the heron and pool of water (fig. 36).21 The duck and heron form a unit, along with the reeds and water lilies by the water's edge; it is in this context, as representative of a certain ecological niche and cosmic context, that the waterrelated fauna and flora are important. In EuroChristian iconography ducks have no particular, discernible connotation. Doves (14) Four doves on the south and west walls have been tentatively identified as either the Inca dove (cocotli) or mourning dove (uilotl) of the Columbidae family. They are correctly drawn with thickset bodies and small heads (fig. 108). However, the exaggerated treatment of the doves' large eyes indicate a European source for the mural images rather than a native source. 22 In spite of the abundance of doves countrywide in Mexico, these birds held a low place in Aztec thinking. According to legend, doves were so lazy that they allowed all other birds to fly to water and drink ahead of them; thereafter, doves were condemned to drink only at night and in secret (Sahagun 1950-1982, 11:51). In contrast to the contempt for the dove's passivity as expressed in native lore, the dove held a pivotal position in Christian symbolism as one of the more common symbols for the Holy Spirit.

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FIG. 108. Doves. Garden frescoes, lower cloister wall, West 5, Malinalco.

Further, white doves symbolized purity and peace, as well as the souls of those who were saved or took refuge in Christ. Falcons and Eagle-Hawks (15) O f the three diurnal birds of prey included on the east wall of the murals, at least one is unmistakably a falcon, member of the Falconidae family. It is identifiable by its large rounded eye, short hooked beak, lack of a crest, and carnivorous appetite for a snake (fig. 109). In addition, the muralist appears to be indicating a falcon's tawny or sooty-gray coloration by the denser and heavier feathering given the bird. Unlike the falcon, the pair of birds of prey (fig. n o ) may instead represent eagles or eagle-hawks of the family Accipitridae, which do have crests and longer beaks, are mottled gray-black, and have long rounded tails. One of the pair grips and devours a bird that it has just caught. Although characteristic of all birds of prey, the Malinalco depiction of the predator closely follows Sahagiin's (1950-1982, 11:43) description of the falcon who "seizes birds with his talons, clutches the breast and pierces its throat." 2 3 Both falcons and eagle-hawks are meat-eat-

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The Paradise Garden Murals of Malinalco

ers, known for their ability to spot, pursue, and catch their prey on the run with powerful talons. The Aztecs admired these hunting qualities as well as their rapacious natures, muscular strength, and swiftness of flight. Moreover, the falcon's consumption of blood was compared to the principal Aztec deity's need for blood sacrifice: "And this falcon gives life to Huitzilopochtli because, they said, these falcons, when they eat three times a day, as it were, give drink to the sun; because when they drink blood, they consume it all" (Sahagiin 1950-1982, 11:44). Like eagles, falcons and hawks were also closely affiliated with the warrior class. Four days after the funeral rites for a fallen warrior, images of the dead were made from wood. O n the shoulders of the wooden effigies were attached "wings of hawk feathers, as it was believed that in this way they would fly before the sun every day" (Duran 1964:172). The ability of falcons and eagles to ascend to great heights associated them with major deities and royalty in ancient European cultures as well. The eagle became a Christianized adaptation of these classical associations, symbolizing St. John the evangelist, the Resurrection, and Christ himself bearing the souls of the faithful upward to God. However, in the murals the rapacious aspect of the birds is stressed instead of their patterns of soaring flight. The depiction of the falcon and eagle-hawk as devouring animals and their location on the east wall murals would suggest stronger native associations than Christian symbolism.

FIG. 109. Falcon with snake. Garden frescoes, lower cloister wall, East 4, Malinalco.

Finch Family (16) Within the large family of seed-eating finches and sparrows (Fringillidae), at least three species may be included in the murals. The most distinctive species is the red crossbill (Loxia curvirostra), immediately identifiable by its unique feature, the conspicuous crossing of the tips of its bill. The muralist was very careful not only to portray the crossing of the mandibles, but the notched tail as well (fig. i n ) . Two other members of the same family may be represented on

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FIG. 110. Birds of prey (eagles or eagle-hawks?) eating another bird. Garden frescoes, lower cloister wall, East 3, Malinalco.

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FIG. i n . Red crossbill. Garden frescoes, lower cloister wall, East 4, Malinalco.

FIG. 112. Plain chachalaca. Garden frescoes, lower cloister wall, East 5, Malinalco.

the south and east walls, the house finch on the large cup-of-gold vine (fig. 79) and the sparrow (fig. 97). Both species are small and stocky, with the conical bills characteristic of seedeaters. The red crossbill, along with the robin and goldfinch, was the bird named in Christian legend that pulled thorns from the crown of Christ to alleviate his suffering; the red or redbrown feathering of these three birds was suggestive of their bloody feat (Friedmann 1980: 288-289). Many species in this bird family were also used as visual metaphors for the human soul because of their small size. As the biblical symbol for the lowliest of God's creations, the sparrow in the murals acts as the perfect foil and victim for the demonic intentions of the serpent (frontispiece).

its early dawn and dusk call. There was an important pre-Hispanic relationship between all the birds in the family Cracidae and the rising of the sun. Several species, including the chachalaca and the better-known coxcoxtli, occupied significant places in the creation mythologies of both ancient Mexican and Mayan cultures (Aguilera 1983:77-78).

Chachalaca (17) Five species of the pheasantlike birds in the family Cracidae were residents of Mexico and endemic to the Americas. The long bill, streamlined body, and fan-shaped tail of the plain chachalaca (Ortalis vetula) are well indicated in the murals (fig. 112).24 The plain chachalaca is a gregarious thicket-dwelling bird known for

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M E A N I N G OF F L O R A A N D

FAUNA

Pre-Columbian societies in Mesoamerica expressed their dynamic relationship with the natural world using a verbal and visual metaphorical language. They structured their world view using plant and animal metaphors and endowed their deities with powers symbolized by flora and fauna; their ruling elite borrowed from nature those characteristics they wished to emulate and control (Peterson 1990). Since flora and fauna were integrated into the cosmology, social structure, religion, and curing practices of native cultures in manifold and meaningful ways, their appearance in pre-Hispanic art was specific and purposeful. The use of plants and animals for ornamental purposes, as seen in six-

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teenth-century European graphics, would not have been conceivable to native artists prior to the conquest. Neither was the selection of native species for the Malinalco murals purely decorative or arbitrary; their inclusion in the garden frescoes was related to their continuing importance in postcontact Mexico. Although an impressive number of the more important pre-Hispanic Mexican species are included in the garden frescoes, the murals do not represent a compendium of the flora and fauna significant to the Aztecs. There are puzzling omissions from both the indigenous animal world and the better-known ritual and medicinal flowers. For instance, two important flowers not included in the murals are the marigold or cempoalxochitl, represented by only one possible example (fig. 88), and the cacaloxochitl (Plumeria rubra; Sahagun 1950-1982, 11:205). Only a small percentage of the hallucinogenic or intoxicating plants known to preconquest cultures were represented in the Malinalco murals; excluded were the tobacco plant (picietl), mushrooms (nanacatl), and peyote (peiotl). Few of the hundreds of medicinal herbs were represented in the murals, such as the very important cihuapatli, "woman's medicine." 25 Except for its representation through the oceloxochitl, or "jaguar flower" (fig. 90), the most powerful mammal in pre-Hispanic Mexico was also omitted. The jaguar was appropriated by the Aztec elite and warrior class as it embodied speed and courage, and, because of its nighttime hunting habits, also had frightening associations with sacrifice and sorcery. Of no less importance was the dog, among the few domesticated animals in preconquest Mexico. Both a pet and source of food, the dog was cast in the role of bringer of fire and maize as well as psychopomp, companion to souls of the deceased in their voyage to the underworld. The omission of these native faunal and floral species may be due to several reasons. First, the partial damage to the south wall of the Malinalco cloister and the almost complete destruction of the west-wall frescoes prohibit a complete inventory of the original

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subject matter. Second, the use of ornamental graphics and tapestry sources imposed certain compositional constraints. The alternating repetition of medallions and acanthus plants on all four walls, for example, necessarily limited the space to include other motifs. Third, there is a small chance that some of the flora thought to be omitted are indeed present, but not identifiable by the methods used in this study. Finally, there is the moot question of friar control to be considered. Were the friars inconsistent in allowing some of the commonly recognized and potent native fauna and flora to be painted but not others? Can we be certain that the friars were even aware of their traditional significance? We will return to the latter consideration after we explore the several levels on which the imagery was read by its dual native and European audiences. Among the twenty-four plants identified (including the tentative possibilities), nineteen were endemic only to the Americas. Twelve of these native species of flora were held in high esteem by the Indians as prestige and ceremonial items, and sixteen are documented as continuing to have medicinal value in the sixteenth century. Seven plants represented in the murals were also important for their economic or nutritive value, although, except for the bean plant, pineapple, and cacao tree, these were secondary considerations. None of these distinctions are mutually exclusive. In most cases, the symbolic importance and practical functions of the plants overlapped. Most of the plants depicted in the frescoes had metaphorical allusions to power and lifesustaining functions in Aztec culture. Just as specific plants were offered to the gods (fig. 81), flowered branches were given to leaders to strengthen them for their tasks and to affiliate them more closely with divine powers. It was socially acceptable demeanor for aristocratics to display publicly their appreciation of flowers. During one of the Aztec ritual feasts, the lords "remained reclining upon their seats, surrounded by flowers, picking up one and laying

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The Imagery: Flora and Fauna it down, taking another and abandoning it, all this time exhibiting their high dignity and lordliness" (Duran 1971:435). Flowers were particularly appreciated for their beauty and aroma. Fragrance was thought to be derived from the gods and was equated with leadership. Odoriferous flowers represented in the murals, such as the yolloxochitl (heart flower), cup-of-gold, and tonacaxochitl (trumpet vine), were considered a luxury and, therefore, one of the attributes of the ruling class. Appropriated to some extent by the ruler and the elite, these plants became indicators of rank that reinforced the social hierarchy in the Aztec empire (Heyden 1979). The relative exclusivity, high price, and scarcity of certain plants or their products, such as the chocolate beverage from the cacao tree, led to limited access; the most desirable flowers were also important as tribute items. The native worshipper used different varieties of flowers for specific purposes, self-consciously aware of their symbolism. Certain herbs and flowers were offered in the spring, for example, while others were selected to celebrate harvest and the beginning of the dry season.26 Flowers in the Malinalco murals were also important because of their resemblance to critical aspects of native life; by mimetic magic, they could produce the desired results. Thus, the powers of fertility of the xiloxochitl (cornsilk flower), the huacalxochitl (basket flower), the yolloxochitl (heart flower), and the oceloxochitl (jaguar flower) were implicit in their resemblance to maize, the male sexual organ, the heart, and the jaguar respectively. The lifesustaining role metaphorically assumed by certain plants and flowers was literally enacted in their curative functions. Almost all of the native plants painted in the frescoes were known for their medical effectiveness or psychotropic qualities. Psychotropic plants in the murals, such as the cacao, the ololiuhqui (morning glory), cup of gold, and the sapote tree, were also claimed by the ruling classes, who reserved the right to communicate directly with the gods.

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Even today some of the medicinal plants represented in the murals have not lost the importance they retained through the early colonial period. They are known to have been in use for the past four hundred years and continue to be sold in rural areas and urban markets set aside for medicinal herbs and flowers. Among those depicted in the frescoes, the seeds and leaves of the sapote are still popularly sold to facilitate sleep, calm rheumatic pains, and combat hypertension. 27 The winged seeds of the little trumpet vine, or tonalxochitl, likewise continue to be widely used; moistened and applied to the forehead they are a remedy for headaches (Standley 1920:1316). The round seeds of several morning glory flowers (ololiuhqui and manto) are commonly used for their medicinal and hallucinogenic value, in spite of vigorous opposition by the church from the earliest period of colonization. In fact, the plant has been fused with Christian terminology; the seeds have been given names such as "seed of the Virgin" (semilla de la Virgen) (Schultes and Hofmann 1979:162-163). One striking example of continuity in the Malinalco valley itself is the highly venerated yolloxochitl, today still called by its Nahuatl name or by either of two Spanish names, flor de corazon ("flower of the heart") and el huevito ("the little egg"). Both of the Spanish names refer to the appearance of the most potent part of the tree, the closed ovoid flower bud, described by Sahagun (1950-1982, 11:201) as "like a heart, like a bird's egg." The flower is in great demand throughout Mexico, sold in the marketplace by herbalists once the flower is dried but still pungent. In Malinalco one expansive yolloxochitl tree, said to be several hundred years old, is guarded and cared for by an octogenarian who has had this responsibility all her life. Only one herbalist in Malinalco is entitled to pick the flowers for his own use as well as to sell. The closed flower bud is passed over and rubbed on the body during a curing procedure, as are real hen's eggs. Ground and imbibed in liquid form, a decoction of the flowers is said to cure heart

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disease, among other ailments. The yolloxochitl is a classic example of the relationship between the therapeutic value of plants and their resemblance to bodily parts; the efficacy of the yolloxochitl stems in part from its resemblance to both an egg and the heart. 28 Many of the same principles that determined the selection of the flora in the Malinalco murals motivated the muralists' choice of animals, although the reasons behind these choices are not as easily assessed. This is partially because, unlike the flora, there are fewer species of fauna that are indigenous only to the Americas. There are three animals included in the frescoes that fall within this latter category, the tree opossum (or tlacuache), the coyote, and the chachalaca. Additionally, the two species that were native to tropical zones, the monkey and parrot, were less familiar to the sixteenth-century European. Most of the fauna identified in the frescoes were common to both continents, and distinctions between their importance to either native or European cultures are more difficult to make. Nevertheless, almost all the fauna depicted in the frescoes were found to be relevant to some aspect of the political status, supernatural beliefs, or pharmacopoeia of the Aztecs. Like the more potent flora, animals with some uniquely desirable traits were adopted by the ruling hierarchy, as were the falcon, eagle-hawk, coyote, and hummingbird. Peculiarities of habit caused others to represent certain aspects of the cosmos and the deities that controlled those natural forces. The snake became associated with both the fertile and fatal aspects of the earth, the rabbit with reproductivity and licentiousness, the hummingbird with renewal and birth, and the tlacuache with the female principle of fertility. Almost every animal depicted in the murals had some medicinal attribute; different anatomical parts of the tlacuache, monkey, serpent, dove, rabbit, stag, and heron are listed by Martin de la Cruz in his herbal as remedial ingredients. In sixteenth-century European works executed for an ecclesiastical patron, plants and animals were explicitly chosen for their Chris-

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tian symbolism. Some of these appear in the Malinalco murals, such as the grape vines, acanthus, pomegranates, thistles, and certain birds (the heron, sparrow, and dove) that were traditionally associated with the church, the Passion of Christ, or Marian iconography. Only those fauna and flora that were unknown in Mexico on the basis of biological distribution can be unequivocally interpreted as purely Christian in meaning. The European grape plant, pomegranate, and rose cannot have held any meaning for native Americans prior to their introduction by the Spaniards; they were Christian symbols for the "New Life" in Christianity with paradisaical implications. The acanthus and the thistle are among the spiny plants correlated with the crown of thorns worn by Christ during the Passion cycle. In a similar fashion, the dolphin that appears in virtually all grotesque designs of mendicant frescoes can without argument be traced to its Christological symbolism as the king of fishes. Doves carry a predominantly Christian message as the preeminent sign for the Holy Spirit. If the flora and fauna in the murals were species common to the Old and New Worlds in the sixteenth century, it is more difficult to establish unequivocal ties to Christian iconography. Complete convergence of meaning occurs only where the associations conveyed by the species are basically similar. The owl's nocturnal lifestyle, for example, made it a carrier of omens of death in both native American and European cultures; the butterfly was one of several winged creatures thought to represent the souls of the dead in both cultures. Most fusions, however, were not that compatible. Where each culture brought a different set of associations to the painted image, we can speculate that sixteenthcentury native artists and viewers retained an interpretation derived from their own heritage, in spite of a thin overlay of Christian symbolism. In both cultures the falcon and eagle-hawk were birds associated with kingship and the highest deity; in the murals, however, they are represented eating their prey (figs. 109 and n o ) .

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The Imagery: Flora and Fauna 121 The emphasis on the rapacious aspect of the birds as hunters appears to underscore their preHispanic connection with warriors and the ruling class. Likewise, parrots were esteemed by both cultures. In Euro-Christian iconography the parrot assumed a minor role; it appeared most frequently as a decorative accessory in ornamental prints of the fifteenth and sixteenth century. The numerous depictions of parrots in the murals must have had greater value for the native viewer, who associated them with celestial deities and the highly prized feather industry. To correctly interpret plant and animal motifs that are more subtle and multivalent, one must rely on the models for the images and on their context within the murals. The multiple images of the rabbit certainly conveyed a mixed message. While its often propitious day sign carried the promise of fecundity, Burkhart (1986) has shown that the rabbit, like the deer with which it was closely linked, was a Nahua metaphor of moral deviance, especially drunkenness, cowardice, and promiscuity. These negative allusions were even used by the friars in early colonial religious discourse to convey concepts of sin and disobedience. However, when the rabbit (particularly the white rabbit) was included in sixteenth-century European depictions of the Madonna and Child, the animal indicated Mary's control of sensuality (Friedmann 1980:287). Within the paradise-garden theme of the murals, it is most likely rabbits were intended to be read as symbols of purity, however foreign to native Nahua thinking and even contradictory to the friars' own usage of the metaphor. Context likewise clarifies the ambiguous meaning of the stag in the murals. The stag's activated posture is clearly European and is found on the east wall, below the tree branches where the drama of the serpent and sparrow is being enacted (fig. 97). The motif of the serpent mesmerizing a terrified sparrow is a Christian allusion to the fatal attraction of sin and temptation. The tree in which they are located will be identified in the next chapter as the

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Tree of Knowledge in the Garden of Eden, with which the stag in medieval and Renaissance iconography was often associated. Therefore, while continuing to function as an object of moral reproach in the friars' exhortations, the stag in this context must be viewed primarily as a symbol of virtue and an important accessory in the Christian paradise garden. The same intent to highlight the Christian significance can be found in the depiction of the heron shown holding a fish in one of its feet, as discussed above (fig. 36). At the expense of biological veracity, the artist directs our attention to the heron's traditional symbolism as guardian of order and the eternal vigilance required by monastic rule. In at least three cases, important species in the native cultures were used to convey Christian themes. Due to their long-established native usage, however, they must have retained their older meanings while acquiring a veneer of the newly introduced belief system. Lockhart (1985:477) has called this process "double mistaken identity" in his study of persistent Nahua practices and concepts; it occurs when "each side of the cultural exchange presumes that a given form or concept is operating in the way familiar within its own tradition and is unaware of or unimpressed by the other side's interpretation." This type of conceptual superimposition can be clearly illustrated by the sapote tree represented in the murals (fig. 74). The white sapote tree (cochiztzapotl) played a central role in the ritual life of the Aztecs, as its leaves, branches, and fruit were prized for their narcotic capabilities. Sixteenth-century accounts, however, stress the resemblance of the fruit of the sapote to that of the apple tree; Hernandez (1959, 1:92) describes the fruit of the cochiztzapotl as being like a membrillo, or quince. The appearance, medicinal properties, and association with fertility of the white sapote suited placing it on the east wall of the murals (fig. 13). Ultimately, the sapote-apple functioned within the overall Augustinian mural program as the Tree of Knowledge in the Gar-

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den of Paradise. The placement to the east of a native fruit tree that resembled an apple tree and had potent narcotic properties could not have been accidental. It would be naive to assume, however, in light of the tenacity of medicinal curing practices, that the sapote ceased to hold its older importance even after decades of Christianization. The monkeys' role in the frescoes is another confluence of divergent meanings dependent on the associations brought to them by the two cultures. Although the monkey for both cultures symbolized overindulgence in physical appetites (sexual excess and drunkenness), the positive, valued connotations of the spider monkey for the Indians is underscored at Malinalco by its pictorial context. By placing the spider monkey in the cacao tree actually grasping a cacao pod (fig. 95), the artist linked two exotic and prized tribute items from distant zones of the Aztec empire. This conjunction would have had little relevance for the Augustinian friar. Instead, according to prevailing Christian iconography, the monkey signified devilish vices. Not only was the simian a visual symbol of sin, but, more particularly, of original sin. The appleeating ape was included in scenes of the Temptation of Adam from the twelfth through the sixteenth centuries to parody the Fall of Man. 29 A final example involves the passionflower, a native plant new to the first Spanish explorers, who gave its elaborate floral parts (fig. 89) precise Christian meanings. For the native peoples, however, the passionflower was the coanenepilli, one of their more important pharmaceutical plants, whose stigma's resemblance to the forked tongue of a serpent made it particularly potent. The passionflower is also, like the sapote, a case of dual associations. It would be difficult to believe that the native explanation of the flower's import was extinguished when the friars chose to emphasize the flower's Christian symbolism as a divine affirmation of their New World mission. What can be confirmed about the mode of production from this analysis of the imagery?

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To begin with, the resources available to the artists were varied. They drew directly from nature just as they copied from European works, a process that sometimes resulted in composite or stereotyped images unfamiliar to the artists. Multiple renderings of the same species, with at times significant differences among the individual renderings (as with the white egrets or the rabbits), point to the work of different hands. Moreover, the evidence indicates that most, if not all, of the several artists active at Malinalco were native-born. Native American artists, when given the choice, would logically have been prone to include indigenous species important to their own cultural heritage. Finally, the relationship between the artists and the Augustinian friars is further clarified. As the most approximate representation of the visible world, painting was the colonial art form scrutinized by the mendicants with the most vigilance. Why, then, were the muralists allowed to select plants and animals from their own environment that had continuing associations with the ancient cults, with the elite class, and with curing? Did the friars not suspect their enduring relationship with the older way of life? These questions must be answered on two levels, the authorized and the clandestine. At the official level, mendicant friars, and the Spanish authorities in general, felt that the depiction of fauna and flora was "safe" subject matter for native artisans. Although everwatchful for heresy, particularly after the official establishment of the Inquisition in Mexico in 1572, the very theme established for the imagery in the Malinalco murals permitted the artists greater latitude. In the hierarchical ordering of sacrilegious possibilities, painting plants and animals was considered relatively harmless as compared to the possible irreverence in misrepresenting the Catholic holy figures. Native depictions of flowers, animals, and other design elements always drew unreserved praise from the friars: "There were good artists who painted from nature, especially birds, animals, trees, greenery, and such things . . . But people they

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The Imagery: Flora and Fauna did not paint beautifully" (Mendieta 1945, 3: 55). The mendicants' only reservations about native talent concerned their figural work. The friars' views were colored by their moralistic stance and their paranoia on the retention of heretical beliefs. According to this outlook, it was the lack of sincere Christian faith that interfered with the ability to draw the human figure properly; instead native artists drew "ugly and half monstrous . . . bodies that resembled their own sinful souls" (Torquemada 1975, 5:313). Painted figures were the most vulnerable to "error"—that is, to pagan interpretation. The permission granted native painters to represent plants and animals as opposed to venerated figures was stipulated in the guild ordinances of 1557. According to the ordinances, they were allowed to paint "flowers, animals, birds, rornanos [grotesque designs], and other such things to avoid the problems caused by bad painters of saints" (Barrio Lorenzot 1921:23). O n another level, the friars were simply not conscious of the degree to which some of the species continued to be affiliated with the ancient civil and supernatural structure. This was not always strictly a function of ignorance on the part of the mendicant orders, but rather a form of self-deception. Even those friars who were aware of the important role certain fauna and flora continued to play in native life denied this knowledge along with many other ancient practices that persisted but were almost impossible to control. Sixteenth-century friarchroniclers show themselves vulnerable to this form of wishful thinking. In his writing, Duran

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(1971:121) warns the reader of the Indians' "ancient blindness" or pagan reverence for all plants and animals, but nonetheless describes the practice of decorating the churches with "bouquets, flowers, and grass," which is "now permitted since it is not a superstition but simply an ancient custom." In identifying the species of fauna and flora painted in the Malinalco garden frescoes, we can determine meaningful relationships to either or both the native American and Euro-Christian cultures based on proven geographical distribution at time of contact. For those species identified in the murals that are shared by both cultures, acculturative solutions varied. Convergence of meaning occurred in plants or animals where interpretations coincided; dual meanings also coexisted where each culture brought to certain species its own traditional associations. These were accepted as long as they were recognized as not impinging on the other's belief system. In some cases Christian symbolism was imposed over strong and presumably continuing native beliefs. The overarching meaning of the Malinalco frescoes, however, goes beyond the discrete motifs of plants and animals to encompass a theme appropriate to a religious center that was central to the life of the entire community and had both social and economic functions. We must next explore this garden imagery as a promise, a reward, and a projection of the Utopian ambitions of the Augustinian friars.

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Chapter Six

PARADISE

CONVERGED

When they die they go not there where it is fearful, the region of the dead. They go there to the home of Tonacatecutli \ushining lord"]; they live in the garden of Tonacatecutli, suck the flowers. B E R N A R D I N O DE S A H A G U N

(195O-I982, 6:115)

And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the East; and there he put the man whom he had formed.And —GENESIS

out of the ground the Lord God made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight. 2:8-9

Fecund, peaceful gardenlike spots have often served as metaphors for the beginning and end of time, for the locus of human origins as well as our anticipated destiny. As one of the most universal and enduring myths, paradise gardens, both real and imagined, help to ease earthly existence and overcome the fear of death. In the New World the delectable concepts attached to gardens by native and European cultures alike acquired multifaceted, allegorical meanings. The association of gardens with the curing of physical and spiritual ills and the use of gardens as cosmic paradigms formed part of the composite image of a terrestrial paradise. Traditional metaphors that associated gardens with idyllic places of birth and afterlife in European thought were given added credibility by the conquest of the Americas, a region "to the east" that was geographically identified with the paradises of legends. There were different types of gardens in preHispanic and coeval European cultures that simultaneously functioned on practical, social, and symbolic levels. Royal and religious gardens, in particular, held a significance above and beyond

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their pragmatic use. Understanding these overlapping roles will help elucidate the multivalence of Malinalco's garden frescoes, examined here in three interrelated sections: gardens as sources of curative plants, gardens as cosmic paradigms and symbols of territorial dominion, and, finally, subsuming the first two categories, gardens as embodiments of paradisaical ideas. Not only did the cloister frescoes incorporate features of all three classifications, but the entire mural program at Malinalco can be read as highly appropriate to its pre-Columbian history and cultic importance. As might be expected from the high value placed on plants and flowers by the Aztecs, gardens were cultivated at all levels of society, with a distinction between those of the upper and plebeian classes. The famous Aztec royal gardens amazed the first conquerors for their variety, extent, and elaborate layouts. There were royal gardens in and near the Aztec capital in Chapultepec, Ixtapalapa, Huastepec (now Cuautla, Morelos), and El Periol, as well as in more distant locations like Atlixco, Puebla. 1 Gardens of the elite as well as those on the temple grounds

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Paradise Converged were maintained by a large labor force and well stocked with ritual and medicinal plants. In aristocratic and royal gardens magnificent botanical collections acquired an importance beyond the recreational and pleasurable. Since food crops were supplied to the nobility through tribute, these elite gardens excluded practical edible plants and contained instead ornamental, aromatic, and medicinal plants associated with ritual needs or emblematic of a leisure status. Royal gardens were additionally vast collections of plants from the most remote corners of the Aztec tribute empire. The description of the types of plants in the Aztec botanical gardens, such as the yolloxochitl, cacao, and huacalxochitl (Duran 1967, 2:248), matches native species selected for depiction in the Malinalco garden frescoes. A high percentage of the native plants in the murals also had an elitist or medicinal function, with few practical or ordinary food plants. In addition, the Aztec royal gardens were described as full of birds, conspicuous in the cloister frescoes as well. The European friars also brought to the New World a familiarity with gardens based on m o nastic cloister gardens and Moslem precedents in Spain. Gardens in sixteenth-century Europe appear to have been more specialized in function than those in pre-Hispanic America. Of the various European types, 2 the monastery cloister gardens will be of greatest relevance in what follows. Differing from the kitchen and medicinal gardens of the monasteries, the cloister gardens were walled places of retreat, settings for the contemplative life (vita contemplativa) of the monks. The Arab gardens of southern Spain recalled ancient Persian prototypes for the Christian paradise in Eden and thus reinforced, both formally and conceptually, the paradisaical ideals of the monastic cloister garden. GARDENS AND

CURING

Medicinal herbs were grown within Aztec royal gardens and on temple grounds. 3 That both temple and imperial gardens were consid-

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ered appropriate contexts for medicinal plants is best understood in light of preconquest medicine, involving a mixture of the realms of science, magic, and religion. Mastery of the application of medicinal herbs and minerals was only one facet of being a "good physician." As wise men, curers also had knowledge of religious lore and were expected to be familiar with magical objects, charms, and spells. In short, the respected physician was also a "benign sorcerer," as contrasted with the bad curer, who was not only inept but destructive. 4 Sorcery was curing gone awry, an extension of the realm of healing made to serve evil purposes. The valley of Malinalco had a long-standing reputation as a place of witchcraft and a source of medicinal plants based on the legendary settlement there of Malinalxochitl, sister of Huitzilopochtli. A reputed sorceress, Malinalxochitl participated in the traditions of curing and divining that were also considered important functions of the Aztec earth deity complex. Although seemingly antithetical, the realms of birth and healing were as much under the control of the terrestrial deities as were death and the underworld. A legacy of sorcery and curing has persisted in Malinalco throughout the colonial period to the present day. In the sixteenth century the inhabitants of Malinalco were singled out as fortune-tellers, and the valley itself was an infamous center "where sorcerers were taught their craft" (Duran 1971 '.460).5 When the Spaniards first arrived, Malinalco was one of four southern towns from which the Aztec emperor Moctezuma II sent witches in order to exorcise the magical powers of the invaders (Duran 1967, 2:521-522). This strong tradition of both witchcraft and medicinal plants did not go unnoticed by the Augustinian friars. In their supervision of the mural components for their monastery, the friars relied on indigenous familiarity with the curative properties of plants. European monasteries had herb gardens and monks who were skilled in the use of therapeutic herbs and plants. Since disease was causally related to sin, good health and the curative capa-

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bilities of medicinal plants were associated with Christian virtues. Mankind was thought to be vulnerable to disease after Adam succumbed to temptation; disease became part of man's punishment. In a 1577 German herbal, Lonitzer's Kreuterbuch, a woodcut shows Adam and Eve in Paradise, with Eve reaching for the apple (Anderson 1977: plate 69). It was fitting that monasteries had their own medicinal gardens. The dispensing of medical care was also an important part of the communal responsibilities of Mexican monasteries. Many had Indian practitioners of medicine and excellent native herbalists who acted as consultants to the friars. The model Augustinian monastery in Tiripetio, Michoacan, included a hospital with a garden of medicinal plants. 6 Hospitals not only treated the sick but were used as spiritual retreats for the Indians, reinforcing the strong bond between treating bodily and spiritual ailments in a monastic context. The medicinal aspect of the plants in the Malinalco frescoes, then, accurately reflected the fusion of religion and curing and the important medical mission of Mexican monasteries.

G A R D E N S AS COSMIC PARADIGMS Aristocratic Aztec gardens were composed of plants brought as tribute from distant conquered territories and maintained by tribute labor, demonstrating the extent of the empire and the power of its ruling class. The plants that composed royal gardens showed "the grandeur [of] Mexican authority [who desired] to be called and perceived as lords of all creation, in the water as well as on land" (Duran 1967, 2:288). Similarly, the animals in the royal zoos included specimens from many regions brought together by the Aztec ruler to display his dominion (Las Casas 1971:9). The broad spectrum of native fauna and flora in the Malinalco frescoes echoes similar attempts to include at least some representatives from every domain of the known natural world. Choices for the murals were determined not only by their cultural importance but by a desire for as diverse a typology as possible.

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Samples of aquatic species as well as cacti, trees, vines, and flowering and fruit-bearing plants are represented. The animal world is also remarkably diverse, ranging from four-footed, landbound creatures to reptiles and insects. Birds are particularly varied, encompassing seed-eating and carnivorous species, waterfowl and treenesting birds, nocturnal and diurnal types. Although the majority of species are common to the highland plateau and the valley of Malinalco, representatives from the tropical lowlands include the cacao tree and two spider monkeys. The three cacti, although present in the central plateau, are more characteristic of an arid climatic zone, while herons, duck, fish, reeds, and water lilies indicate a lacustrine setting. Not only the breadth of choices but the placement of specific plants and animals on particular walls of the Malinalco cloister may have followed preconquest constructs. It is possible that the four walls held directional significance in accord with the pre-Hispanic scheme of a horizontal cosmos divided into quadrants, in general corresponding to the cardinal directions. We are handicapped in the reconstruction of this four-sided universe because of the near total destruction of the west wall in the Malinalco cloister. Nevertheless, at least two directional references are suggested on the south and east walls. In Aztec thought, the cardinal direction of south was referred to as Huitztlampa, the "region of thorns." The only thorny native plants in the murals, the nopal (prickly pear cactus) and the organ cactus, are painted on the south wall (fig. 76). Similarly, it is only on the east wall that the falcon, eagle-hawks, and hummingbirds are represented, birds associated metaphorically with the rising of the sun and with the Aztec tutelary deity and ruler. These choices therefore had cultic as well as political importance. In the individual choices and the breadth of representation, the message conveyed by the garden frescoes to native observers would have implied precise knowledge of and dominion over the species inhabiting their known world.

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Paradise Converged Of the several gardens within the fold of a large European monastery, the monks' cloister yard was the most imbued with allegorical meaning. Likewise the most secluded, the cloister yard was enclosed by a four-sided, covered, and generally arcaded gallery to prevent the intrusion of the secular world. Cloister gardens were patterned on the geometry of a perfect square or rectangle, within which the interior space was bisected or quartered by paths that converged on a central fountain. 7 Fountains were highly symbolic as the Jons vitae, or ''living water," of the faith. The plants selected for cloister gardens were not only medicinal but of importance for their religious symbolism; roses and potted lilies, for example, were planted there for their Marian significance. Sixteenth-century European botanical gardens, first established in 1545, were also laid out in geometric shapes, most commonly within square perimeters. With the profuse influx of plants after the discovery of the New World, botanical gardens were founded with the idea of gathering plants from the four quarters of the world. True to this intent, they were laid out in quadrants said to represent the four continents: Asia, Africa, Europe, and newly discovered America (Prest 1981:1, 42-46, 88-90). Although these early botanical gardens were encyclopedic, the collections were not motivated by scientific inquiry. Their function was said to "reveal the many faces of God in the creation" (Prest 1981:57). All plants were seen as having either a reference to Christian virtues or healing powers. Herbal plants cured, as did God. A person could enter the garden, shut in behind walls like a hortus conclusus, or "enclosed garden," an d find solace in the presence of the divine. Ther e was often a fountain in the center, emphasizin g the restorative, life-giving power of water. Bo tanical gardens, like cloister gardens, followe d paradisaical models. G A R D E N S AS

PARADISE

The dual concepts of gardens as microcosmic displays of all known flora and fauna and of sa-

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cred gardens as the proper site for medicinal herbs came together in the recreation of a "terrestrial paradise." A lush zoological garden, such as the one painted in the Malinalco cloister, corresponded to Aztec and European perceptions of the locus of human origins and a most desirable hereafter. In spite of marked differences in the qualifications for the otherworldly destinies, both claimed a hereafter similarly described as a coveted flowering garden. The Christian Paradise and H o r t u s Conclusus The Christian terrestrial paradise was the Garden of Eden at the center of the cosmos or navel of the earth. From the earliest period of church history a conflict arose as to whether the biblical description of Paradise was the Garden of Eden, a physical entity and locale that might still exist on earth, or was instead a symbolic allusion to a celestial home of souls. 8 Christian writers shifted both the location and chronology of Paradise to suit their own purposes. Paradise was at once assigned to the creation of the world and propelled into the future beyond human time. Out of the latter sprang millenial ideas of a point in time when communion with God would be reestablished in a perfect world, ideas that were carried to the New World in the sixteenth century, shaping mendicant aspirations and their mural programs. Literary and artistic descriptions of the Garden of Eden were inspired by two Old Testament passages, the Genesis creation story and verses from the Song of Solomon. The major source for paradise imagery was in the book of Genesis (2:8-10), following the story of creation when God created a garden "eastward in Eden" (Genesis 2:8): "And out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food" (Genesis 2:9). All Edenic descriptions were true to the biblical passages in stating that four rivers watered Eden (Genesis 2:10), sometimes adding that these streams stemmed from a fountain in the garden. The fountain is a prominent image

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FIG. 113. God inducts Adam and Eve into the Garden of Eden. Note in the woodcut two trees in the enclosed garden and the Fountain of Life with four rivers issuing from the garden wall. Ludolphus of Saxonia, Levenjhesu Christi, 1521. The Bodleian Library. (U. 1.5. Th. Seld.).

in Northern European woodcuts of the Garden of Eden in the late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries (fig. 113). The four rivers, labeled as the biblical Pishon, Gihon, Hiddekel, and Euphrates, are depicted flowing out of the garden walls. Elaborating on the Genesis source, Christian writers stressed the existence of a perpetual springtime, with fruit-bearing trees, a fragrant aroma, an absence of suffering, and the constant flow of water. Beginning in the medieval period, animals as well as precious materials (gold and gems) were added to the garden imagery. Many Books of Hours contained engravings that illustrated a walled and flowering Garden of

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Eden, generally with such animals as rabbits, a heron, and other birds. 9 According to Genesis, in the "midst of the garden" grew two trees: a Tree of Life and a Tree of Knowledge of good and evil (Genesis 2:9). Both trees shared a common location at the world center and were said to grow out of a spring of water. Although two trees are mentioned in the Genesis verses, their identities are not specified: Eve simply ate and offered to Adam "fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the Garden" (Genesis 3:2-6). These two trees, however, became identified with certain fruiting species, most frequently the apple tree. 10 Over time, the two biblical trees frequently were merged into one and their separate meanings crossed over. If only one tree was used as a composite tree of life and knowledge, it was depicted as a fruit tree with a serpent in its branches or wound around the trunk, as shown in the 1510 woodcut of Adam and Eve in a Spanish chronicle written by an Augustinian, Suma de Todas las Cronicas del Mundo (fig. 114). The second source of inspiration for the formulation of paradise-garden imagery was derived from the more sensuously poetic and cryptic verses in the biblical book Song of Solomon, also called the Song of Songs or the Canticles: "A garden locked is my sister, my bride, a garden locked, a fountain sealed. Your shoots are an orchard of pomegranates with all choicest fruits, . . . with all trees of frankincense, . . . a garden fountain, a well of living water, and flowing streams from Lebanon" (Song of Solomon 4:12-15). Here, too, the garden imagery emphasizes aromatic and bountiful fruit, shady trees, and an ample supply of water. The new element in the Song of Songs is the stress on the "locked" or "enclosed" garden. From these four verses developed the enduring imagery of the hortus conclusus, or "enclosed garden," interpreted by the Christian church as an allegory for the purity of the Virgin Mary, from the Middle Ages through the seventeenth century (Evans 1976, 1:58-59; Stewart 1966:35, 41, plates 7, 8). Although most frequently associated with

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Paradise Converged

FIG. 114. Expulsion from the Garden of Eden. Woodcut in Suma de Todas las Cronicas del Mundo by Bergomensis (Valencia: Jorge Costilla, 1510). From Lyell 1926: plate 87. Reproduced with permission of Hacker Art Books.

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Mary, the Mother of God, the hortus conclusus also befitted a cloister, isolated and secure from the hostile, imperfect outside world. Throughout the literature on the European terrestrial paradise, two commonly linked themes were that the garden was remote in time and space and was symbolic of the human soul's quest for the ideals of love and inner harmony. The cloister garden therefore also became a metaphor for the human soul, bearing either virtues (plants) or vices (weeds). A popular moral treatise of the late fifteenth century, Garden of Virtues, developed this theme (Kosmer 1978). n Woodcuts used to illustrate the text depicted a friar in an enclosed garden picking armfuls of flowers for devotional or liturgical purposes (fig. 115). Although animals were in reality not part of a cloister garden, their purpose in the Garden of Virtues woodcut was to act as symbols for the textual commentary on the virtues and their companion vices. In this, the presence of certain types of animals paralleled the depictions of the Garden of Eden; the heron and rabbits in the foreground and the birds in the trees of the Garden of Virtues are among the species alluding to Christian virtues in the Malinalco frescoes as well. From the layout and symbolism of many European cloister gardens, it is evident that most were patterned after descriptions of the Garden of Eden. In some mendicant establishments certain gardens were even given the name "paradise gardens" to which the monks could retire for prayer and meditation. All Benedictine monasteries had paradise gardens, and Cistercian monks were required to take care of individual garden plots called "paradise" (Prest 1981:21).

The Paradise Garden in Moorish Spain FIG. 115. Title page of Fior di Virtu (Florence: 1491). From Hind 1963, 2: fig. 242. Reproduced with permission of Dover Publications, New York.

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Medieval and Renaissance images of paradise gardens had their earliest roots in Persian pleasure gardens, idyllic enclosures that were divided by four streams of water flowing from a central well or pool. These Persian gardens influenced imperial Roman gardens; both equally shaped interpretations of the Christian Eden and

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the hortus conclusus (Stokstad and Stannard 1983 : 25-28, 40-42). The geometry of the Persian garden, a rectangular configuration quartered by watercourses and paths, was codified early, to endure in the gardens of Mughal India and throughout the Islamic world (Moynihan 1979). Walled-in gardens flourished in the warm climes of Moorish Spain; within these gardens a canal constructed on the principal axis was bisected by transverse watercourses or pathways (Dickie 1976). The same reciprocity existed between these artificial paradises and the Koran's description of a celestial heaven as the one already noted between the cloister garden and the Christian Bible. The state of otherworldly bliss in the Koran is given exquisite expression as a heavenly garden, verdant, cool, filled with fruits and other sensual pleasures. Moreover, the most common Koranic refrain refers to "a garden underneath which rivers flow" (Schimmel 1976:15), emphasizing the life-giving importance of the water that coursed through the canals and their symbolic allusion to the four rivers of Eden. The Islamic celestial garden harbored flowers with religious symbolism, such as the tulip and rose, whose perfect beauty was used as a metaphor for divine grace and unity (Schimmel 1976: 26-30). Moorish gardens were true oases, intended to refresh body and soul and to inspire mystical parallels between an ideal garden and the human heart and mind. As in the monasteries and botanic gardens of Christian Europe, there existed the same interplay between the spiritual and secular. For those missionary friars departing for the harsh environs of the New World enterprise, the Arab gardens in Andalusia must have reinforced their resolve to cultivate their own paradise gardens. Malinalco: An Augustinian

Paradise

In sixteenth-century Mexico, as in Europe, not only the cloister garden but the entire m o nastic complex and even the Christian church as a whole came to be thought of as representing the "earthly paradise." Used as an architectural

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term, the word "paradise" originally described a Roman forecourt (paradis) with potted plants and a central fountain with four emanating streams of water. By the twelfth century, the term paradis was used to describe Christian cloisters adjacent to monastery churches, and likened to the forecourt and porticos next to the Temple of Solomon where the first Christians were taught their faith (Williams 1962:47-48). Communicants into the body of the faithful were said to enter paradise, where the soul was cultivated for its virtuous qualities and the "weeds" eradicated (Prest 1981:21). Frequent passages in the writings of St. Augustine refer to the true church as a "locked garden" and an earthly paradise, with its four rivers symbolic of the four gospels. 12 Augustinian monasteries in Mexico were often described by the friar-chroniclers as earthly paradises, as was Tiripetio, Michoacan, complete with its four rivers, a fountain, and four canals that watered different sections of the town. 13 Both the inner and outer gardens of early colonial monasteries were of paramount importance to the friars, providing their food and medicinal plants as well as acting as havens for relaxation and meditation. Many monasteries had a fountain or cistern in the center of their cloister gardens, such as the sixteenth-century fountain that is still intact in the oldest Augustinian monastery of Ocuituco, Morelos. A large number additionally had four lateral canals that divided the cloister garden into quadrants. We are reminded of the biblical garden in Paradise in which a spring of water emerged from the Tree of Life and gave rise to four rivers. Little of the original plan of Malinalco's inner cloister garden was appreciated until 1982, when a stonelined water canal was excavated that runs under the church, through the center of the cloister courtyard, and out into the orchard. Fed by this canal, it is clear now that the original cloister echoed with the refreshing splash of fountain water. The mural imagery at Malinalco as well as the plan of its cloister yard support the concept of the entire cloister as a paradisaical sanctuary.

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Paradise Converged

FIG. 116. Adam and Eve. Woodcut by Erhard Altdorfer (1482-1561), in Luther's Bible, Lubeck, 1534. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, 1926. (26.53.11, leaf 6). Within the east wall frescoes there are several painted flora and fauna that make specific references to the biblical Garden of Eden. O n the east wall also is depicted the sapote, the only full-sized fruit tree in the murals (fig. 13). As discussed in the previous chapter, the edible fruit and the narcotic potential of the white sapote's leaves, bark, and seeds made it an important medicinal and ritual plant for the Aztecs. In the sixteenth century, the sapote was described as an apple tree (Hernandez 1959, 1:92). The Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge, mentioned in the Genesis verses (2:9), were sometimes kept separate in medieval and Renaissance illustrations, as seen in figure 113. When the identities of the two trees were distinct, the Tree of Life was represented as the fruit-bearing tree (Cooper 1978:176). It is likely, then, that the

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sapote in the murals took the place of the apple tree commonly associated with the Tree of Life but that its importance was derived from both native and European traditions. A second tree painted on the east wall of the Malinalco cloister may represent the Tree of Knowledge. When the two Paradise trees of Genesis were not merged into a single specimen, the Tree of Knowledge was considered a dualistic plant of both good and evil and was generally shown as the dwelling place of the serpent. In the Malinalco murals, it is in this second tree that the serpent is shown hypnotizing a small sparrow (frontispiece), a Christian image symbolizing the temptation of the human soul by evil, and below it, a stag (fig. 97). As Christ's representative, a stag or deer was often depicted at the foot of the biblical Tree of Knowledge. Like the sparrow in the tree, the stag represents virtue in direct conflict with vice, symbolized by the serpent. The stag or deer stood for the best in a person, the human soul longing for the divine. Albrecht Durer was only one of several sixteenth-century artists who included the stag at the base of the Tree of Knowledge in his 1504 print entitled Fall of Man (also Adam and Eve).14 In this engraving Panofsky (1948, 1: 84) points to the physical and implied moral tension between the paired cat and mouse, and the parrot (in the tree) and serpent. In a more explicit way the Malinalco artist sets up the same opposition between the sparrow and serpent in the murals. The presence of two monkeys in the Malinalco east wall mural reinforces the paradisegarden interpretation. Like the snake, the ape personified sin; apes and monkeys were closely linked to Adam's temptation in the Garden of Eden. Although an apple-eating ape was the most commonly used metaphor in this context, a variant using paired monkeys appeared in the sixteenth century (Janson 1952:107-144). In an engraving by Erhard Altdorfer (c. 1533), two monkeys are seated in a tree behind Adam and Eve (fig. 116). One monkey in the Altdorfer print is reaching for an apple being offered by the

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The Paradise Garden Murals ofMalinalco

other while Eve points to this exemplar of man's temptation and fall. At Malinalco the two monkeys are similarly seated in and dangling from the tree branches, although the upper monkey is not fully visible due to deterioration of the mural (fig. 95). Their presence sets up a polar relationship between sin and virtue—between the monkeys and snake as symbols of sin, on the one hand, and the deer, rabbits, and small birds as emblems of goodness, on the other. Yet another intrusion of evil is proposed by Gerlero (1989:81) in the two mounted beasts she identifies as foxes (fig. 96). Recalling the refrain from the Song of Songs (2:15) of the "little foxes that ruin the vineyards," Gerlero posits the violent encounter as a metaphor for Christ's struggle with Satan, a disruptive note amid the peace and harmony of the "vineyards" painted in Malinalco's enclosed garden. In the sixteenth century these opposed animal pairs were palpable symbols of man's own struggle against the evil first encountered in the Garden of Eden. An additional set of contrasting forces, that of life and death, exists in Eden iconography and in the garden imagery found at Malinalco. The cloister garden, like the paradise garden, was intended to foster meditative life in a monastery. Certain animals and flowers became symbols of Christian virtues (and non-Christian vices) to act as reminders of the ideals of monastic life. To this end, the heron in the murals stands for a friar's loyalty and vigilance, the doves for peace, and the dolphin, as the king of the fishes, for Christ himself. Similarly, the pomegranate and grapevines in the garden frescoes are symbols of the fertile life within the Christian faith, in this world and the next. Flowers were also thought of as reminders of the ephemeral aspects of life and the cyclical, interdependent relationship of life and death. Therefore, the presence of thorny plants in cloister gardens, such as the acanthus, rose, and thistles found in the murals, were reminders of Christ's crown of thorns, his sacrifice and martyrdom. These plants stressed the human need for salvation and the friar's duty to follow faithfully the vows of his order.

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In addition to the widely circulated graphics of paradise as garden, European tapestry design also drew inspiration from paradise-garden imagery (figs. 161-163). Fifteenth- and sixteenthcentury millefleurs and large-leaf verdure tapestries, mentioned above as possible models for the Malinalco imagery, may have been designed and hung so as to recreate the hortus conclusus. The installation on all four walls of a room literally replicated the flowering meadows of an enclosed garden. Earlier precedents existed in the woven imitations of royal gardens in Persian carpets. This tradition may have been strengthened in southern Spain where Arab gardens had recessed flower beds and pathways raised to the level of the blossoms in order to enhance the sensation of treading on a flower carpet (Dickie 1976:100). The tapestry-inspired Malinalco garden frescoes thus participated in a longstanding heritage based on tapestry design that brought to life, at times three-dimensionally, the concepts of a paradise garden. In its entirety, the cloister complex at Malinalco continued the European tradition of reenacting the Christian paradise in its fountain, cloister layout, and fresco garden imagery. But how was this interpretation read by the native neophytes? Was it completely novel? Was there an Aztec terrestrial "paradise" and, if so, how did the pre-Hispanic perception of this paradise correspond to Christian beliefs? Gardens and the Pre-Hispanic

Afterlife

For an adult Aztec, there were three possible afterlife alternatives: Mictlan, the underworld; Tlalocan, the terrestrial "paradise"; and variously designated celestial "heavens." 15 The forbidding underworld named Mictlan was the fate of most commoners who died from an ordinary illness or suffered an inglorious death. The possibility of avoiding this fate was reserved for a select number, chosen by the gods for a pleasurable afterlife on the basis of their mode of death or, increasingly in late Aztec society, through their privileged social class. One of the positive destinations after death was Tlalocan, home of

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Paradise Converged the rain god Tlaloc. Tlalocan was a luxuriant terrain reserved for those who died of drowning, leprosy, venereal disease, sores, and dropsy, or for children sacrificed to Tlaloc. The descriptions of Tlalocan as an eternal spring are rhapsodic. 16 The third otherworld was the celestial heaven, or the House of the Sun (Tonatiuh Ilhuicatl), open to warriors, sacrificial victims, and women who died in childbirth. In some literary descriptions, the House of the Sun is a plain with maguey cacti and thorny shrubs, but, more frequently, it too is a garden with fragrant flowers and a "place of wealth, a place of joy." 1 7 Aztec warriors and male sacrificial victims ascended to this celestial heaven to accompany the sun from its rising in the east to its zenith. From there the "women warriors," women who had died with a child still in the womb, relieved their male counterparts of their solar burden and carried the sun on a litter from high noon to its descent in the west. The woman warrior, as well as the woman who died in sacrifice, was honored by being allowed to enter the celestial realm: "for it was said she went not to the land of the dead; she went there to the heavens, to the house of the sun" (Sahagun 1950-1982, 6:i62). 18 Additionally, the skyward home of the sun welcomed babies who died before they had been weaned or reached the age of reason: "And the babies, the children, those yet fledglings, yet tender, those who know nothing, will be made precious green stones, will be made precious turquoises, in the heavens, in the home of the sun" (Sahagun 1950-1982, 6:38). The identification of a final and separate otherworld for these children, however, is ambiguous. Sahagun (1950-1982, 6:115) records that the children who died "live in the garden of Tonacatecutli, suck the flowers of Tonacatecutli, live by the tree of Tonacatecutli." Tonacatecutli ("shining lord") was another name for the male half o£ the sexually dualistic Aztec deity Ometeotl, who inhabited the thirteenth heaven and sent down the souls of the newborn (Nicholson 1971:410-411). The location of the children's paradise, therefore, could also have been within the realm of the dei-

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ties of duality or in the terrestrial paradise of Tamoanchan, also the home of Tonacatecutli, as will be discussed below. 19 In spite of the inconsistencies surrounding the final resting place of those who were admitted to the celestial heaven, the common denominators of these otherworlds are most relevant to an interpretation of the garden frescoes. First, the House of the Sun was held out as a promise for those men and women who died while serving the interests of the Aztec ruling class, with the exception of the unweaned newborn. Second, all of the alternatives to the Mictlan underworld, including the celestial heaven, claimed a lush garden setting similar to that depicted in the Malinalco frescoes. In all these Aztec garden heavens, the souls were said to suck the different, savory flowers in the manner of bees, birds, or butterflies. First, the souls of those who entered the special heavens were converted into "precious green stones" and then transformed to flying creatures after four years. As birds and butterflies, the souls were believed to return to earth "to suck [honey] from all the varied flowers" (Sahagun 19501982, 3 :47-48). 2 0 This Aztec belief was ritually reenacted every eight years at Atamalqualiztli ("the eating of the water tamales"), when the souls of the dead returned in a "dance of the gods" and the dancers wore costumes of many winged creatures, including birds, butterflies, and honeybees (Sahagun 1974:65; 1950-1982, 2:177). In what he calls the "most solemn dance in the land" Duran (1971:296-297) describes a similarly lavish dance-narrative. In front of Huitzilopochtli's temple in the principal sacred compound of the Aztec capital, an artificial bower of "trees covered with fragrant flowers" was erected. Boys dressed as birds and butterflies in brilliantly feathered costumes descended and ascended these trees, "climbing from limb to limb, sucking the dew of the flowers." Although dedicated to the goddess of flowers Xochiquetzal, according to Duran, all the gods were said to take part; like Atamalqualiztli, this ritual dance

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included a recreation of the returning souls who were sucking all the flowers in a garden setting remarkably like that painted on the corridor walls ofMalinalco. Within the vault frescoes at Malinalco are painted symbols that refer to the Aztec belief in the conversion of heaven-bound souls from "precious green stones" into winged creatures. The symbols incorporated into the vegetative designs of the vault murals also offer us a key to the native interpretation of the entire mural cycle as a composite depiction of the gardenlike Aztec otherworlds. The glyphic motifs found in the frescoes have already been discussed in chapter 3 as decipherable only within the native pictographic vocabulary. These include the flanged song scrolls and celestial symbols, among them the ilhuitl, a glyph closely associated with the native scribe-painter, or tlacuilo. In addition, there are many examples of what is here called the "trilobed symbol" (fig. 117A). This motif is formed by three loops stacked in pyramid fashion on a circular base; when it appears on Aztec sculpture and in Aztec-style pictorials it signifies "preciousness," symbolizing bothjade and blood (fig. 117B).21 Aztec literary metaphors made similar transpositions. A valuable substance or quality was described in Nahuatl as "precious greenstone, bracelet, precious turquoise" (Sahagiin 1950-1982, 6:12). This metaphor is used to describe many qualities cherished by Aztec society; it was applied to the nobility, to warriors, to sustenance in the form of both plants and human flesh, and to the hearts of children. The transformation of the "precious" trilobed glyph into the flying insects of the murals can now be deciphered. Although eight trilobed m o tifs appear as isolated symbols in the vault designs, fifteen are also depicted with two S-shaped or winglike appurtenances (fig. 117C). When given a pair of "wings" and placed at the open ends of flower corollas, the trilobed symbols take on the appearance of flying insects or bees sucking the honey from the flowers (fig. 118). In addition to the comma-shaped wings, a circular "head" is added to the trilobed symbol to

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create the bee form. The three sections that in reality make up a bee's body (head, thorax, and abdomen) are not distinct; nor do they have legs and antennae. In spite of their stylization and the dearth of bee images in Aztec art, the lobed wings and circle designs of these insects do resemble other pre-Hispanic representations of bees. 22 Twenty-three trilobed symbols and "bees" are located in the frescoes, in every vault mural but those on the west side of the Malinalco cloister. The west vaults, it should be remembered, were, in design and style, unique for their delicate rendering and dense, curvilinear composition. In addition, none of the other native symbols identified earlier is found in the west vaults except for one song scroll. This would indicate that the artist responsible for the western vault paintings was the least familiar with the tlacuilo vocabulary and the most steeped in European mannerisms. Bee imagery among the remaining three vault areas varies to the extent that at least two additional artists can be identified. The variations in outline, proportion, and internal design may also indicate an attempt to depict several species of bees. Although the wall frescoes in the cloister contain many birds and two butterflies, the abstracted bee forms in the vault frescoes are the most direct native referent to the interpretation of the Malinalco garden imagery as an afterlife. In Mexican and Mayan thought, bees were associated with the spirits of the dead returning to earth (Klein 1976:139-142). What is interesting is that both bees and birds were used as metaphors for souls in the Christian paradise as well. Birds in many religions have been used to depict the spiritual nature of human beings; in Augustinian thought they symbolize the liberated souls of totally spiritual individuals (St. Augustine 1871, 9:527). Since birds and bees in Christian thought were held to be asexual and therefore existing in a state of innocence, they fulfilled the paradise ideal (Cooper 1978:19). Further, bees were commended for their order and industry, their hive being compared to a church or reli-

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Paradise Converged

FIG. 117. A, trilobed symbol from Malinalco vault murals; B, trilobed symbol in Aztec art as a symbol for preciousness (jade or blood), from the Malinalco wooden drum, or huehuetl; C, variations of winged insects or "bees," from vault murals, lower cloister, Malinalco.

FIG. 118. "Bee" in vault mural, lower cloister, East 2, Malinalco.

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gious community. While in style the bee motifs in the Malinalco vaults closely follow preconquest forms and precepts, their meaning ultimately converged with Christian symbolism. References to a pre-Hispanic paradise at Malinalco are not confined to the claustral layout and paintings. There may also have been a geographic and mythological relationship between the valley of Malinalco and the Aztec beliefs in a terrestrial paradise. Tlalocan has already been discussed as the paradisaical destination for an Aztec whose death was caused by a particular disease. In addition, Tlalocan merged with Tamoanchan, the mythological locus associated with the creation of both the gods and mankind. 23 The etymology of Tamoanchan is obscure; current translations favor "home from which we descend." 24 Although the designations vary, the sites are described as places of abundance, flowers, and happiness, with strong associations to mountains, caves, and the constellation of Aztec earth deities. Like Tlalocan, Tamoanchan had all of the positive attributes of a terrestrial paradise, "the place of rain and mist, where the children of men are made, where the jeweled fish are sought" (Sahagun 1950-1982, 2:210, 212). Tamoanchan, therefore, was physically beautiful, profusely endowed with flowers and rivers, and, according to sixteenth-century commentaries, it was also a joyous, recreational heaven (Murioz Camargo 1978:154-155). Like Judeo-Christian concepts of the Garden of Eden, Tamoanchan had both celestial and terrestrial features of the "paradise of origins." The geographic location of Tamoanchan on earth was also indeterminate, fluctuating between the cardinal directions of south, east, and west. The strongest directional affiliation of Tamoanchan's synonym, Xochitlicacan, was with the south (Anales de Cuauhtitlan 1975:3), although its similarity with Tlalocan also suggests an eastward location. 25 The Aztec's mythical paradise was undoubtedly a composite creation, synthesized from several earlier cosmographic traditions. At contact Tamoanchan was said to be located south of Tenochtitlan in the province of

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Cuernavaca, Morelos (Garibay 1973:106) and was linked specifically to the ruins of Xochicalco (Nicholson 19711408). Malinalco is in the adjacent valley west of the Cuernavaca region and in the same latitude. Pre-Hispanic Malinalco and Morelos shared several traits: ceremonial sites that were built over, near, or in imitation of cave formations, an astronomical alignment of several of their preconquest temples to the direction south (Tichy 1981:220), and a strong tradition of witchcraft. Rather than pinpointing a direction or site, Duverger (1983:245-251) claims that Tamoanchan for the Aztecs designated the agricultural potential of the central plateau of Mexico, a definition that would have embraced the fertile valley of Malinalco. In the codices of central Mexico, Tamoanchan was often represented by an anthropomorphic tree, sometimes with fruit and flowers, sometimes broken and "bleeding." 26 Sacred trees in many preconquest cultures were thought to be links between the celestial and subterranean realms with certain species particularly associated with ancestry, rulership, and prosperity. Such a tree for the Aztecs was the cedar, or ahuehuetl (ahuehuete). Its life span of up to several thousand years, its proclivity to grow and flourish by water, and its enormous dimensions, with branches that cast expansive shade, made it a natural metaphor for a beneficent ruler standing in majesty and extending protection to his subjects. The actual presence of a sacred cedar on the rim of the valley of Malinalco near Chalma suggests further ties between Malinalco and the preHispanic terrestrial paradises. The three-meter diameter of this venerable cedar indicates an age of over one thousand years. A spring bubbles up from its base where rituals of fertility and petition, now directed primarily to the Christian Lord of Chalma, persist to this day.27 Malinalco's role in the mythic history of the tutelary god Huitzilopochtli and its genealogical ties with the Aztecs may also have marked it as a sacred ancestral home. In keeping with its auspicious function, the numerous caves and springs of the Malinalco valley were "sacralized" as openings to the domain of the earth lords. These

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caves may have been duplicated in the relief sculpture of the serpent-mouth entrance and in the circular inner chamber of the monolithic Temple I within the Aztec complex at Malinalco. 28 Caves for many pre-Hispanic agrarian cultures, including the Aztecs, were real and emblematic places for rites of birth, baptism, and death and were viewed metaphysically as sources of ethnic origins and creation myths (Heyden 1976, 1981). I would argue that Malinalco closely approximated the preconquest view of Tamoanchan as "land of descent," a legendary birthplace, and a paradisaical region of growth. Paradise Converged After fifty years of Christian indoctrination and the destruction of many preconquest class distinctions, the positive native afterworlds began to merge not only with each other, but with the Christian belief in a celestial heaven. Some elements in the paradise-garden imagery of Malinalco can be translated as specifically European or uniquely pre-Hispanic in origin. However, in general, a convergence of both traditions occurred that was at once readily grasped by the new converts and acceptable to the Christian friars. The points of correspondence between the Christian and pre-Hispanic interpretations far outweigh their differences. In each, earthly paradises mirror the celestial paradise and were conceived of as gardens of plenty, blessed by optimal climatic conditions and a state of wellbeing. The notion of a profuse supply of water—in the form of rain, springs, rivers, or fountains—in Christian and non-Christian traditions was central to the impression of fecundity. Both native and European paradises were places of origin and afterlife destination, although the strong pre-Hispanic association with caves was absent in Christian interpretations. Conversely, the Christian walled garden was not present in indigenous descriptions. Nevertheless, Burkhart (1989: 58-71) argues that conceptually the Christian enclosed sacred garden was compatible with, and substituted for, Nahua moral order as embodied in the idea of

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Paradise Converged "center." In pre-Columbian moral discourse, the spatial center symbolized what was good, pure, and orderly, in opposition to the dangers of the periphery, a liminal zone of chaos, evil, and pollution. According to this traditional schema, settled communities existed in the center, therefore the Christian city of Jerusalem as well as the terrestrial paradise became acceptable images for a way of life that was both ethical and civilized. Burkhart's analysis further supports the convergence of persistent Nahua views of morality with the Christian paradise garden. Because of their symbolic value within the Christian paradise theme, a large number of the European flora and fauna were incorporated into the cloister murals, as pointed out in chapter 5. Is it equally true that the selection of native plants in the Malinalco frescoes also relates to one of the pre-Hispanic descriptions of paradise? In at least one version, the earthly paradise Tlalocan is endowed with an abundance of food crops, such as corn, squash, amaranth, and tomatoes; only one ceremonial plant, the marigold (cempoalxochitl), is included (Sahagun 19501982, 3 145). Food crops such as these, however, are not incorporated into the Malinalco imagery except for the single representation of the bean plant and the pineapple in the vaults; nor were they allowed in royal gardens. In the Aztec celestial heavens the flowering plants are unidentified, described simply as "savory" and "fragrant." As recreated by an Aztec poet, the gardenlike celestial afterlife included "white, aromatic" flowers (Garibay 1965, 1 :j), such as the magnolia (yolloxochitl) found in the Malinalco garden frescoes. In spite of the lack of specificity, the same venerated plants associated with the priestly and ruling class logically would have been in the equally selective and anticipated celestial afterlife. The native plants selected for the Malinalco murals were indeed those prestigious, ritual plants appropriate to the Aztec palace and temple gardens and, by extension, befitting the Aztec sky heaven.

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The greatest discrepancy between the Christian and Aztec paradises lay in the qualifications for entrance. For the Christian, good works and a genuine faith would entitle a person to a place in the celestial paradise. This fate ostensibly could not be earned by an Aztec on the basis of merit but was determined by one's mode of death. However, this democratic and fatalistic approach to a person's final destination was showing some evidence of shifting to a more elitist concept prior to the conquest. The view that the gods' elect also included some chosen on the basis of their station in life rather than their mode of death will be elaborated in the next chapter. This late evolution in the attitudes of the Aztec ruling elite would correspond handily with the incentives of a Christian paradise offered by the friars. The implications of a zoological garden within a sacred setting were rich and diverse for both European and pre-Hispanic cultures. These several traditions came together in the theme of the Malinalco frescoes, combining the concepts of earthly dominance with the promises inherent in a pleasant afterlife. The type of garden described in the murals was also appropriate to a sixteenth-century monastery in Mexico, so central to many aspects of communal life. The intent of the Augustinian friars was to paint a garden scene that portrayed not only their concepts of a celestial paradise, but their fervent desire to establish a terrestrial Garden of Eden in the New World. The depiction of a promised hereafter as a reward for obedience was motivated by the secular and spiritual ambitions of the regular orders—an alliance of religious and political power already familiar to the native peoples of Mesoamerica. H o w the garden imagery functioned to advance the social agenda of the mendicant friars and the degree of success of the Hispanization campaign will be the subject of the final chapters.

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Chapter Seven

UTOPIA AND IMPERIAL

POLICY

. . .just as in Paradise He created the plants ingrowth and the fruits all ripened, so in the gardens of this new Paradise He did not delay in ordering the imperfect to the perfect. —JUAN

DE G R I J A L V A

(1924:41)

The paradise-garden theme extended beyond religious allegory to function as a metaphor for the evangelistic objectives of the Augustinian mission. The concept of a terrestrial paradise was perfectly suited to the Utopian ideals that profoundly shaped mendicant thinking on arrival in the New World. The outlook of the friars was buttressed by the generalized conviction that the Garden of Eden was physically located in the newly discovered "Indies." Tangible support for their programs came from more official quarters. Backed by papal prerogatives and royal sanction, the mendicants were given far-reaching privileges. Although the friars never translated these ambitions into reality, the Malinalco garden frescoes must be studied as they functioned within the allied goals of church and state in the colonial enterprise. This chapter will explore some factors in the European background of the mendicant orders that helped shape their thinking, their programmatic strategy, and their m o nastic murals.

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T H E N E W W O R L D AS A TERRESTRIAL PARADISE The European intellectual climate and the achievements of the Spanish church reform movement impacted on the quality and aims of New World ecclesiastics. Reformists in the late fifteenth century advocated stricter adherence to the original mendicant rules of poverty and celibacy and a clergy educated in the new humanist scholarship. 1 By the second decade of the sixteenth century, the reform movement in Spain had produced a dedicated cadre of friars proclaiming a militant form of evangelism. When called to the American mission, the newly energized mendicants moved with self-assurance (Parry 1966:158). Mendicant attitudes were also affected by the exposure to the classical arts offered in university curricula and the influx of new ideas from other European countries. Mixed with the asceticism of the newly reformed church, this humanist training produced the particular Utopian ideologies carried by the Spanish friars to New Spain. 2

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Utopia and Imperial Policy Church Reform and Utopian

Aspirations

The evangelical zeal of Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam (1476-1536) and his criticism of the corruption in European Catholicism strengthened convictions already held by the Spanish mendicants. Although in his writing Erasmus never commented directly on the Americas, the reformist urged that the "seed of Christianity" be planted throughout those lands and peoples "as yet unknown but being discovered every day." 3 The job of evangelization took on a sense of urgency when an apocalyptic perspective was added to the task of conversion. In his study of Geronimo de Mendieta's history of the Franciscan order in Mexico, Historia ecclesidstica Indiana (1571 -1596), Phelan (1970:6) concludes that the Franciscan friar was motivated by an "apocalyptic, messianic, and prophetic mysticism." Mendieta predicted the arrival of a millennial kingdom in which monasticism would reign supreme and a new Jerusalem would be built. 4 There is no textual evidence that either of the earliest Augustinian chroniclers of colonial Mexico, Juan de Grijalva or Diego de Basalenque, held to the extremist millennial theories detected in Mendieta's work. However, in company with the majority of the mendicants, the Augustinians developed their own blend of eschatological fears and Utopian dreams. They espoused the more moderate but commonly held opinion that a "new age" had already dawned with the arrival of Hernando Cortes and the mendicant orders. As leader of the Spanish conquest, Cortes was seen by Augustinians and Franciscans alike as a messianic figure, a Moses whose arrival in the New World was Godordained. Cortes looms larger than life in Juan de Grijalva's poetic introduction to his chronicle. Both conqueror of territory and of human souls, Cortes dispelled the shadows of paganism and introduced the "light of the gospel." When the "sun" of Christianity dawned on the shores of the new lands, it "brought health on its wings and flew so lightly that from one moment to the

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next the light grew and conquered the earth" (Grijalva 1924:12). The arrival of the missionaries was recorded as an event heralding the start of a new era. A common goal for members of all three orders was to implant in the New World an unblemished form of Christianity associated with the primitive church. As part of a sacred apostolic mission, the friars claimed to have been sent out into the world by Christ's own earthly emissaries, the pope and the Spanish crown. 5 The establishment of the apostolic church in Mexico was likened to the foundation of a " N e w Jerusalem" (Torquemada 1975, 5:45-50). The parallels found in the book of the Apocalypse (Revelation 22:1-2) between the concept of a purified new city called Jerusalem and the Garden of Eden (identified in the gospel with the Tree of Life) were concepts used interchangeably by the friars in their descriptions of the colonial church. The Utopian ideas that accompanied the friars to Mexico were given credence by the widely espoused belief that the Garden of Eden might well lie in the New World. Although theories of Eden's geographic location abounded, the most common set the biblical garden of Paradise in the extreme orient, accessible by traveling westward across the ocean. 6 The New World confirmed the expectations of a terrestrial paradise. Exotic fauna and flora, the abundance of natural resources, and a springlike climate were traditional paradisaical conditions. And at least initially, the natives appeared to conform to conceptions of the inhabitants of an idyllic Golden Age. They wore little clothing, seemingly owned no private property, and had little greed for gold. Vasco de Quiroga, the first bishop of Michoacan, observed, "For not in vain, but with much cause and reason is this called the N e w World, not because it is newly found, but because it is in its people and in almost everything as were the first and golden ages" (in Levin 1969:93). The only gross imperfection appeared to be the absence of Christianity. The New World was viewed by the mendi-

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cant friars as an optimal laboratory in which to establish a primitive church based both on preconceived humanist concepts of what constituted an ideal society and on the precedents of early church history. One of the efforts to actualize these ideals was the formation of Utopian communities started by Vasco de Quiroga, a judge and later first bishop of Michoacan. Sir Thomas More's Utopia (1516) served as a literary paradigm for these communities, called the villages of Santa Fe (or pueblos-hospitales) and established in the provinces of Mexico and Michoacan. Grijalva compared life in one such community to a large monastery that fostered a spirit of generosity, selflessness, and industry— the essence of the apostolic church. The native converts, according to Grijalva (1924:54-55), "wanted to live a more perfect life in the apostolic manner and like a religious." Yet, in keeping with the spirit of the primitive apostolic church, civil and political as well as ecclesiastical jurisdiction rested in the hands of the clergy. In a sense, Quiroga's villages were an experimental microcosm of the more generalized mendicant ambition for the entire colony. Mendieta writes that fifty thousand Indians could be organized "in such good Christianity that it seemed as if the whole province were a monastery," adding, "for then they would live virtuously and peacefully serving God, as in a terrestrial paradise" (in Phelan 1970:69). The Utopian communities not only were organized to resemble a regulated, well-ordered monastery, but biblically and ideally were intended to resemble the terrestrial paradise that the friars hoped to establish among the natives. This new primitive church was described with several graphic metaphors that had complementary meanings: as a vineyard, a paradisaical garden, the New Jerusalem, and the Augustinian "City of God." The New World mission was spoken of as the "garden of the church," fertilized by martyrs' blood and watered by the gospel preached by the friars. Not only was garden imagery employed, but the Christian analogy of Christ as a gardener was particularly appropri-

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ate to the evangelical role. Like Christ, the mendicants saw themselves as working in the garden of the church, cultivating the good plants (virtues) and culling the weeds (vices), as well as breaking new ground on foreign soil in the name of the church. Within the general analogy between the church and a cultivated garden, the vineyard was also a frequent metaphorical reference. The "vineyard of God" was a protected place (the church) where vines (children of God) were cared for by God (keeper of vineyard) and where the grapes were the work of good Christians. Friars were admonished to cultivate with diligence the "vineyard" in the New World. 7 The garden metaphor implied a paradise garden, just as paradise itself was always described by garden imagery (Grijalva 1924:130). Sources for the analogies between the Mexican church and paradise gardens can be traced to St. Augustine's writings. St. Augustine (1866, 4:12, 114, 121-122) describes the primitive Christian community with verses from the Song of Songs (4:12-13) a s a "shut-in garden . . . a well-spring of living water, a paradise bearing the fruit of apples." In Augustine's City of God, paradise is explained as both a historical and a spiritual reality; in the latter sense, "paradise may be taken for the Church . . . the four floods are the four gospels; the fruitful trees, the saints, their fruits, their works; the tree of life . . . Christ" (St. Augustine 1967, 1:18). Upon the 1533 arrival of the Augustinians in Mexico, Grijalva (1924:41) declared that a "primitive church" had been established with the same vigorous growth and mature fruit as found in paradise; once the gospel fell on fertile American soil, it instantaneously produced a state of perfection in the "orchards of this new paradise' (emphasis mine). Augustinian houses in Mexico were likewise described as "paradises," with the double implication of vegetative abundance and spiritual fullness (Basalenque 1963 :172, 84). The analogies of monastic towns and monasteries to paradise gardens extended to the inclusion of the four rivers described in Genesis (2:10-14). The recreation of the four

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Utopia and Imperial Policy

FIG. 119. Expulsion from Paradise. Woodcut in La Cite de Dieu by St. Augustine (Abbeville, France: Jean Dupre and Pierre Gerard, 14861487). From Hind 1963, 2: fig. 369. Reproduced with permission of Dover Publications, New York. Edenic rivers in the cloister gardens of Mexican monasteries, with their central fountains and radiating canals, has already been mentioned in chapter 6. In addition to the overt allusion to the Garden of Eden, natural rivers as well as manmade canal systems were used as metaphors for the friars' apostolic work. Escobar (1970:27, 37), for example, points out that the region of Michoacan had four principal rivers, which he likened to the four evangelists and, in turn, compared to the four Augustinian chroniclers of Michoacan, "whose waters . . . resuscitate the dead plants." There were Iberian precedents for the mystical concept of the four Edenic rivers as the gospel of Christ (Jons vitae) flowing out to convert the four continents (Asia, Africa, Europe, and New World); this concept was graphically recreated in the architecture and landscaping of sixteenth-century Iberian cloisters (Kubler 1973). Although built to be magnificent, Mexican

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monasteries were also seen as concrete expressions of the friars' evangelistic mandate. In a more mystical sense, every friar was an architect of the new "House of God" (Gonzalez de la Puente 1907:331-332). There was no contradiction in their minds between the grandiose dimensions of their monasteries and the attempt to recreate a new "primitive church." Corresponding to their mental image of the early Christian church was the biblical description of the Temple of Solomon and the city of Jerusalem, neither of which merited less than the most heroic efforts to duplicate. 8 The contrast made by both Erasmus and More between the corruption in European society and the creation of a renewed Christian society had inescapable parallels with St. Augustine's two cities, the City of God and the City of Man. Although Augustine insisted that his City of God could not be identified with the visible church, he frequently contrasted the "True Jerusalem" as the City of God with Babylon as the City of Man, or the kingdom of the devil. 9 This distinction through time became blurred; as the power of the church grew, the earthly city was equated with secular authority and the City of God with the church and sacerdotal power. Augustinian theology permeated even Franciscan interpretations of Mexico as one of history's important temporal kingdoms, yet often compared to Augustine's City of God. 10 Since one of the prerequisites to gaining admission into the otherworldly City of God was the vow of poverty taken by mendicant friars, that city was felt to be inaccessible to even the secular clergy, who were forever bound to the baseness of the City of Man. It was the vow of poverty that most contributed to the friars' sense of separateness and superiority. The comparison between a "New Jerusalem" and paradise already noted in the Book of Revelation was one also used by Augustine in his definition of the City of God. The theologian transferred the natural order and peace that had existed in Paradise to the eternal and heavenly city. Woodcuts in fifteenthcentury editions of The City of God included the

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walled Garden of Eden dramatically juxtaposed with the outer world in an implied contrast between the two "cities" (fig. 119). In view of the comparisons between the Garden of Eden, the heavenly Jerusalem, and the City of God in their literary sources, it is natural that the mendicants would rely on all three as they sought to formulate paradigms for their mission church.

The Garden Frescoes and the Augustinian Program The message of the paradise theme in the Malinalco murals is greatly amplified by interpreting the Latin inscriptions painted above the main body or central panel of the garden frescoes (figs. 19 and 20). These inscriptions formed an intrinsic part of mendicant murals found in every room of the monastery and were used to elucidate the images or to moralize. In Gothic script on the uppermost register of the lower cloister walls are the third and fourth verses from Psalm 84: Et enim passer invenit Domum et Turtur nidum ubi reponat sibi Pullos suos: Altaria tua Domine virtutum Rex mens et Deus meus * Bead qui habitant in Domo Tua domine in secula seculorum laudabunt * Yea, the sparrow hath found an house, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her young, even Thine altars O Lord of Hosts, my King and my God. Blessed are those who dwell in thy house, ever singing thy praise! In his commentary on this passage, Augustine contrasts the heretics with the true believers. The sparrow and swallow, like true Christians, have found a nest or home where they will be nourished; the pagans will find no home outside of the church, only suffering in this "valley of tears" (St. Augustine 1871, 9:279). The "nest" is compared to the "true altar" of the church where those members of the "true faith" will be cared for and saved by their good words. Augustine (1871, 9:280) further correlates the House of God with Jerusalem in the same com-

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mentary. By choosing to highlight these particular verses above the garden frescoes, the Augustinians at Malinalco associated the House of God with their paradise imagery. The Malinalco inscription has further ties with Augustine's City of God. In his last chapter, Augustine defines the state of mind and being for all those chosen to participate in the City of God. The chapter, entitled " O f the Eternal Felicity of the City of God, and the Perpetual Sabbath," contains the Malinalco passage in its opening lines: How great shall that felicity be, where there shall be no evil thing, where no good thing shall lie hidden, where we shall have leisure to utter forth the praises of God . . . I am admonished also by the holy song, where I read or hear: "Blessed are they, O Lord, which dwell in Thy House; they shall praise Thee for ever and ever." (St. Augustine 1967, 2:404) In light of the dense but complementary analogies made with the New World church, my interpretation of the garden frescoes of Malinalco can be expanded commensurately. The garden murals did not merely depict a biblical Garden of Eden but embodied the goals envisioned by the mendicants for their mission. Within the floral and faunal imagery of the Malinalco murals, the prolific appearance of grapes and grapevines now takes on new significance. In addition to their symbolic reference to the Eucharest, the grape plant in the frescoes can also be related to descriptions of the New World as the "vineyard of God." Further, in view of the overlapping metaphors for the sixteenth-century Mexican church, the paradise imagery is also consistent with the friars' description of their church as a "New Jerusalem" and Augustine's heavenly city as amplified by our reading of the Latin inscription. PATRONAGE

AND

PROGRAM

A regular clergy armed with a Utopian ideology to justify their presence in the New World

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Utopia and Imperial Policy does not explain how and why they were empowered to realize their ideals. The implementation of their program must deal with the more practical questions of royal patronage and the sociopolitical aspects of mendicant activity. The colonization effort was under the auspices of the church as well as the state, and both were intended to be beneficiaries. In the end, paradise was brought down to earth and made to serve the interests of the friars and the Spanish government. In the surge of national pride that followed the reconquista, the reconquering or repossessing of southern Spain from Moorish control in 1492, the Catholic sovereigns Ferdinand and Isabel asked for and were granted certain ecclesiastical privileges over both Granada and, in 1493, the just-discovered Indies. The pope's relegation to the crown of authority over the church had farreaching implications in the newly conquered colonies. The institution known as the patronato real, or royal patronage, granted to the Spanish kings, as the patrons, the right to Christianize a conquered people, to endow places of worship, to appoint the officers of the church, and to distribute the funds for its support. 11 By pontifical edicts issued in 1501 and confirmed in 1508 and 1511, the Spanish crown was granted the use of tithes and first fruits of the Indies in order to support the missionizing enterprise. Indeed, these controls ensured that a large part of the crown's income in the sixteenth century was derived from the church. 12 Inevitable conflicts arose with any faction that attempted to establish sources of wealth and power independent of royal control. This included the regular clergy in the Augustinian, Dominican, Franciscan, and Jesuit orders, whose authority in the New World was also sanctioned by papal bulls, challenging the crown's exclusive jurisdiction. Traditionally, the religious orders lay outside of the parochial organization of the church and were beholden solely to the papacy. The regular clergy lived by the rule, or regula, in contradistinction to the secular clergy, who were those priests and members of the ecclesiastical hierar-

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chy who lived "in the world," or saeculum. The unique and rigorous demands of the New World mission eliminated several fundamental distinctions between the two clergies as the regulars assumed many parochial and communal functions formerly entrusted to the secular clergy, including the administration of the sacraments. The regulars' broader powers were based in the charge given to them directly by the pope to lead in the conversion of the "infidels." In the Omnimoda of 1522 the friars were endowed with "our full power" (omnimodam auctoritatem nostram), acting as the delegates of the papacy over both "classes" (i.e., regulars and seculars) of clergy.13 The grant of "full power" to the mendicants went beyond the realm of sacramental power to legitimize a many-faceted authority in the New World enterprise. In spite of the tension between parallel claims to the governance of the native population, the pragmatic challenges of the colonization effort demanded, at least initially, effective cooperation between the crown and the regular clergy. Satisfying labor needs with humanitarian concerns for native welfare presented an almost irreconcilable challenge. The institution of encomienda was caught between these conflicting aims. 14 Encomienda met the demands for reward and gain made by the conquistadores and, simultaneously, eased the conscience of the crown on its religious obligations. However, competing moral and material concerns fueled hostility between the encomenderos and the friars. Not only was the regular clergy genuinely shocked at the physical hardships endured by the natives under the excessive demands of the encomenderos, but there were also conflicts of interest over the same pool of native labor and support. Most encomenderos saw the wisdom in having a regular clergy, however meddlesome, to help control the indigenous population. A more settled and prosperous native community surely produced more tribute. Encomenderos also supported the spread of Christianity as an important facet of the Spanish way of life and, as we have seen, underwrote monastic building. Likewise, the friars were

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pragmatic enough to recognize that encomiendas formed the basis of the young colonial economy. Many mendicants urged the granting of encomiendas in perpetuity so that the work of the faith would not be interrupted. More to the point, if Spaniards were granted pensions instead of encomiendas, they feared that Spanish financial support would be withdrawn. Some mendicants even viewed encomiendas as a civilizing force and part of a well-ordered commonwealth (Hanke 1965:103). 15 An uneasy accord between friar and encomendero evolved. The abuses engendered by encomiendas also sustained the polemic over the justification of the conquest and colonization that would persist throughout the sixteenth century. The discrepancy between the steady stream of reports on the exploitation of natives and the papal directives to bring them into the folds of Christianity raised embarrassing questions. Did the crown's right to convert give them the right to military conquest? Did spiritual ends justify secular means? Could the natives be forcibly converted and then taxed and enslaved to support the new religious system? Whatever the mixture of individual motives and the confusion in priorities on the level of national policy, lip service, at the very least, was always given officially to the primacy of Christianization. 16 The mendicant advisors to the Spanish king insisted on the need for a conquest that stressed ecclesiastical and not military might. To ensure the peaceable conversion appropriate to a divinely ordained monarch, the clergy was to be the primary arm of royal dominion and war was to be used only insofar as it had "spiritual ends" (Hanke 1965:153). In the end, both the mendicant orders and the monarch were satisfied; the mendicants' authority in the new colonies was strengthened and the Spanish crown's revenue requirements were encumbered only by ambiguous and unenforceable restrictions. The central issue in the debated rights of Spanish imperialism was the definition of the intrinsic nature of the native peoples. This issue

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was also at the heart of the friars' attempt to sanction their evangelistic program. Proponents who vindicated the use of Spanish armed force pointed to the barbaric and sinful nature of the native population. If, however, the natives were rational, free people and capable of receiving the Catholic faith, they should own property, choose their own occupation, and not be coerced or enslaved. Moreover, the mendicants claimed that the Indians were not only perfect candidates for indoctrination but had the unique possibility of achieving true spirituality (Maravall 1949: 201-202, 210-211). Like More's pre-Christian inhabitants on the island of Utopia, their communal life and basic values were more "Christian" than the English society of More's day.17 In other words, the myth of the "noble savage" was synchronous with the longing to reestablish a paradisaical state. The dichotomy inherent in the term "noble savage" has relevance here for the contradictory views adopted by the friars toward their potential converts. O n the one hand, there was sympathy for the natives and praise for their innate "goodness." O n the other, conversion was central to this positive evaluation, for it was only as one of the baptized that the natives' virtuous natures could flourish. Unreserved trust between friar and convert was not common. There was an underlying anxiety about the darker pagan and unpredictable side of the natives' character. Without the guidance of the friars, the mendicants feared that the Indians would revert to a state of "ferocity and barbarism," to quote Grijalva (1924, 1:58), or to become "indomitable wild beasts in the forests," to use Mendieta's vituperative words (in Maravall 1949:222). With this fearsome scenario in mind, the friars justified strong-armed, paternalistic control of their charges. The docile yet unreliable nature of the natives, it was argued in a self-serving manner, required the tight supervision and tutelage of the regulars. Even the most tolerant friar approached the indigenous population with a sense of superiority. 18

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Utopia and Imperial Policy Mendicant Program of Indoctrination The mendicants' goals were implemented not only by teaching the tenets of the Catholic faith (doctrina) but also by attempting to shape most facets of a native's way of life to conform to the European and classical view of a ''civilized man" (policia). The friars also hoped, unsuccessfully, to segregate their charges from the "corrupting" influence of the lay Spaniards. They tried to pursue a separatist policy and emphasized the fact that under governmental auspices the Indian population was organized as a "Republic of Indians" with its own form of government dis-

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tinct from that of the Spaniards. 19 Their intent was to force native dependency on the friars, who would act as intermediaries with the civil authorities. In actuality, governmental officials, employees of encomenderos, small agriculturalists, petty traders, and others joined the friars in having a strong overall social and cultural impact on the Indians. A comprehensive educational program was potentially one of the more powerful tools that the mendicants used to implement their goals. Instruction by the friars of both adults and children was carried out through sermons, classes, and carefully orchestrated pageants—all used to

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FIG. 120. Friar, upper right, teaching the creation (Creatio Mundi) from a painted cloth. Detail of Instituciones y Sacramentos, engraving in Retorica Cristiana by Diego Valades (1579). Courtesy of the Nettie Lee Benson Library, Latin American Collection, The General Libraries, The University of Texas at Austin.

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The Paradise Garden Murals o/Malinalco

indoctrinate and Hispanicize. To communicate all aspects of their program the friars relied on visual materials. Because of the enormous language barriers first encountered, painted images were consistently used as mnemonic devices in teaching. Cloth rolls hung on poles were squared off into sections painted with various doctrinal pictures. The Franciscan Diego Valades stressed the importance of this teaching method and the natives' positive response. The doctrine was inculcated "by means of figures and shapes drawn on large cloths . . . These cloths [lienzos] are hung in the chapels so that they [the Indians] can see them" (in Palomera 1962:139). These instructional techniques are in evidence in Valades's well-known engraving of a schematic monastic atrio (atrium), the spacious church courtyard. 20 In the atrio are depicted the multiple activities of the friars, including their use of didactic diagrams and pictures. In one corner a friar is teaching the use of the instruments for fourteen different arts (Discunt Omnia: "they learn all things"); in another area of the atrio, a friar is explaining the creation of the world (Creatio Mundi; fig. 120). The mendicant emphasis on visual images took advantage of a similar, well-established pre-Hispanic tradition for transmitting messages. Painted cloths and bark paper were mentioned several times by Bernal Diaz del Castillo (1956:24, 72-74, 157, 258, 308, 360) as the most efficient mode of communicat'" n not only between ruler and subjects, but between the different ethnic groups of Mesoamerica. The effectiveness of visual teaching aids encouraged the use of printed materials, painted cloths, wall paintings, and even theatrical performances. Edifying religious plays were held to dramatize liturgical principles and to promote the cultural mores propounded by the friars. The theatrical reenactment of the capture of Jerusalem, for example, reinforced the importance of the sacrament of baptism but also left no doubt that the defeated Moors were by analogy none other than the pagan natives defeated by the Christians (i.e., Spaniards) and the battle, the capture of Mexico City. Trexler (1984)

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asserts that the dynamics of military theater was part of the "politics of conquest," intended to humiliate and subjugate the native population. "Paradise" as a Morality

Play

Other staged theatrical performances, generally performed by the natives themselves in their own tongues, were used to reinforce certain behavioral patterns. A lavish recreation of the Garden of Paradise with related scenes from the biblical story of Adam and Eve accompanied the celebration of Corpus Christi in the spring every year. All three orders competed in extravagant displays during this feast, including processions, flower displays, and ceremonial dances held in honor of the Eucharist. 21 During this religious festival a paradise scene was reconstructed in front of the churches. Grijalva (1924:229) describes the artificial paradise as a "map of earth, water and air and even of heaven" with not only a display of plants that resembled a "vivid tapestry of cypress reeds and flowers" but also of birds, rabbits, and deer; he went on to add, "There one saw brought together the most rare and hidden things in nature, that served for beauty and to recognize the Creator." Grijalva concludes that in this gardenlike environment the very pleasures of those blessed souls in heaven were enjoyed. Franciscan descriptions of this celebration are even more elaborate. The paradise scene included a quadripartite division of the "stage," with four mountains, meadows of flowers and trees, and cliffs. Set in the naturalistic setting were real "birds, both big and small: falcons, crows, owls; and in the wood much game . . . stags, hares, rabbits, coyotes, and very many snakes" (Motolinfa 1950:103). 22 In another presentation of the Genesis story during Easter week, Motolinia (1950:107) describes the dwelling of Adam and Eve as an "earthly paradise, with different kinds of trees full of fruits and flowers, some of them natural and some of them counterfeited in gold and feathers." Not only was there a natural landscape reconstructed, replete with animal life, but in this case there were

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Utopia and Imperial Policy also "four streams or springs which flowed out of Paradise, each [stream] with its sign saying: Pison, Gihon, Tigris and Euphrates. In the middle of Paradise stood the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, with many and very beautiful fruits made of gold and feather work" (Motolinia 1950:108). We are struck by the parallels between the fauna and flora in Malinalco's "garden frescoes" and those plants and animals used in the theatrical versions of the Genesis story—such as the fruit and flowering trees and the falcons, owls, stags, rabbits, coyotes, and snakes. Additionally, the central courtyard fountain and its canals would have duplicated in Malinalco the four springs or streams said to exist in Paradise. The powerful message in sixteenth-century Paradise plays rested not only on the appealing reconstructions of the terrestrial (and, implied, heavenly) paradise, but in the harsh contrasts offered by the alternatives. These contrasts were dramatized in two forms: the expulsion of Adam and Eve from their idyllic setting and the recreation of hell. In the expulsion scene, Adam and Eve are outcast from Paradise into the "world— another land certainly very different from the one they had left, for it was full of thistles and thorns and many serpents" (Motolinia 1950: 109). Other vignettes performed in conjunction with the Paradise scene reinforced the reward and punishment implicit in the expulsion episode. In a scene with St. Francis, the friar subdued a wild beast to reenact the obedience required of all creation to the word of God. Subsequently, St. Francis confronted a drunken Indian, warning him that such behavior would certainly send him to hell. At that point in the theatrical presentation, devils appeared and "with much din they seized the drunkard and threw him into hell"; a similar fate awaited all social miscreants, including "witches" (Motolinia 1950:118-119). The emotional pitch had a calculated impact on the audience. The delights of heaven for those who merited admission were dramatized theatrically for the natives as vividly as the physical agonies of

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hell. A bonfire was lit in graphic representation of hell; the fire burned so fiercely and the "damned" shrieked so realistically that the observers were horrified and afraid. However, the reader is assured, a secret trap door allowed the actors to escape. In other instances live animals were thrown into portable ovens to produce an even more terrifying recreation of hellish conditions. Demonstrations of the horrors of hell were not limited to special festivals. With regularity Augustinians built fires in the streets, in the four corners of their monastic atriums, and even by their church pulpits as they gave, quite literally, fire-and-brimstone sermons for those guilty of "mortal sins" (Grijalva 1924: 322, 333). Other graphic signs physically contrasted the places "heaven" and "hell." When speaking of heaven, friars pointed to the sky where one would enjoy "riches and gifts," whereas in the inferno (pointing down) one would live like the toads and snakes and be eternally tormented by demons (Torquemada 1975, 5 : 57, 59)- The reenactments of paradise and hell served to reward good behavior and inculcate fear of punishment for rebelliousness. Election to the Christian paradise was based on commitment to the Christian faith as opposed to those who persisted in worshipping the ancient gods of their pagan fathers. In addition to faith and good works, socially acceptable behavior was upheld and such infractions as drunkenness, laziness, polygamy, and practicing magic were censured in the religious plays. "Paradise" as Incentive Would the Christian doctrine that an individual could earn or qualify for entrance to paradise have had any relevance to the natives— or was it completely antithetical to their views on afterlife destinies? Burkhart (1989:28-38, 79) insists that no afterlife concept of reward (or conversely, punishment) existed for the Nahuas contingent on good or orderly behavior in the here and now. However "sin" was defined, whether as a Christian moral transgression or as a violation of the Nahua belief in order, the

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Christian friars went to exaggerated, often dramatic, lengths to link punishable earthly deeds with an after-death destination. Yet, at the time of the conquest, it also appears that older afterlife beliefs were being compromised, evolving away from a fatalistic system toward one more reward-oriented, at least for the elite class. As noted earlier, admission into one of several afterlife alternatives had always been egalitarian for an Aztec, determined by an individual's mode of death. Traditionally the fate of most Aztecs was Mictlan, the underworld stated to be "our common home, the land of the dead" (Sahagun 1950-1982, 6:31, 33). The destiny, however, of those who suffered an honorable death—in battle, in sacrifice, or, for a woman, in childbirth—was the House of the Sun. For the male warriors and nobility, this celestial heaven was very desirable: "And there, always, forever, perpetually . . . they rejoice, they live in abundance, where they suck the different flowers . . . the flowers of joy, the flowers of happiness: to this end the noblemen go to death—go longing for, go desiring [death] . . . Assign them to the mother of the sun, the father of the sun that they may provide drink, provide food, provide offerings to those above us, those in the land of the dead, in the heavens" (Sahagun 1950-1982, 6:13). Likewise, the fate of a woman who had died during childbirth, and therefore had also "taken a captive," was portrayed as glorious. After a woman's death in childbirth, the midwife raised a supplication for her to travel to the final place, "the House of your mother and father, the Sun," where she would find enchantment and gladness; this "precious death" was due her as a reward and recompense (Sahagun, in Sullivan 1966:93). However, sixteenth-century chronicles record a discrepancy between the fate of the ruling class and that of the commoners. The preferential treatment given members of the upper class may have been developing at the time of the conquest in response to the increasing stratification of Aztec society. There are passages suggesting that rulers were not consigned to the

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subterranean Mictlan but that, like the warriors, they too could inhabit the House of the Sun. The ancient lords buried at Teotihuacan were said to have become gods, singing like birds and flying about as butterflies (Lopez Austin 1980, I: 375~376), undergoing the same transformation as warriors who became birds, butterflies, and bees four years after death. Deceased Tlaxcalan lords reputedly returned as plumed birds and precious stones (Mendieta 1945, 1:105). Aztec poetry celebrated the transformation of the Texcocan ruler Nezahualcoyotl into a bird of "precious red plumage" (Garibay 1965, 1: 7-8). Another telling passage comes from Sahagun's earliest document, the Primeros Mernoriales (Anderson 1988:155-160). In this Aztec story or "prophecy," Quetzalpetlatl, the deceased daughter of the last ruler of Tlatelolco, is taken on a tour of the various otherworlds by a "deformed youth," perhaps an assistant of Tlaloc, the rain god. While in Tlalocan, the visitor witnesses not only those who had died of water-related diseases but also "the sons of noblemen." The presence of the latter in Tlalocan suggests a class distinction not accorded by the Aztecs to inhabitants of the water god's paradise. Later in the tour, Quetzalpetlatl sees the rulers who live "in the grasslands, in the plains" (Anderson 1988:159), corresponding to one of Sahagiin's descriptions of the House of the Sun (Tonatiuh ilhuicac) as a "place like a plain" (Sahagun 1950-1982, 3:47). Since Mictlan was generally described as dark, entangling, and watery, the rulers' destination was clearly a more desirable one. Merchants likewise merited special treatment after death in keeping with their importance to the Aztec empire. Long-distance trade often required that merchants not only transact commercial exchange, but act as diplomats, spies, and even warriors in enemy territory. It is not surprising, therefore, that if a merchant in Anahuac died of disease, he was not buried but was cremated on a mountain top and then reputedly followed the sun to the heavens, as did valiant warriors (Sahagun 1950-1982, 9:25).

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Utopia and Imperial Policy The propagandistic use of a celestial destiny by the Aztecs is apparent in that it was held out as a coveted prize to those who displayed loyalty to the governing elite. Public laments were staged for those Aztecs killed on the battlefield; paeans were given to the fallen with promises that their souls would accompany the gods. The glorification of those supreme military virtues promoted by the Aztec elite may have been depicted in a pre-Hispanic fresco from the Aztec site at Malinalco. While the reconstructed portion of the mural is not complete enough to draw any firm conclusions regarding its meaning, the mural appears to memorialize either warriors or sacrificial victims deified and transformed into inhabitants of the celestial House of the Sun. 23 In either case, they were figures whose blood sacrifice was believed to sustain the Aztec empire and the cosmos; both were rewarded in the afterlife. It appears that the chronicles record a gradual shift in late Aztec afterlife beliefs to reinforce the status quo by claiming that those privileged in life would be privileged in death. Klein (1983) argues that the dreaded image of Mictlan was used as a means of social control by the elite. As Aztec political organization increased in complexity, the need increased for compliant citizens (especially soldiers, merchants, and child-bearing women) with firm allegiance to a tribute state. In sixteenth-century Mexico the friars learned to exploit beliefs that were similar to theirs and already held by the native culture. Such a belief was a positive afterlife destiny. Both cultures manipulated these religious concepts in order to promote certain behavior that would advance their social and political ambitions. Both cultures additionally chose largescale wall paintings to communicate the promise of an irresistible final reward. If the imagery in the garden frescoes is viewed as a two-dimensional version of the colonial paradise play, Malinalco's murals were an integral part of the mendicant program. Their location in the lower cloister was well within the precincts of the monastery, yet available to the native popula-

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tion. They proclaimed that admission to such a paradise was predicated on adopting the beliefs and standards of the Augustinian order. It has already been pointed out that the plants and animals featured in the garden frescoes were either sacred or politically important. Choices of native species in particular were determined by their elitist function and their appearance in Aztec royal gardens. There the plants and animals were maintained by the social class that claimed the qualities of many of the fauna represented and, in some cases, attempted to control both the use and distribution of certain of the more valuable plants. The ultimate prerogative of this ruling class was the ability to promise special treatment in the afterlife destinies of those serving their own, and thus the state's, interests. The appearance of these same plants in the Augustinian cloister transferred similar rights to the friars. In assuming this power, the mendicants were aided by certain correspondences between native and European celestial heavens. The Franciscan Torquemada (1975, 5: 59) wrote that the natives already had a sky heaven, a "place of festivity [fiestas] and plenty." But, Torquemada added, the friars made entrance to this "place of fiestas" conditional; idolaters would only "deserve this place . . . as [or if they became] Christians who embraced the law of Jesus Christ." MENDICANT DOMINION A N D H E R A L D R Y IN THE GARDEN MURALS The posture assumed by the mendicant church is also well expressed in the Malinalco frescoes by the heraldic elements incorporated into the composition. Coats of arms with the monograms of Christ, the Virgin Mary, and the Augustinian emblem are displayed in many Augustinian monasteries. At Malinalco they appear in two separate places and in two media: carved in stone on the upper fagade of the cloister (fig. 121) and painted into the matrix of the lower cloister's garden frescoes. With the exception of

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FIG. 121. Medallions in stone, carved over the arcade of the porteria, Malinalco. Monograms, from left: IHS, the malinalli plant (for place-name of Malinalco), and the Augustinian emblem. Photo courtesy of J. Adrian Fernandez. the damaged west wall, the remaining cloister wall murals display three large medallions with ecclesiastical symbols across the central field of the composition (figs. 10-14). The heraldic symbolism of these coats of arms reveals just how close were the ties between the friars and the Spanish crown in the earliest phase of colonization. By the time of the thirteenth-century crusades, heraldic devices had been adopted by the European church as "symbols of the church's great attempt to order and to Christianize war" (Evans 1976, 1:85). When a hereditary system of armorial bearing was fully established a century later, armorials were used by the church on vestments, illuminated manuscripts, stained glass, tapestries, and in wall frescoes. In Spain, for example, coats of arms of Ferdinand and Isabel, as well as of Charles V, were prominently displayed not only on the faqades of buildings, such as the Ayuntamiento in Seville, but on the choirscreens of cathedrals and churches

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supported by royal gifts (Evans 1976, 1:115, plate 159). In the discussion on the artistic sources for the Malinalco murals, it was pointed out that by the fifteenth century shields with the owner's coat of arms or ecclesiastical symbols were inserted into the naturalistic designs of millefleurs and verdures. This type of "armorial" tapestry may have served as a prototype for the Malinalco garden frescoes because of similarities in general layout, design elements, and graphic sources. These correspondences are amplified by the iconography and function of at least one such tapestry, the so-called Berne millefleurs tapestry, woven for the Burgundian duke Philip the Good in 1466.24 It is the only surviving tapestry of an original ensemble that included six pieces woven expressly for the walls of a large room, perhaps the focal point of Philip's military camps or palaces. The Berne tapestry has several heraldic devices embedded in a field of flowering plants

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Utopia and Imperial Policy characteristic of the millefleurs. According to Deuchler (1966), the central coat of arms can be read as glyphic symbols for those territories under Philip's rule. A chain with the pendant of the Knightly Order of the Golden Fleece surrounds the coat of arms. Philip had founded this order in 1430 with the primary purpose of propagating the Christian faith and defense of the church. The order not only contributed to Burgundy's and Philip's prestige, but served to maintain the loyalty and unity of even farflung territories and quarrelsome nobles. One of Philip's driving ambitions was to lead a crusade to liberate Jerusalem. As a basis for this crusade, the duke wished to create an "earthly paradise" in his own state. Philip himself viewed his ducal role as that of representative of Christ, vicarius Dei, within his ideal Burgundian community. Deuchler interprets the Berne tapestry, therefore, as a prime example of court art proclaiming Philip the Good's aspirations for himself and his state. Within the millefleurs background that acts as a paradise landscape, the central escutcheon represents the duke himself, not only as political sovereign but as spiritual head of the Christian state of Burgundy. Several parallels can be drawn between the iconography and purpose of the Berne tapestry and that of the Malinalco garden frescoes. In this study, the garden portion of the frescoes has been interpreted as a metaphor for the New World territory and the mendicant mission. The coats of arms, therefore, imply rulership over mendicant communities—and perhaps the Mexican colony as a whole, prospering under

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the dominion of the friars. Although the symbols for Christ and the Virgin Mary in the heraldic medallions at Malinalco clearly proclaim the lordship of the Christian church, it is important to note that the Augustinian shield occupies the same position and is of the same size as the christological symbols (fig. 14). The Augustinians shared the crusading fervor of Philip the Good as well as the general mendicant conviction that they were the vicars of Christ in Mexico. 25 However, coats of arms have traditionally also symbolized political influence. In this sense, the mendicants also qualified, as they tried to exercise control over all aspects of native life. The prerogatives granted them were used liberally and with great autonomy, often circumventing local authorities. The friars held themselves accountable only to their Spanish monarch, acting as an extension of the royal arm. Billboard-sized murals such as Malinalco's were not only didactic but offered persuasive alternatives to the Indian populace. The imagery of the garden frescoes was positive, emphasizing the rewards promised the faithful in a beautiful and abundant afterlife—not unlike the incentives symbolized by the House of the Sun within the Aztec state. There were several dimensions to the Malinalco paradise theme, with an underlying assumption that obedience to the church and the Spanish crown went hand in hand. Whether this represented a generalized Augustinian theme in similar monastic locations will now be addressed.

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Chapter Eight

THE A U G U S T I N I A N MURAL PROGRAM . . . in the porteria of the convent [ofCuitzeo] . . . on the walls and corners, there is to this day painted the mystic life, which by that picture, explains the ministry to the multitudes. M A T I AS

ESCOBAR

(1970:355)

As part of the "visual aids" used by the teaching friars, mural paintings found throughout sixteenth-century Mexican monasteries reinforced new concepts in the most vivid terms. The didactic value of murals is advanced by fray Diego Valades in his 1579 publication on rhetorical methods for colonial missionaries. Valades points to the utility of "images and pictures, since the things that are seen influence the potential in man more forcefully . . ." (in Palomera 1962:281). Escobar (1970:355) further emphasizes the pedagogical nature of images when he notes that paintings "explained the ministry to the masses." Painted wall images also aided in teaching natives the proper reverential attitudes toward the holy personages of the new religion. At the front of a classroom, friars knelt before pictures of the Virgin and Christ child to demonstrate the postures of humility and prayer (Torquemada 1975, 5:56). Grijalva (1924:58) also observes that the "ancient paintings . . . both give pleasure and are very moving to those who see them. Please God that [they] would teach us as well as leave us full of admiration." These statements reveal that the

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function of murals was perceived by the friars themselves as twofold, intended not only to instruct but also to inspire and uplift. Monastic murals were also aimed at two audiences: the native population, still untutored or new in their Christian faith, and the mendicant community. The friars, too, required inspirational images as well as visual reminders of their vows and duties. These varied functions determined the subject matter of the murals and, to a degree, their placement within the monastic complex. If located in a more public area, their content was directed at an audience that was primarily native; if the murals were painted in the more private sectors of the monastery, their message was intended for the edification of the friars. Although these were fluid distinctions, certain mural themes appear in predictable, if not invariable, locations, as outlined in Appendix E. The separation of subject matter into "public" and "private" is a useful generalization in that it provides another avenue for understanding the Malinalco frescoes and their relationship to the larger Augustinian mural corpus in colonial Mexico.

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The Augustinian Mural Program 153 PUBLIC AND PRIVATE IN THE M O N A S T E R Y

ZONES

Before relating the role of the murals to their architectural context, we must understand the working components of the monastic complex. Malinalco's layout followed the basic format described for the earlier and influential Augustinian house of Tiripetio, Michoacan. l The walled forecourt, or atrio (often called patio in colonial documents), characteristically fronts the church and cloister on the west and isolates the monastic grounds from the mercantile traffic in the town plaza (plate i). 2 The psychological advantage of segregating the monastic complex was intentional. The monastery was to be "separated from other buildings" so that it could be more "authoritative," according to a royal ordinance of 1573 (McAndrew 1965:96). The Malinalco atrio is entered through a doublearched gateway aligned with the portal in the west fagade of the church. The ample dimensions of the atrio prepare one for the scope and massiveness of the monastic complex, whose buildings cover some 4,320 square meters. Malinalco's present-day atrio lacks two typical sixteenth-century features. The carved stone cross that invariably dominated the monastic forecourt in Mexico has disappeared, although its massive stone base, measuring over 6 meters in height, is still intact. Malinalco's corner chapels, or posas, are also gone, although it is possible that instead of chapels four wall niches originally fulfilled the same function. Posas existed at Tiripetio, Michoacan, Epazoyucan, Hidalgo, and Ocuituco, Morelos, three Augustinian houses that established strong precedents for later building. By the end of the sixteenth century, however, many posas ceased to be useful and were pulled down (McAndrew 1965:281-284). In the sixteenth century, religious processions circumambulated the atrio, and lessons for native children and adults were given there. In addition to acting as an arena for religious celebrations, theater, and open-air schools, portions of the vast courtyards were set aside as consecrated

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graveyards; hence, patios are sometimes referred to as cementarios, or cemeteries, in sixteenthcentury texts. One of the most important early functions of the atrio was to serve as an outdoor church for the overflow of worshippers who could not enter the church itself. The need for a sanctuary with an altar for those who had to worship outdoors evolved into a uniquely Mexican architectural feature, the open chapel (capilla abierta). Malinalco's open chapel is fronted by an arcade and fits one of two general types, that of the portico chapel. 3 Although open chapels could be constructed apart from the main structures, they were more commonly integrated architecturally into the church or cloister faqade. The portico chapel also served as the entryway, or porteria, to the cloister and will be referred to as such below. The porteria arcade at Malinalco is one of the few with seven arches of equal dimension (figs. 122 and 123). Like atrios, porterias were multifunctional. When not in use as a chapel, the spacious porticoes doubled as additional instructional space, waiting rooms, and sick bays; in them confession could be heard or the sacraments administered (Palomera 1962:278). The monastery church at Malinalco conforms to the most common of sixteenth-century ground plans, that of a single continuous nave with no side aisles or transepts (fig. 124:A). It is significant that single-naved churches were identified with the Spanish reform movement and by the Augustinians with the simplicity of the apostolic church. 4 Malinalco's cavernous dimensions (length: 62 meters, width: 12 meters, height: 19.7 meters) are typical for Augustinian sanctuaries that had an average ratio in length to width of 5 to 1. The western entrance is marked by a choir balcony {cow, fig. i26:F) over the narthex (soto coro). The eastern end terminates in a trapezoidal apse elevated above the nave floor by several steps and bounded above by a triumphal archway. At Malinalco this archway is composed of an engaged column that rises the length of the walls to the spring of the barrel vault and then spans the full width of the church

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The Paradise Garden Murals of Malinalco

FIG. 122. Exterior of porteria of Malinalco during restoration program by SAHOPini983.

FIG. 123. Arcade of the Malinalco porteria, restored in 1984 with its original seven arches.

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The Augustinian Mural Program 155 (fig. 125). Lay worshippers were restricted to the central nave; the choir loft was reserved for the clergy to say their offices and, on Sundays and feast days, for the native choirs and instrumentalists. Through a portal in the south wall of the church there is direct access to the contiguous cloister where the eye is immediately drawn to the garden patio around which the two-storied building is constructed (plate 3). Originally a stone fountain was the central focus and added to the beauty of the inner garden. According to the plan at Tiripetio, within the adjacent cloister or friars' residence the rooms were always arranged around a garden patio. The first or lower story consisted of the rooms set aside for corporate use: the refectory; sala de profundis, or chapter hall 5 ; and storerooms. The upper floor of the cloister was primarily devoted to the private quarters of the friars with their cells arranged in rows called dormitorios around the three sides of the open patio (Basalenque 1963 : 63, 100, 129). Initially, but for a short period only (probably less than a decade), Malinalco was a single-story cloister, so the friars' cells and their corporate rooms had to be provided for on the ground level. As revealed by the 1984 reconstruction, the chapter room, or sala de profundis, was originally located behind the portico chapel (fig. 124: D). When the upper story was added in the second building phase, the chapter room was moved upstairs to what then became the private and exclusive domain of the resident mendicants (fig. 126: A). Eight additional cells or sleeping quarters were built as well as a more spacious room for the prior with an adjacent library or guest room (fig. 126: C, D). Since there were never more than four or five friars at Malinalco at any one time, after the second story was added, the lower cells may have been converted into guest rooms for visiting mendicants of other orders or for lay travelers (fig. 124: G). The refectory and ante-refectory remained on the east side of the cloister and opened up to the kitchen, which was separate from the main building along with the storerooms, work-

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rooms, and stables (Fig. 124: E, F, H, I). The inner walkways on both levels of the cloister functioned as passageways, but also as processional areas; when the second-stage upper cloister was added, the upper walkway was set aside as a private area for the meditation and prayers of the friars. In this description of the layout of Malinalco it is evident that certain areas of the monastic complex were openly exposed and available to the lay person while other sections and rooms were relegated to the personal use of the friars. The outdoor atrio and cloister entryway were universally the most accessible and multifunctional. It was here that the friar-chroniclers record staging communal activities for the native populace. At the other extreme, the inner cloister area, particularly the stairwell and the upper floor of a two-storied cloister (including its arcaded passages, meeting rooms, and the cells of the mendicants), were the most private. Between these public and private "zones" were the church and lower cloister, which can be

FIG. 124. Ground plan of Malinalco. Reconstruction of first single-story monastery, c. 1571.

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The Paradise Garden Murals ofMalinalco

FIG. 125. Church interior, view to east end or choir, Malinalco. Photo courtesy of J. Adrian Fernandez. grouped as "semipublic" spaces since they were considered protected from the secular world, yet open to the Christian faithful and visible to the general public through their doorways. 6 Grijalva (1924:231) states that only those already taught and examined in the doctrina "chose" to enter the church. The question of native access to the cloister area offers new insights into the purpose of the garden frescoes. Unlike the descriptions of the activities held in the atrio and entry way, the functions of the lower cloister are not directly referred to in the chronicles. It is known that baptized natives made up the labor force for the day-by-day operation of the monastery. As a rule, such service was considered prestigious, a holdover from preconquest temple service reserved for the sons of nobility. In addition to these native servants, however, did other Indian

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communicants have access to the interior of the cloister? The answer to this question focuses on the problematic location of the schools in provincial monasteries. According to Grijalva (1924:226), all teaching took place in the atrios of the churches. Basalenque (1963 :6o) is somewhat more precise in locating the school where students learned music, reading, and writing "to the north" of the monastery; however, he states as well that children received their doctrinal instruction in the courtyard. Although Basalenque separates the two types of classes on the basis of different curricula, the distinction was in reality based on a policy of segregation. Mendieta and Torquemada both differentiate between the rooms "near the monastery," in which the children of the nobility were taught to read and write, and the outdoor patio "classroom," which was used

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The Augustinian Mural Program 157 for teaching plebeians' youngsters (Torquemada !975, 5:55, 171-172). Neither at Malinalco nor at any sixteenth-century monastery, however, have the ruins or foundations of these separate school buildings been uncovered. The lack of any physical trace of external schoolrooms has led to inconclusive and conflicting opinions about their existence. 7 More likely, the elitist boarding school was within the walls of the cloister building itself, an assertion supported by Motolinia. Unlike the commoners who were instucted in the atrios, Motolinia (1970:270) states that the offspring of the upper classes were taught apart "in the rooms of the monasteries" (en las salas de las casas). In short, there appears to have existed a variety of solutions to meet the need for indoor classrooms. Given Motolinia's comment that "rooms of the monastery" were used, access to the cloister itself must have been permitted. We can conclude, therefore, that the lower cloister was available to those native individuals who were either in service to the friars or were to receive further education. Like the church, the lower cloister was

FIG. 126. Second-story floor plan, Malinalco. Erected during the second building stage

open to those who had professed their loyalty to the new religion; as such, both areas were "semipublic" in their accessibility. Recognizing the audience for w h o m the murals were intended will help explain their purpose. Before doing so, however, the themes and locations of all the murals found at Malinalco will be related to an internal programmatic scheme and to other Augustinian monasteries. There are enough thematic similarities between different monasteries to conclude that source materials, such as graphics and illustrated books, were shared or that the master painters who supervised the teams of muralists were itinerant, as discussed in chapters 3 and 4. Although we will be seeking relationships, it is true that no two houses among any of the orders duplicate exactly their mural cycles. Differences exist in the choice, interpretation, and execution of m o nastic murals that suggest that the friar, generally the prior, responsible for determining the imagery at a particular monastery, was given a great deal of latitude. The autonomy displayed by each monastery in the selection of mural themes was in part a result of the competition that existed between monastic towns and among the orders. This competitive spirit encouraged unique as well as "sumptuous" building and decorative schemes. Diversity in mural subject matter was also a response to a particular monastery's site and local history. Mural subject matter, therefore, might also include the peculiar topography of a region, the racial characteristics of a specific congregation, noteworthy local historical occurrences, or a mythology unique to a monastic site. If an iconographical program was prescribed by the Augustinian hierarchy, and there is no record that such was the case, it was loosely defined. More likely, based on the general correspondences between the typology of murals and their locations within a monastery, precedents established both in Spain and among neighboring monasteries in Mexico determined what was painted and where it would be placed.

(c. 1580s).

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THE MALINALCO PROGRAM

MURAL

Porteria Murals At Malinalco both the architecture and murals of the portico chapel are important for their allusion to the first Augustinian friars to arrive in the New World. Newly uncovered frescoes verify the symbolism of the porteria's seven undifferentiated arches (fig. 123). Of the original seven friars who landed in Mexico on May 12, 1533, the names of three and the portraits of two of the friars are still preserved on the painted inner sides of the supporting piers. As if to emphasize the association of the arches in the portico chapel with the seven friars, each portrait is centered within a painted archway (plate 11). Beginning with the pier found closest to the church, the damaged inscription reads as follows: These are the seven friars [religious] who came to preach the gospel in the year 1532, the emperor Charles V being king and the Pope Clement VII, and the General of our order Fray Gabriel [Venet]o. Pumal de Cast [ ? ] . . . Fray Francisco Do . . . , [Vice]roy Don Antonio Mendoza . . . Monastery, the year of our Lord [?].8 The inscription records the year, 1532, when the Augustinians were granted permission to send a group of friars from Spain to participate in the evangelization of the new colony. It also correctly names the three most important figures in the decision to grant the Augustinians a license for the New World: the king of Spain, the pope, and the ruling general of the Augustinians, Fray Gabriel Veneto. The first viceroy of Mexico, Don Antonio de Mendoza, is also included because the founding of Malinalco, in 1540 or 1543, took place during Mendoza's tenure (1535-1550). Regrettably the last few lines of the inscription are only partially legible, for they might have given us either the name of the friar who founded the monastery or the name of the prior who supervised the construction or the painting of the open chapel.

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O n the pier beneath this inscription is a portrait of a friar identified as the "venerable friar, Francisco de la Cruz," who had been selected by the Augustinians to head their mission as prior of the group (Grijalva 1924:34). The torso and tonsured head of fray Francisco are depicted; the prior is dressed in a black Augustinian habit and is holding a Bible and cross (plate 11). On the remaining six piers two other names of this original group of seven are visible, that of friar Agustin de Coruna and friar Alonso de Borja. Coruna is identified as "Bishop of Popay[an]" and is represented wearing a bishop's miter and holding a crosier. Coruna began his ministry in Mexico, becoming prior provincial of the Augustinians in 1560, and only a year later was named bishop of Popayan, Colombia (Grijalva 1924: xliv-xlv). The murals on the four remaining piers are lamentably destroyed, but it is almost certain that they recorded the names and portraits of the four additional Augustinian mendicants, Jeronimo de S. Esteban, Juan de S. Roman, Juan de Oseguera, and Jorge de Avila. The relationship between the architectural supports for the cloister entryway and the Augustinian figures was made explicit at Malinalco. The entryway was a logical place for a portrait gallery of the "founding fathers" in other ways. The porteria was the monastic area that bridged the profane world and the interior sacred space, an appropriate area for the Augustinians to memorialize their own entrance into Mexico. As discussed previously, their arrival in the New World was elevated to a providential, messianic level. Commemorative murals such as Malinalco's not only were considered historical records but were rooted in biblical history. Basalenque (1963:27-28) relies on apocalyptic literature when he compares the first seven Augustinians to the seven angels in the Book of Revelation (8:6). The seven trumpets of the angels are likened to the seven "tongues" of the friars bringing the sound of the epistle to the pagan world, once again emphasizing the apostolic nature of the mission. Grijalva (1924:485) mentions that similar portraits of the founders

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The Augustinian Mural Program 159 of the Augustinian college of St. Paul (established in 1575) were painted by the doorway. Another recorded example was a mural in the porteria of Atotonilco el Grande, Hidalgo, of "two friends embracing one another" and identified as Juan de Sevilla, prior of Atotonilco, and Antonio de Roa, prior of Molango, Hidalgo (Grijalva 1924:337-338). The priors of monasteries also had themselves portrayed in the company of the local rulers, or caciques. In the lower stairwell of Actopan, Hidalgo, the Augustinian Martin de Acevedo is painted standing next to two native leaders: Don Juan Inica Atocpa and Don Pedro Ixcuincuitlalpilco. Franciscan monasteries likewise had portraits of friars and important events in their mission history painted in their cloister entryways and open arcaded chapels. The baptism of the local native chiefs was a frequent topic in the mural narratives; Torquemada (1975, 5:116-117) indicates that this was the case in Tlaxcala and "such scenes were painted in several of our porterias." Kubler (1948, 2:378) points out that the portraits of friars and saints in highly visible areas served to declare the possession of a site by an order, as in the painting of St. Augustine and St. Nicholas in the entry way of the monastery of Teotihuacan in 1557. The glorification and legitimation of the newly established mission took several iconographic forms. The mendicant orders borrowed the medieval motif of the Tree ofJesse to display and authenticate their own genealogy. 9 In the porteria of the Augustinian monastery of Atlatlauhcan, Morelos, and the lower cloister of Charo, Michoacan, St. Augustine replaces Jesse as the reclining figure from whom the genealogical tree branches out to produce his spiritual descendants. St. Augustine, as father of the church, was often depicted literally holding the church and sheltering friars and churchmen under his cape, as in the porteria areas of Actopan, Hidalgo, Culhuacan, Mexico City, Atlatlauhcan, Morelos, and Cuitzeo, Michoacan. In an exception to the more common placement of this theme, at Malinalco the mural of St. Au-

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gustine sheltering the friars and churchmen under his cape (fig. 48) is on the upper level of the cloister in the prior's room or library. Augustine was also painted guiding the "Ship of the Church" (or "Ship of Friars") with his mother, Santa Monica, as in the cloister portico of Actopan, Hidalgo, and Culhuacan, Mexico City. The murals of the "Ship of the Church" have been interpreted to mean that the Augustinians arrived on the shores of "salvation and paradise" in the New World under the protection of their patron saint.10

Church and Lower Cloister Murals Passing from the entryway into the lower cloister at Malinalco, the viewer was intended to correlate the murals of these adjacent areas in two ways. First, the arrival of the Augustinians heralded the creation of the Utopian agenda depicted in the lower cloister garden frescoes. Second, the persons and deeds of the firstgeneration mendicants in Mexico were compared to the stature of the saints and past leaders in the early church. In virtually every cloister arcade of all three orders, the inner surfaces of the cloister piers (both lower and upper) were used to display painted figures of the most important saints, martyrs, and church fathers—the metaphorical pillars of the church. Only two of these pier portraits at Malinalco (in the northeast and southeast corners) are visible, and they are indistinct. Lacking specific attributes, the Malinalco figures can only be identified as a bishop and an Augustinian monk. In more complete cycles, the pier figures generally included the four Latin fathers or doctors of the church, Augustine, Ambrose, Jerome, and Gregory, as well as the four evangelists, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Each order singled out of the hagiology certain saints and churchmen for special veneration. One of the most popular saints with all the Mexican regulars was St. Christopher, who, by tradition, carried the infant Christ across a body of water; he became a symbol of the transoceanic mission. St. Christopher's legendary size and strength were por-

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The Paradise Garden Murals of Malinalco

FIG. 127. Church wall mural on south side of west narthex wall; sotocoro (beneath choir), Malinalco. trayed in oversized murals, often on the north walls of monastic churches, as in the Franciscan monastery of Santiago Tlatelolco, Mexico City, and the Dominican monastery of Santo D o mingo Yanhuitlan, Oaxaca. Escobar (1970:313314) ascribes the huge St. Christopher painted in the Augustinian monastery of Yuriria, Michoacan, to first-generation Augustinians, who were also "giants." The Augustinians gave particular prominence to St. Nicholas of Tolentino, a thirteenth-century miracle worker, famed for his preaching and work among the lower classes and the patron of the western province in Mexico. Originally the church nave walls of Malinalco were also decorated with a running frieze very

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comparable in design to the garden frescoes of the lower cloister.11 The single section of the church murals that has been restored (the west wall in the sotocoro; fig. 127) displays a similar compositional format. The murals are organized in horizontal layers, with the upper two grotesque friezes and band of Gothic lettering almost identical to those of the garden frescoes. Unfortunately, the widest central field, where the most important imagery would normally be placed, has been almost completely obliterated. A complete evaluation of the nave frescoes will have to await further restoration. The similarities in composition and subject matter between the murals of the church and lower cloister underline the fact that these areas of the monastery served a similar constituency. Natives granted access to the church were considered "separate" from the nonprofessed, or "pagan," population (Grijalva 1924:231). This distinction was applicable to the lower cloister as well, where there may have been an even more elitist connotation, since the natives who gained admission to the cloister were chosen to serve the friars or to receive more thorough indoctrination. The frescoes depicting the terrestrial paradise, then, could be seen by the general and nonprofessed populace through the open doorways and passageways, but were experienced in their totality only by the friars and those natives received into their confidence. Stairwell

Mural

The monumental stairwells that connect the lower and upper floors in sixteenth-century cloisters also provided ample wall space for murals. Here the mural subject matter was chosen primarily to benefit the Augustinian friars and thus suited their educational background. 12 Although the wall murals have disappeared at Malinalco, a ceiling fresco has been uncovered over the stairwell. Within a circular frame, a large bird is shown hovering over four chicks (plate 5), a composite image that is similar to the European motif of the pelican feeding its brood. A comparison of the Malinalco mural (fig. 128)

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and a European rendering of the motif (fig. 129) reveals similarities in the stance of the bird, with arched neck and out-spread wings, and the nested chicks below. Traditionally the fabled love of the pelican for its young caused it to pierce its breast and nourish the chicks with its own blood. In Christian iconography, the reputation of the pelican for selfless giving made it a symbol for the virtue of charity {caritas) as well as an appropriate image for Christ's sacrifice. The pelican feeding its young was represented in all media, including fifteenth- and sixteenthcentury engravings. 13 In Europe the sculpted or painted image of the pelican was placed at the keystone of arches or the apex of vaults, just as it is found in the center of the stairwell ceiling at Malinalco. This symbol was also used as a printer's mark by German, French, and Spanish printers; one such device was adopted by two Barcelona printers working in the early sixteenth century, Diego Gumiel and Pedro Posa (Lyell 1926:62, plate 47).14 A comparable printer's mark offers the most plausible explanation for the transfer of the pelican motif to sixteenthcentury Malinalco.

St. Augustine's commentary on the Christian message of the pelican legend contains two aspects relevant to the mendicant mission in Mexico. The pelican not only symbolized the solitary life and sacrificial death of Christ himself (St. Augustine 1871, 9:470, 474-475), but also epitomized the lonely lifestyle of a true Christian, as in the biblical verse "I am like a pelican in the wilderness" (Psalm 102:6). Both facets of the pelican motif served as reminders to the Mexican Augustinians of their calling: the martyred life required of the friar as well as his isolation within a non-Christian, sometimes hostile population. 15 Although the message of the pelican motif was intended principally for the friars themselves, at Malinalco it was produced by a native artist who fused indigenous beliefs with the Christian image. Evidence for this is found in the encircling frame design that is made up of two interlaced bands from which radiate multiple stems, each tipped with an oval shape (fig. 128). This interwoven motif with spikes is the preconquest symbol for the Nahuatl malinalli, or "twisted grass" (Molina 1977:51^, the

FIG. 128. Drawing of medallion with pelican motif and malinalli symbol around frame. Stairwell ceiling mural, Malinalco.

FIG. 129. Pelican motif as fifteenth-century printer's device. Title page of Paris E Viana (Barcelona: Diego Gumiel, c. 1494). From Lyell 1926: fig. 47. Reproduced with permission of Hacker Art Books.

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root of the word Malinalco, or "place of mailnalir (fig. 130). In the twisted bands of this toponym, the native artist, presumably a local inhabitant, not only asserts his allegiance to his altepetl, or city, of Malinalco but claims the monastery as a local achievement. Native workmanship is also betrayed in the subtle reworking of the "pelican" itself, an interpretation that casts doubt on the bird's pedigree and its Christian symbolism. The bird's short hooked beak and crested head bear strong resemblance to a bird of prey, either an eagle or eagle-hawk, thereby merging the preconquest supernatural powers of the eagle with the Christological significance of the European pelican. For the Aztecs, the eagle was the emblem for one of their elite warrior organizations in the service of Huitzilopochtli, warriors who were held to be "servants of the sun"; conversely, the sun itself was referred to as an "ascending eagle." 16 The ancient significance of the eagle was not lost on the inhabitants of the valley of Malinalco, who had only to refer to the stone sculptures of eagles in the monolithic Temple I at the Aztec site nearby. Eagle imagery, then, designating both the ruler and the sun for the Aztecs, became a convergent symbol readily identified with Christ by both native and friar; similarly, the Christian God was portrayed as the sun in many regions of Mexico. In her analysis of the images of Andean colonial life in Guaman Poma's 1615 Nueva Cronica, Adorno (1981, 1990) describes the appropriation of Christian icons by native artists for their own purposes. Relevant here is the depiction by Guaman Poma of the Dove of the Holy Spirit as a falcon to reflect Guaman's ("falcon") coat of arms. According to Adorno (1981:97), when a Christian symbol is fused with the indigenous, such as the hybridized dove-falcon, the image "mediates between Andean culture and foreign values." The syncretic pelican-eagle medallion on the Malinalco stairwell is well situated as it too bridges the space between the native and European symbol systems. Ultimately, in native eyes, the powerful associations of the eagle must

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B

y^>

—Ky

FIG. 130. Glyph and toponym in which malinalli is rendered by a twisted grass image; A, Malinalca from Codex Boturini 1964, 2: plate 3; B, Malinaltepec from Codex Mendoza 1938: fol. 16.

have subverted the orthodoxy of the pelican icon. The intended Christian symbolism of the pelican feeding its young was also transitional in its iconographic references to both the lower cloister paradise garden, with its Tree of Life, and to the Passion scenes on the second cloister level. Like the Tree of Life, with which it was frequently associated, the pelican connoted the new life in Christ's sacrifice; the pelican could also symbolize the crucified Christ and, as such, appeared on top of the cross in Christian iconography. 17 By means of the stairwell mural the Old Testament Garden of Eden and the New Testament message of the Crucifixion were linked theologically and pictorially. Upper Cloister Murals The monumental stairway leads upstairs to the area set aside for the friars' private quarters. As a rule, the four heads, or testerae, of the cloister walks, both upper and lower, were decorated with devotional objects, generally in the sixteenth century with wall paintings representing the life or Passion of Christ. Sometimes these murals are found painted in the lunettes under

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The Augustinian Mural Program 163 the corner groin vaults or in shallow arched niches. All of the testerae frescoes at Malinalco are at least partially recognizable and allow us to reconstruct the counterclockwise sequence of the Passion scenes, numbered 1 to 8 in the upper cloister plan of figure 126. Scenes of the Passion are in the following order: (1) Agony (or Prayer) in the Garden of Gethsemane, (2) Washing of the Apostles' Feet, (3) Christ with the Cross (or the Sudarium?), (4) Crucifixion, (5) Descent from the Cross, (6) Pieta, (7) Resurrection, and (8) Ascension. Of the eight original testerae murals, three are still in good condition: the Agony in the Garden (plate 10), the Crucifixion (plate 9), and the Resurrection. Testerae murals served as stations for the meditations and prayers or Canonical Hours required daily of the mendicants. The cult of the stations of the cross was established in Northern Europe in the fifteenth century with a spiritual movement known as Devotio moderna. Based on the earlier writings of the Franciscan scholar St. Bonaventure, meditations on Christ's passion became part of daily prayers, with religious images used to induce such meditations. The D o minican Davila Padilla, writing between 1589 and 1596, records the practice of meditating before painted devotional figures (in Kubler 1948, 2:378). Children were taught to pray, kneeling before images of Jesus Christ and the Virgin Mary on the walls before them (Mendieta 1945, 2:60-61). At Malinalco the presence of the figure of St. Augustine, kneeling in a position of humility and reverence in each of the testerae Passion murals, provides a visual example for this practice. A study of the sequence of testerae murals suggests that they followed prescribed liturgical patterns along directional routes in the cloister walks, perhaps serving as the friars' personal version of the outdoor processional route laid out along the four sides of the atrio. In the atrio, the four corner chapels (posas) were open on the side facing the processions, which generally moved counterclockwise. Thus, the priest and congregation always faced the devotional image found over the altars in each of the chap-

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els (McAndrew 1965:280-293) o r m wall niches if posas were absent. These painted scenes, often from the Passion of Christ, may have also been used by the friars in periods of penance. Grijalva (1924:323) describes the rites of self-mortification (scourging, whipping, bleeding) that were performed while "contemplating the agonies of Christ" in the painted outdoor oratories. Although the sequence of testerae murals is not chronologically consistent at Malinalco, there is a preference for the counterclockwise arrangement in most Augustinian monasteries. The testerae murals of six complete or near complete Passion cycles (at least six of the eight murals in readable condition) were surveyed. O f these, two are arranged in clockwise fashion (the New Cloister of c. 1560 at Acolman, Mexico, and Tezontepec, Hidalgo), three in counterclockwise order (Malinalco, Mexico, Meztitlan, Hidalgo, and Atotonilco, Hidalgo), and one with no apparent sequence (Epazoyucan, H i dalgo). Only in one case (Meztitlan, Hidalgo) is the order of the murals in total conformity with the actual narrative of the Passion Week episodes. In most cases, however, inconsistencies are minor and involve only one of the Passion events. At Malinalco, for example, the Prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane (1) precedes rather than follows the mural of the Washing of the Apostles' Feet (2), an event that occurred at the Last Supper prior to Christ's withdrawal to Gethsemane. Scenes from the Passion were also painted in shallow arched niches located in both lower and upper cloister walks (fig. 39). Many of these corner-wall depressions are today vacant, as are those in the lower cloister at Malinalco (fig. 40). These niches also face toward a viewer moving in a counterclockwise direction, an arrangement indicating that the lower cloister also served a liturgical function. It is important to remember that at Malinalco these niches were built during the first building stage when the cloister complex was limited to a single story and thus included the friars' private quarters. The mural themes at Malinalco were con-

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ceived of as a unitary scheme, not only appropriate to their architectural settings but coordinated with the other murals. The paradise-garden murals of the lower cloister and related botanical designs in the church were painted at the completion of the first building stage, soon after 1571. During the addition of the upper story, portions of the garden frescoes were trimmed and obscured by the masonry staircase. The entry way and lower cloister paradise murals, therefore, were in place before the stairwell and second story were constructed and the upper cloister frescoes executed. The chronological differences could not have been more than a decade and the final mural program was unified thematically. 18 The commemorative portraits in the cloister entrance proclaimed to the general public the establishment of the Augustinian mission. The entryway murals served also to preface the hagiology and paradise-garden theme of the lower cloister, an area, like the church, reserved for the friars and native converts. Within the cloister, the stairwell mural reminded the friar of the sacrifice required of his calling. Finally, the Passion murals of the upper private quarters provided appropriate stations for the private prayers and meditations of the mendicant community. AUGUSTINIAN ESCHATOLOGICAL

MURALS

Malinalco's garden frescoes are a singular rendering of the paradise theme. However, murals (extant or documented) in five other Augustinian houses also represent an aspect of the ideal Christian community sought by the mendicants. These murals can be interpreted as allegories of the eremitic life that combined the friars' millenarian concerns with connotations of paradise. They are related to Malinalco's lower cloister frescoes under the rubric of Utopian representations; all but one that share this general theme are located in the lower cloister, or porteria, areas of the monasteries. The monastery of Culhuacan, Mexico City,

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FIG. 131. Two Augus tinian friars. Detail of mural depicting the eremitic life, lower cloister, Culhuacan, Mexico City.

has murals that are idealized representations of the eremitic life painted in c. 1576 in the corners of its lower cloister (plate 12). Throughout the pastoral landscape scenes, black-robed Augustinian friars are engaged in activities associated with their vows and their monastic duties: prayer, teaching, agricultural work, reading, and contemplation (fig. 131). Deer, rabbits, and a lion share the idyllic setting with man in harmonious coexistence reminiscent of the peaceable kingdom. In another such "Allegory of the Eremitic Life," in the monastery of Actopan, Hidalgo, the landscape scene is populated by single and grouped religious figures, including St. Augustine preaching to a group of friars (fig. 132).19 Like the Culhuacan murals, members of the clergy are shown involved in typical

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The Augustinian Mural Program 165 monastic activities, sharing the natural setting with various animals, including a lion. Hermits are also included, some shown in caves. The underlying paradise theme at Actopan is supported by references to the presence of "sin" in the inclusion of serpents and a "devil" with cloven feet and horns (depicted as a native merchant carrying his wares with a tumpline). Upon examination of the landscape features, it is also clear that the wall painting is not exclusively allegorical. The rocky outcroppings in the upper left side of the murals match the topography immediately in front of the Actopan cloister. The bucolic landscape with paradisaical connotations was intended to be place-specific to the Augustinian house at Actopan. The Augustinian chronicler Escobar reported on similar frescoes in two other Michoacan monasteries, those of Charo and Cuitzeo. His commentary gives us some insight into their relevance for the New World mission and their function. Escobar (1970:421, 436) describes the landscape in the Charo mural as a "mountain, like the hills of Tagaste, with great resemblance to those of Egypt of Tebaid." Tagaste (in present-day Algeria) was the birthplace of St. Augustine in the fourth century, and Thebaid, the area of upper (southern) Egypt known as the birthplace of monasticism. Escobar intended to equate the Mexican church with the genesis of Augustinian rule as well as with the paradigmatic monasticism of Thebaid. 20 The allusion to desert monasticism in these Augustinian murals represents a continuation of what Williams (1962) calls the "wilderness paradise tradition." The metaphors of desert and paradise garden set up polar yet interrelated themes. In the early Christian church, the deprivation and simplicity of the hermitic life was thought to lead to harmony with the Creator and the universe, a state compared to experiencing paradise. In these murals of eremitic life the friars are shown peacefully coexisting with all types of animals, including wild species. The idea of the monk's cell and the monastery as a "cloistered paradise" replaced the desert tradition in the twelfth cen-

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tury. "Wilderness-paradise" theology gained renewed currency when the New World offered the opportunity to regain "paradise"—that is, to be redeemed—by enduring the rigors of an untamed and untainted environment. The friars' pivotal role in bringing to fruition their Utopian aspirations is best conveyed by a somewhat atypical mural in this group of Augustinian Utopian representations. This mural, a narrow panel located in the southwest corner of the upper cloister at Acolman, Mexico, depicts an Augustinian friar standing in front of the crenellated silhouette of a monastery that may have been Acolman itself (fig. 133). A garden below the monastery is indicated with great economy by a few trees and flowering plants, in which are also rabbits, a crane, a stag, and a fe-

FIG. 132. Detail of St. Augustine teaching in the mural of the eremitic life; lower right, head of horned "Devil" with forked tongue in the guise of a native bearer. Lower cloister, Actopan, Hidalgo.

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line. The friar is placed behind a wall; in his hands are a conspicuously large set of keys, an important clue in deciphering this enigmatic "garden panel." The garden here can be read as not only part of the monastery complex but also as a symbol, along with the monastery, for the mendicant program in the New World. Moreover, access to the fruits of the garden was clearly controlled by the mendicants; it was they who held the keys to the terrestrial paradise. Scenes of the creation of the world, including possibly Adam and Eve in the Genesis paradise, are among the earliest colonial murals, documented to 1539 in the Franciscan chapel of Tlaxcala (Motolinia 1970:238). However, to date, murals of the eremitic life have been uncovered only in Augustinian monasteries. These wall paintings reflect not only mendicant idealism but the Augustinian confidence in the spiritual capacity of the native population. Of the three orders, the Augustinians most trusted their neophytes' ability to absorb religious instruction, and they were also the most lenient in allowing native participation in all the sacraments. The friar Escobar suggested that Augustinians thought it possible for native believers to grasp mystical concepts and even allowed them to be initiated into the contemplative life. The imagery in the "mystic life" mural, Escobar (1970:355) wrote, taught the Indians to understand the "spiritual ladder," an allusion to the handbook on ascetic life by the mystic St. John Climacus (579-649). The writings of St. John Climacus were very popular in the sixteenth century; his Escala Espiritual para llegar al cielo of 1535 was one of the first books printed in Mexico (Torre Revello 1940:271). The "Spiritual Ladder" or "Ladder of Divine Descent" used the image ofJacob's ladder from Genesis (28:12) in order to outline thirty steps a monk must ascend in order to acquire a likeness of Christ. Two factors permitted the Augustinian friar to grant natives greater freedom in matters spiritual. For one, the writings of St. Augustine were used in support of the spiritual capabilities of all people. Even the Franciscans relied on Au-

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FIG. 133. Augustinian friar with keys and monastery. Detail of the "garden panel" mural, southwest corner, upper cloister, Acolman, Mexico. gustinian doctrine when they spoke of the pagan capacity for conversion (Torquemada 1975, 5:189). Second, their humanist education prepared the Augustinians to assume a relatively optimistic view of the native spiritual potential. This positivistic attitude is at odds with the stern paternalistic control imposed by the Augustinians on the native population; it conflicts as well with their vacillating views on the indigenous races. O n the one hand, Grijalva (1924:58, i n , 132, 153) describes the natives as base and uneducated, barbaric, and dim-witted. O n the other hand, in spite of their perceived limited intellect and uncivilized manners, Grijalva (1924:112, 124) claims the natives were capable of great spiritual understanding and "received the faith very well . . . and with great devotion." Grijalva appears to be incapable of interpreting (or unwilling to interpret) his atti-

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The Augustinian Mural Program 167 tudes and actions as contradictory or hypocritical. Nonetheless, the Augustinians did earn a reputation for greater tolerance and flexibility than the Dominicans and Franciscans on matters that concerned their parishioners' religious habits and salvation. In the murals of the eremitic life, the friars portrayed themselves as heirs to the glorious tradition of early monasticism. Malinalco's garden frescoes reveal a similarly idealistic vision even if, for lack of figures, the mural cycle cannot be as readily identified with the eremitic life. These Utopian schemes formed part of a larger body of eschatological views, a group of Augustinian murals that deal with the antithetical yet complementary themes of death, the Last Judgment, and hell. It is a surprise to find amid the luxuriant imagery of growth in the Malinalco garden frescoes a mural depicting the inevitability of death. In a confessional built into the north cloister wall is a painting of an Augustinian monk and Death as the skeletal reaper with his scythe (figs. 134 and 135). The image of the friar and Death was borrowed either from a published version of the popular Dance of Death (danse macabre) or from illustrations based on the Dance of Death in a devotional tract, such as a Book of Hours. 21 Death as the reaper appears in another lower cloister mural in the Augustinian monastery of Huatlatlauhca, Puebla, where a tall skeletal figure of Death with his bow dominates the right side and strikes down a cross section of colonial society with his arrows (fig. 136). Beginning with those figures closest to Death, distinguishable by costume elements and hair, they include male prelates (bishops), civic leaders and judges, Spanish colonists, members of both the regular and secular clergy, and, farthest from Death on the left, both European and native women. In literary and artistic representations, especially common as conventual murals in Europe, the Dance of Death taught that life was in vain and death democratic. Yet, in spite of this fatalistic view, life after death was confirmed. The Augustinian murals of Death as

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Reaper served not only as grim reminders of mankind's mortality, but of sin and, therefore, of the need for forgiveness and salvation. At Malinalco the message was appropriate to its confessional context. Only in the life of the spirit, the friar reminded both himself and the confessor, would the faithful be allowed into the "heavenly city" as promised by the wall murals of the paradise garden. Gardens fostered the spiritual growth of the monastic life that disavowed all things secular (contemptus mundi). The monastic goal was to avoid temptation and thereby climb the path, the spiritual ladder, to the perfect union with God. This ideal had been set forth by the fourteenth-century Dutch mystic Thomas a Kempis in his treatise entitled Imitation of Christ. Owing

FIG. 134. Death and Augustinian friar, mural on inner wall of confessional, lower cloister, north wall, Malinalco.

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FIG. 135. Heads of Death and Augustinian friar. Detail of mural on inner wall of confessional, lower cloister, north wall, Malinalco. Photo courtesy of J. Adrian Fernandez.

FIG. 136. Death, the Reaper. Drawing of mural in lower cloister, Huatlatlauhca, Puebla. From Vazquez 1975: fig. 7.

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The Augustinian Mural Program 169 much to the writings of St. Bonaventure on the spiritual life, Kempis encouraged the pilgrim to follow the example of Christ, to meditate on his life, especially his passion and death, and thereby pass from this world to paradise. 22 Kempis was well aware of the power of fear in achieving this goal. "If the love of God does not restrain you from sin, the fear of Hell at least should restrain you" was Kempis's unassailable argument, influencing not only churchmen but Christian iconography from the fourteenth century on (Gibson 1973 :49). Last Judgment scenes were painted on and carved into the west walls and portals of medieval cathedrals and churches as powerful reminders of "Last Things." In Mexico mural scenes of the Last Judgment revealed the personal fears of the mendicants and played an important role in the inculcation of the Catholic faith. The promise of heaven in conjunction with the more effective threat of hell and eternal damnation formed part of the mendicant program. Several Augustinian mural cycles juxtaposed episodes from the Genesis creation story, including Paradise, with horrific eschatological scenes. Murals showing the Last Judgment accompanied by the sufferings of the damned are located in the porteria of Cuitzeo, Michoacan (fig. 137), the open chapels of Actopan, Hidalgo, and Santa Maria Xoxoteco, Hidalgo (Gerlero 1978; Artigas 1979). Pierce (1987: 157-158, 170-171) also posits a now-lost Last Judgment mural in the church apse of Ixmiquilpan, Hidalgo. The presence of this theme vis-avis the nave murals would have acted as an appropriate finale to the allegorical battle between good and evil, justified the Chichimec War as a holy war, and underscored the friars' apocalyptic preoccupations. Grijalva (1924:659-660) reports on the impact of one of these Last Judgment murals in an unnamed outlying chapel dependency of an Augustinian mission church. The wall painting made friar Juan Vigue aware of his "conscience that accused and condemned him"; Grijalva adds that the friar was also reminded of his own mortality and the severity of the Day of Judgment.

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FIG. 137. Last Judgment mural. North wall of porteria, Cuitzeo, Michoacan.

The friars determined their mural programs to fit the function of those areas of the monastery loosely designated as "public" or "private." Fresco subject matter selected for the more public areas was aimed primarily at the native population and was, therefore, largely sermonic or pedagogic in nature. This included historical narratives that commemorated and glorified the orders as well as popular devotional images that were instructive, such as the Crucifixion or an iconic representation of the Virgin. By contrast, a higher proportion of the murals in the more private locations were inspirational and sacramental objects and included episodes in the lives of the Virgin or Christ, Old Testament scenes that heralded the New Testament, as well as esoteric, theological themes that were more relevant to a mendicant's educational background. Between these two "zones" of the monastery were the semipublic areas of the church and

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lower cloister. Here the imagery was selected with both the friar and the native convert in mind and, therefore, included a mixture of devotional and instructive themes. It is in the semipublic areas that the saints and scenes of martyrdom are most frequently depicted as well as the Utopian representations related to the paradisegarden murals ofMalinalco. Last Judgment scenes reveal a disquieting preoccupation with the approach of an apocalyptic finale. The painted scenes of hell and its physical torments have been tied to the devastating physical and psychological aftermath of the epidemics, especially the plague of 1576 in central Mexico, and the eschatological effects produced by them (Gerlero 1978:86-87). The

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message of salvation conveyed by the friars in themes of paradise gained in relevance as did those of death and damnation, because they were clearly linked to well-known events in Mexico of catastrophic consequences. The possibility of delaying the inevitable and achieving the promised terrestrial paradise was also recorded in bucolic landscapes such as the garden frescoes of the Malinalco monastery. Many of these murals were painted in the decade of the 1570s. The friars' obsession with death and the afterlife, and the urgency with which they tried to convey their message, must also now be related to the waning of their power in the last decades of the sixteenth century.

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Chapter Nine

UTOPIA

LOST

The Province [of Mexico] had attained as great a height as we could have wished for, because it abounded in monastic establishments, wealth, and buildings, . . . the munificence ofprinces, and in the number of devoted [faithful] of all estates. . . . But at the very moment when we should have been enjoying this prosperity, such numerous and valiant enemies opposed us, that the day was brought to a close and was converted into dark night. JUAN DEGRIJALVA

(1924:528-529)

In the final decades of the sixteenth century, monastic murals began to be whitewashed and hidden, a process that can be linked to the relative decline of the mendicant orders. External pressures that involved economic, social, and religious factors worked to dislodge the mendicants from their prominent status in colonial life and exacerbated internal problems within their own ranks. Ultimately these same forces prompted the effacement of the mural paintings. It has been proposed that the decision to whitewash the murals was motivated primarily by aesthetics; murals that had become "oldfashioned" were covered in order to accommodate the new vogue for oil paintings and retablos.1 Considerations of fashion did, of course, play a role in the replacement of wall murals. Easel paintings and retables were in demand in Mexico City and by 1560 could more readily be secured from urban workshops. Output had increased with the larger number of European artists and the availability of imported materials such as fine canvas and oil paints. The desire on the part of provincials to emulate the tastes of the capital city existed throughout the colonial

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period. If panel paintings were in demand in Mexico City, the clergy in outlying monasteries was encouraged to hang easel paintings over murals that were considered outdated stylistically. This evolution of artistic tastes is noted by Escobar (1970:358-359) in the eighteenth century: "In the corners of the upper and lower cloisters they put canvases executed in beautiful brushwork, with another very large one in the sacristy. Everything was painted, the entire convent having been whitewashed. . . . " He goes on to describe the main altarpiece at Cuitzeo as outmoded: "Then [in the sixteenth century] it was considered a marvel; today with the new works, it no longer appears so much so." However, the need to keep pace with current decorative styles was symptomatic of other, more profound changes occurring in Mexico. These changes threatened the preeminence of the mendicant orders. The complex ideological shifts produced by the Tridentine reforms and enforced by the Mexican Inquisition, the economic situation in Spain and its colonies, and the many challenges to the authority of the regular clergy were compelling factors in this process.

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MENDICANT

DECLINE

External Factors By the end of the sixteenth century economic and political changes in Spain had adversely affected royal policies and conditions in the colonies. 2 Additionally, central Mexico suffered two of its most disastrous declines in native population after the epidemics of 1576-1579 and I 5 9 5 _ I 5 9 6 . Many areas selected by the missionary orders were no longer rich enough in either natural or human resources to sustain largescale monastic enterprises. A few monasteries began to be abandoned as early as mid-century. Not only had the mendicants miscalculated the availability of friars to be put into the field, but the unanticipated loss of native life deprived them of needed manpower and revenue. Basalenque (1963:147) understood the difficulties when he wrote: "Since they [the natives] are the ones who sustain us, this [depopulation] is the reason we cannot continue the work and must cut short the mission of the monastery." In other monasteries work was left half-finished for decades because the population had been so depleted. As the native peoples diminished, the Europeans and mestizos increased, and another set of problems arose for the mendicant orders. Rapid Hispanization of social and political institutions further weakened mendicant authority. Unable from the beginning to maintain the Indian towns physically separate from the corrupting influence of all nonnative peoples, the regular clergy was now faced with a veritable flood of Spaniards into the countryside. It was the growth of new sectors in colonial society and the corresponding multiplication of institutions that led to inevitable clashes between the mendicants and other segments of the church and governing powers. 3 In the Hispanic scheme of things, each organization sought as much autonomy and as wide a field of action as possible. From the first, the friars pursued an independent course, a venture the civil authorities perceived as threatening. As early as 1525, the

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Libro de Cabildo in Mexico City registered a complaint against the Franciscans. The council accused the order of going beyond "matters of conscience" by becoming involved with the civil and criminal jurisdiction of natives (Maravall 1949:221). One of the most potent factors in the diminution of mendicant power was the increased strength and, hence, opposition of the secular clergy or episcopacy (the bishops and parish priests). 4 The secular clergy had not posed an immediate threat to the regulars because they were few in numbers. As locally born Spaniards came of age, however, many began to enter the secular priesthood rather than become friars partly because they could in that fashion be of greater service to the economic interest of their own families. As their numbers grew, the seculars looked jealously at the rights and congregations of the regular clergy. The friars' privileges came into direct conflict with the parochial system established by the Council of Trent, which reinforced the traditional prerogative of the parish priest to perform the sacraments. Nevertheless, in Mexico the regulars' right to preach and to perform all the sacraments, first conferred by papal bull in 1522, was reconfirmed by Pope Pius V in 1567 after the Council of Trent (1545-1563). 5 Bishops resented the fact that the friars had established territorial areas of jurisdiction (or doctrinas) that were independent of the normal diocesan establishment and felt excluded from the close communal ties between Indian and mendicant. They worked to displace the regulars in order to put the parishes in the hands of the seculars who operated within the episcopacy. With the increased availability of ecclesiastical manpower, the seculars received most of the new parishes. The friars, on the other hand, were not only anxious to maintain their rights but pugnaciously sought to extend them. Both sides aired their grievances publicly. The regular clergy complained, predictably, of the immorality and ignorance of the seculars, who had not been required to attend seminary

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Utopia Lost prior to the Tridentine reforms. The seculars, in turn, attacked the regular clergy for their irresponsibly sumptuous building program, for their meddling in civil affairs, for their inadequacy in serving the needs of the Indians, and for their opposition to the episcopal tithe (which benefited primarily the seculars). The friction caused by tithing stemmed not so much from the moral issue (as an unfair burden on a native population already paying tribute) as from the mendicants' opposition to any support for the secular clergy that might threaten their own position. 6 These charges are enumerated in a letter written to Philip II in 1561 by Dr. Anguis, a secular and secretary to archbishop Montufar (in Cuevas 1975:250-267). Anguis' complaints against the regulars included their scandalous personal lives and their tendency to "take the law into their own hands." Anguis admitted that rancor between the two branches of the church had grown to the point of blows, including a truly incendiary tactic taken by seculars who burned the Augustinian monastery of Tlazazalca with six friars inside. In spite of his bias, Anguis also conceded that the friars' missionary efforts had indeed been fruitful and that the secular ecclesiastics were often just as guilty of aborting cooperative ventures. To all attacks, the mendicants reaffirmed their rights as given in the papal mandates, often cited verbatim. In other words, the seculars and regulars engaged in the normal politics of rival organizations. For the first thirty years of the Mexican colony, the mendicants had enjoyed the sympathetic ear of the highest civil and ecclesiastical offices.7 A substantial portion of this loyalty and support began to shift to the secular clergy as the latter began to pose a viable alternative. With the first provincial synod of 1555, presided over by the archbishop Alonso de Montufar, the powers of the regulars were partially curtailed. The council forbade the sacrament of marriage to the friars, prohibited the further erection of monasteries, and to some extent began replacing a few friars with priests. 8 Countering this movement in 1557, the Augustinian friar Alonso

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de la Veracruz headed the mendicant opposition to the episcopal hierarchy. Veracruz complained of discrimination and reaffirmed the mendicant privileges before the Council of the Indies and the king in Spain. Veracruz's basic argument was that the pope had given the Spanish kings dominion to convert the "infidels" and that the king had chosen the religious as agents of this conversion (Ennis 1957:139-147). In the direct line of authority drawn from the pope through the king to the mendicants, there was no room for bishops and seculars. This reasoning, however, began to weaken when the king himself began to side with the viceroy and secular clergy. By 1574 royal orders required all friars to have a license to go to the colonies. Additionally, either the viceroy or the high court (audiencia) had to approve both the election of superiors as well as the numbers and locations of monasteries and friars for each order. 9 Thereafter, the extent of mendicant jurisdiction continued to be restricted, and residual control of the regular clergy slowly passed into the hands of royal representatives: the Council of the Indies in Spain and the viceroy or the governing council in Mexico. The power and autonomy of the missionary orders were further undermined by inquisitorial investigations into their activities. By the end of the Council of Trent, the Spain that earlier had been so receptive to new humanist trends was becoming a country dominated by the fear and orthodoxy of the CounterReformation. Books were censored, travel was curtailed as a means of isolating Spain from foreign ideas, and the Holy Office of the Inquisition brutally suppressed any activity considered heretical. 10 Although from the beginning of the colonial period the Mexican clergy and bishops claimed inquisitorial powers, a tribunal of the Holy Office was not formally established until 1569; in 1571 Don Pedro Moya de Contreras was appointed the first inquisitor general. 11 As it had in Spain, the Inquisition in Mexico became a powerful new institution with political functions; even the viceroy in Mexico was re-

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quired to take an oath to the Holy Office. The inquisitors general and the tribunal played a decisive role in undermining the doctrinal autonomy of the mendicants. The interests of the secular clergy were generally favored while the regular clergy became their most frequent target; charged infractions ranged from immorality to controversial sermons. 12 The tribunal of the Mexican Inquisition also tried cases of sorcery and heresy that included suspect foreign (i.e., non-Spanish) printers and artists. Such printers as Pedro Ocharte (1572) and Cornelius Adrian Cesar (1598) were imprisoned, and the tools of their trade, as well as their published works, were confiscated (Wroth 1945). In 1573 a royal decree forbade the printing of breviaries and prayer books in New Spain (Leonard 1949:198). The Holy Office also filed law suits against foreign artists suspected of Protestant leanings, such as Simon Pereyns (1568), Jeronimo Farfan, and Juan Ortiz (in 1572).13 Although the Inquisition lost jurisdiction over Indians, there continued to be confusion over the matter. Censorship was aimed at all things "pagan," a term made almost synonymous with "native" in Mexico. The fear of the persistence of heretical elements increased in the 15 70s and evolved into an antinativistic campaign. In 1577 Philip II banned all writing that preserved Indian customs, much of which was authored by the mendicants. In the following year, Bernardino de Sahagun's ethnographic works were ordered confiscated. The fear of heresy was abetted by the edicts on iconoclasm issued by the Council of Trent. These precepts against unorthodox images were fully implemented by the third Mexican provincial council of 1585.14 Impurity was to be avoided at all costs; any image that was not "based on dogma" or that could "scandalize the innocent believer" was prohibited (Camon Aznar 1970:418). The execution and sale of paintings by natives were suppressed, as possible defamation of the imagery. The third provincial council ordered that royal representatives (visitadores) assume the responsibility for "erasing"

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or "removing" those images that "represented apocryphal scenes or were sculpted or painted indecently" (in Gerlero 1978:87). Under this officially proclaimed dogma, monastic murals thought to be too profane or inspired by a protestant Bible or simply as products of native workmanship would have been suspect. The regular clergy, already struggling under severe pressures, became sensitive to accusations of an Indian bias. Pronative and antinative factions developed within the orders. The ambivalence toward the native races was one manifestation of the resurgent orthodoxy in the late sixteenth century. After the religious schism, the more ecumenical and humanistic ideas and practices introduced earlier in the history of the colony were forbidden; the writings of Erasmus, for example, were no longer allowed to circulate. Because conformity to established church dogma had political as well as religious implications, the clergy's approval and support of the native population brought its very loyalties to Spain under question. The regulars' need for royal support during this late period was particularly acute, and the pronative factions risked alienating the crown—their only consistent source of support. McAndrew (1965:88) has further suggested that the friars' ambitions to establish a theocratic state without the interference of Spanish colonists or secular clergy may have been considered a "quietly subversive ideal." Civil authorities, suspicious of the regular clergy's Utopian ideas, probably contributed to the mendicants' disestablishment. Those with any grasp of the realities of sixteenth-century New Spain, however, must long since have seen the illusory nature of mendicant utopianism. Internal Problems Changes taking place in the economic, political, and ecclesiastical situation of the regular clergy only aggravated the internal problems that had always plagued the mendicant orders. While sharing Utopian dreams, acrimonious internal arguments were constant over impinging spheres of influence. It was in the realm of pro-

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Utopia Lost cedural questions and political clout that differences of opinion often erupted into open hostility between the three sides. Territorial jealousy and conflicts over such things as the administration of the sacraments to the natives reached such a head that in 1558 no order was allowed to preach or evangelize in a village already occupied by another order (Ricard 1966:90-94, 243). In an attempt to dispel the charges that they were quarreling among themselves, the regular clergy presented a united front in a steady flow of letters to the king in Spain. The apparent disparity between the friars' original goals and the reality of the New World mission weakened the mendicants' resolve and their ability to meet the challenges posed by the external threats to their authority. Further demoralization occurred with the deaths of the "great ministers" from the first period of evangelization in Mexico, commonly referred to as the "Golden Age." After a lengthy recitation of obituaries, Grijalva lamented the loss of the mission founders. Compounding this tragedy, their younger replacements were said to lack the same zeal and vision. At the chapter meeting of 1560 the father provincial of the Augustinians felt he had to speak to the fact that the "early primitive spirit" had become "lukewarm" (Grijalva 1924: 298). Monasteries were left unfinished, because, Basalenque (1963:174) complained, "the priors did not have the spirit for the work." Not only did the second- and third-generation friars lack in spiritual fervor, but their discipline was dissipated. Although the numbers of the regular clergy had swelled, the newer members were said to be lazier and to have accomplished less.15 There was an attempt within the orders to correct the declining standards, investigations that caused divisive infighting among the Augustinians. In spite of these self-corrective attempts, however, the drift in purpose and lack of moral imperative became more debilitating during the final quarter of the sixteenth century. A fin de siecle malaise not only was symptomatic of the mendicants' own acute sense of failure but also made them vulnerable to outside

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criticism. More damaging still was the breakdown in the friars' credibility among the very indigenous populace they wished to serve. Z o rita (1963 :175), writing before 1570, already deplored this shift in the relationship between friar and Indian: "Besides, the religious are not the kind of men they used to be and so lack the authority and credit they once enjoyed among the natives. This is a major reason for the widespread confusion and disorder." The inherent contradictions within the Utopian schemes proposed by the friars, as well as the disparity that existed between the goals and the achievements of the program, further disillusioned the mendicants and invited censure. They had sought authority that went far beyond the salvation of the natives' souls in its regulation of native life. Inconsistencies between stated ideals and actual ambitions were certain to arouse condemnation. With a rare show of honesty, Grijalva (1924:530) admitted concern for those Augustinians who surpassed normal bounds of religious jurisdiction in order to feed their own appetites for power. By the end of the sixteenth century, the failure to realize the "spiritual conquest" had become patently clear to those friars who were beginning to assess their mission's shortcomings. Even they admitted to a few of the reasons for this failure. From the first they had deemed it imperative to eradicate idolatry in order to accomplish their dreams of a millennial kingdom. N o w they conceded that the persistence of preconquest religious practices precluded complete conversion to Christianity, a sine qua non of a Utopian state. The friars' original claim to have suppressed all pre-Hispanic rites gradually came to be recognized as invalid. Diego Duran (1971:118) warned his reader throughout his chronicle of the survival of pre-Hispanic rituals and beliefs: "All these things have been found to persist commonly without our knowing or understanding it, and this occurs sixty years after the end of paganism!" 16 After 1584 Sahagun made a painful admission: "At the beginning [there were] those who first . . . declared and affirmed

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that idolatry was totally destroyed, and assuming that such were the case, yet the evils and especially the things of idolatry sprout again and spread through secret caves . . . " (in Baudot 1974:183). In a spirit of realism, a wiser mendicant organization acknowledged its failure in stamping out idolatrous practices and beliefs. The outbreak of virulent plagues, viewed as divine punishment, was further testimony to the persistence of paganism. In addition to their punitive aspect, Grijalva (1924:214-215) interpreted the epidemics as one of God's signs, divine warnings to return to a chastened Christian state. WHITEWASHING THE MURALS It is not certain exactly when mendicant murals, including Malinalco's, began to be whitewashed, but by the time of Grijalva's chronicle, written c. 1621-1623, many had already disappeared. Few are mentioned in his text. H o w ever, Grijalva (1924:58) does speak of seeing "ancient paintings" in the hospital of Santa Fe, and other murals are known to have survived into the eighteenth century. In Escobar's chronicle, written before his death in 1748, the Augustinian mentions sixteenth-century murals at Charo and Cuitzeo, Michoacan, and also states that some murals, perhaps those at Cuitzeo, had been whitewashed and replaced by painted canvases.17 Some of these descriptions may have been passed on by older informants or copied from earlier accounts. More frequently, Escobar bemoans the "marblelike" white walls of the monasteries. Only one set of sixteenth-century murals allegedly survived without overpainting into the nineteenth century. In a 1934 study of the Franciscan monastery of Huejotzingo, Puebla, the older townspeople are reputed to have remembered the decorations left "by the first Franciscans" before the church was whitewashed (Edwards 1966:70). New monastic murals continued to be painted in a productive phase that lasted through the de-

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cade of the 1570s. The monastery of Meztitlan, Hidalgo, contains one of the few murals with an identifiable date, "November of 1577," painted at the base of the porteria fresco of the Tree of Life. Of the group of murals that described the idyllic eremitic life related to Malinalco's lower cloister garden frescoes, all can be dated to the 1570s. Malinalco's garden frescoes were painted within a few years after 1571, the murals of Charo, Michoacan, in the years preceding 1578, and the murals in Culhuacan, Mexico City, soon after 1576.18 It is not until the final two decades of the sixteenth century that production of monastic murals ceased and they began to be hidden from view. Although there was no systematic campaign to whitewash the murals in monasteries, it is most likely that the process began after the most decisive blows to the regulars' prominent position. The critical turning point in mendicant prestige occurred in the 1580s, although the 1560s and 1570s witnessed the first dramatic challenges to mendicant predominance in ecclesiastical matters. 19 Grijalva's (1924:528) fourth and final book accurately defines the period after 1583 as the era "in which great controversies and travails were suffered." The date 1583 was an important marker for Grijalva because a royal cedula in that year ordered that preferential treatment be given to the secular clergy in New Spain. Two years later, the third provincial council of 1585 set the future course of the religious life in New Spain by officially establishing the parochial system and giving the secular clergy ultimate jurisdiction, as detailed earlier. The friars' financial base was drastically cut; they were to be given no money but could accept alms "spontaneously" offered by the Indians and Spaniards. In fact, they continued to receive modest royal subsidies. In those cases where monastic churches were actually converted to secular parish churches, trauma could not be avoided; the friars lost not only their constituency and income but, in some cases, their homes as well. When after fifty years of indoctrination the

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Utopia Lost native beliefs and practices had not been eradicated nor had the Indian proven to be any more resistent to corruption than the lay Spaniard, the regular clergy recognized that their missionary effort had failed to attain its lofty goals. Because many of the mendicant chronicles were written in the late period, they reflect the regulars' frustrations. In the written evaluations two opposing responses emerge; the friar-chroniclers indulge in apologetics yet simultaneously paint an overly optimistic picture of their early accomplishments. Grijalva (1924:156), for example, extols the grandeur of the mendicant achievement by eulogizing on "such illustrious monasteries, such rich and sumptuous churches, and such well-disciplined Indians." 20 Similarly, Sahagun in 1587 writes to Philip II that the Mexican mendicant church is "authentic" (unlike Spanish monasticism) and concludes that "according to all, this was one of the most perfect Provinces in the order" (in Baudot 1974:173). The friars also bitterly denounced those they held as responsible for their downfall; they developed scapegoats to account for their failures. Most commonly, the episcopacy or secular branch of the church took the blame. Characteristically, Grijalva (1924:529) wrote, "The bishops, who until now admitted that they needed us and were grateful for our services to them, began to curtail our jurisdiction and to complain about our intervening in too many matters, and they went so far as to evict us from their service and their houses and even from our own [houses]. . . . " Additionally, the friars tended to attribute their lack of success to a flaw or innate lack in the native races. They had originally believed that within the "terrestrial paradise" of New Spain they would find untainted inhabitants qualified to receive the new doctrine. Their inflated expectations of the native spiritual capacities at the start of their mission led to an exaggeration of native "incapacities" when those hopes remained unfulfilled. One measure of this negative evaluation was the fact that a native priesthood never evolved in Mexico. Not only was the Spanish community opposed to having

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native priests, but the friars themselves opposed native ordination. 21 The mendicants' growing frustration with their neophyte population only highlights their doomed expectations. The earliest stage of the church in Mexico was looked upon as a halcyon period of heroic dimensions when compared with the fading glory of the late sixteenth century. In his final book, Grijalva (1924:528) reverses his initial metaphor of the "light of Christianity" that had arrived with the Spaniards to deplore the conversion of day into a night of "turbulance and fear." Mendieta (1945, 3:223) compares the fall of the Indian commonwealth with the fall of the New Jerusalem and laments the transformation of the churches' "vineyard" into a "wasteland." When the monastery of Tiripitio, Michoacan, burned down in 1640, Escobar (1970:108) wrote that paradise for the friars, as for Adam and Eve, was also destroyed. The common denominator among the reformed branch of the mendicant orders in Mexico was their view of the New World as precisely that: a new beginning. It was an opportunity to establish a church based on the preConstantinian or apostolic model and ruled by the friars. With an evangelical imperative, the sixteenth-century Mexican church pursued its goals to convert the natives as well as to implant Spanish culture and dominion for the crown. From the first the importance of patronato real to the colonies lay in the inseparable role of church and state. The church was seen as an appendage of the crown, and it was partly through the church, as an agent of civil power, that military conquest was assured. The vigilance exercised over the maintenance of patronato real involved political, religious, and economic gain—the latter obscuring, overriding, and even determining the humanitarian motives presumed in the responsibility given the Spanish kings for the welfare of the conquered peoples. The economic issue of native exploitation first aroused the p o lemic on the justification of the conquest and the colonization effort. In spite of a conflict in aims,

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both ecclesiastical representatives and conquistadores used their political power to sanction and achieve their ends. Monastic art flourished during the same brief period of time when the alliance of church and state was most viable: in the case of the Augustinians this period lasted from after their arrival in 1533 to the decade of the third provincial council of 1585. This productive half-century witnessed a monumental creative effort in the construction and decoration of monasteries. As the major patrons of sixteenth-century art, the church trained, commissioned, and helped m o tivate the large cadre of native artists who produced most monastic art. However, it was only in partnership with the remarkable skill and versatility of the native artists that mural painting made a significant contribution. The friars at all times believed they controlled the resources available to these artists—their tools, materials, and subject matter. Yet, although the murals' strong overall European character is unquestionable, a clearer picture has emerged of the artists, not as slavish copyists, but as independent participants and creative collaborators. Native painters could rely on their own heritage as tlacuiloque, drawing on a still-viable symbolic vocabulary and reinterpreting Euro-Christian themes in light of persistent cultural constructs. Malinalco confirms the surviving practice of using pre-Hispanic

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natural metaphors for categories of social hierarchy, supernatural beings, and afterlife destinies. While convergences of meaning between native and European imagery may have promoted the new Catholic faith, dual readings would have as readily, if surreptitiously, endorsed the resilient indigenous belief system. In this sense, sixteenth-century mural painting is a visual text with the same multiplicity of meanings common to all colonial dialogue. Monastic murals began to be effaced when the allied goals of the mendicant orders and the Spanish monarchy were challenged by a multitude of sectors both within and without the church. The need to destroy monastic murals corresponded to the more defensive stance taken by the regulars in the face of their declining prestige and to their sensitivity about a heightened antinativism in Mexico. In those monasteries placed under diocesan control, the desire to obliterate the murals and, thus, to hide evidence of native cooperation would seem logical. But what of the frescoes in those monasteries that remained in the hands of the regular clergy? For later generations of friars, contemplative mural themes such as that of the garden paradise of Malinalco would have been unwanted reminders of former aspirations that were now neither feasible nor desirable. In whitewashing the murals, the friars acknowledged that their dreams of paradise had been irretrievably lost.

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Appendix A

SIXTEENTH-CENTURY MEXICAN MONASTERIES VISITED

* Monasteries with frescoes or fresco fragments AUGUSTINIAN

MONASTERIES

*Malinalco, Mexico Ocuilan, Mexico (ruin) *Acolman, Mexico *Culhuacan, Mexico City *Tlayacapan, Morelos *Atlatlahucan, Morelos Yecapixtla, Morelos Ocuituco, Morelos FRANCISCAN

Tzintzuntzan, Michoacan Calpan, Puebla *Huejotzingo, Puebla

*Tecamachalco, Puebla *Cuauhtinchan, Puebla *Cholula, Puebla

MONASTERIES

*Tetela del Volcan, Morelos

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*Santa Maria Xoxoteco, Hidalgo (visita) *Tezontepec, Hidalgo *Ucareo, Michoacan *Charo, Michoacan Cuitzeo, Michoacan Tiripetio, Michoacan *Yuririapundaro, Guanajuato

MONASTERIES

*Metepec, Mexico *Huexotla, Mexico ^Santiago Tlatelolco, Mexico *Cuernavaca, Morelos DOMINICAN

*Totolapan, Morelos *Zacualpan de Amilpas, Morelos *Jonacatepec, Morelos *Jantetelco, Morelos *Epazoyucan, Hidalgo *Ixmiquilpan, Hidalgo *Actopan, Hidalgo *Atotonilco el Grande, Hidalgo

*Tepotztlan, Morelos

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Appendix B

FIFTEENTH- AND EARLY SIXTEENTH-CENTURY MURALS IN S P A I N

^Frescoes known from the literature (source given) **Frescoes seen and documented by the author SALAMANCA Escuelas Menores. Apsidal fresco, Cielo de Salamanca, originally in the library, by Fernando Gallego, c. 1479-1493. **UNIVERSITY OF SALAMANCA, upper cloister wall. Fresco fragment of San Antonio by Juan de Flandes, c. 1500 (Post 1930-1966, 4:41-44). **UNIVERSITY OF SALAMANCA,

**OLD CATHEDRAL OF SALAMANCA. A p s e freSCO,

Last Judgment, by Nicolao Florentino, c. 1450. *ALCAZAR, Alba de Tormes, Province of Salamanca. Battle ofMuhlberg by Cristobal Passin, 1567-1571. (Gomez-Moreno 1967:389). LEON **CATHEDRAL OF LEON, cloister frescoes. Series

of thirty-one scenes from the life of the Virgin and the Passion of Christ by Nicolas Frances, 1459-1468. Renovated in 1521 and 1561 (Post 1930-1966, 3:261-280).

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**SAN ISIDORO (El Panteon)

Capilla de la Santa Cruz or Sala del Tesoro Capitular. Two lunette frescoes of 1534 depicting San Isidoro, St. Augustine, and scenes from the Passion of Christ. Cloister testerae niches. Mural fragments of angels and saints. Late fifteenth century. VALLADOLID

PROVINCE

^MEDINA DEL CAMPO

SANTA CLARA (Franciscan). Cloister fres-

coes. Mid-sixteenth century (Garcia Chico 1961:183). LA MAGDALENA—Santa Maria (Augustinian). Wall frescoes in church, 15 54-15 59 (Garcia Chico 1961:195-198). ZARAGOZA of Zaragoza (La Seo). Frescoes by Tomas Peliguet (or Pelegret) in cathedral (1563); in the chapel, Adoracion de los Reyes (1566) (Angulo Iiiiguez 1954:183).

*OLD CATHEDRAL

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Fifteenth- and Early Sixteenth-Century Murals in Spain 181 TOLEDO

^HOSPITAL

DE LA MISERICORDIA,

Seville.

Fresco of the Last Judgment by Luis de Valdivieso, 1567 (Angulo Ifiiguez 1954:

CATHEDRAL OF TOLEDO

**Ante-sala and Sala Capitular frescoes by Juan de Borgona. Portraits of prelates and scenes of the Passion, 1509-1511, 1519. ^Cloister walls. Frescoes by Pedro Berruguete and Juan de Borgona, 1495-1519 (Parro 1857:653; Camon Aznar 1970:132138). Eighteenth-century frescoes superimposed. **LA CONCEPCION, Franciscan convent, founded in 1484 (Garcia O r o 1971:265-269). Capilla Mudejar. Late fifteenth-century frescoes, including Mass of St. Gregory. Cloister walls. Lower: thirteenth-, fifteenth-, and sixteenth-century frescoes. U p per: sixteenth-century Crucifixion and Pieta. Refectory: Last Judgment, sixteenthcentury **SANTA ISABEL DE LOS REYES, Franciscan convent, founded in 1474. Refectory frescoes: Pieta, Descent from the Cross, Last Supper, and Meeting of Anna and Joachim.

216). *SAN PABLO CHURCH,

Seville.

Virgen del

Rosario by Luis de Varga, 1555 (Angulo Ifiiguez 1954:215-216). **SAN ISIDORO DEL CAMPO, Santiponce, Jeronymite monastery. Frescoes in Patio de los Evangelistas, 1431-1436; Patio de los Muertos, c. 1450; and Sala Capitular, 1468-1492 (Post 1930-1966, 3:318-324). **NUESTRA SENORA DE LA RABIDA, Huelva, Franciscan monastery. Church and cloister frescoes, fifteenth century. *CAPILLA DE SAN GREGORIO, Alcala del Rio. Lunette fresco, sixteenth century. GRANADA JERONIMO, Jeronymite monastery, founded in 1492. Church frescoes by Martin de Pineda, 1520; choir painted in 1543 (Gomez-Moreno 1892:367-369).

*SAN

*ALHAMBRA

SEVILLE A N D ENVIRONS **CONVENTO DE SANTA INES (Clarisas),

Se-

ville. Upper cloister walk. Complete cycle of frescoes illustrating Old Testament scenes, c. 1530-1540. Retouched in 1853. CATHEDRAL OF SEVILLE. Virgin of Rosary and Road to Calvary by Luis de Vargas, 1555.

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*Tocador de la Reina, frescoes by Julio de Aguilar and Alejandro Mayner, 1539-1546. Frescoes in apartments of Charles V, 1537 (Gomez-Moreno 1892:89-90; Angulo Ifiiguez 1954:226-227). *Sala de Los Reyes, ceiling frescoes (GomezMoreno 1892:75-78).

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Appendix C

F L O R A IN T H E M A L I N A L C O GARDEN FRESCOES C: Cruz 1964 H: Hernandez 1959 S: Sahagun 1950-1982

Common Names NATIVE

3-

Medicinal

Botanical Name

Location

Sources

Talauma mexicana

East 2, South 1

C, fol. 53V H, 2:5 S, 11:20i, fig. 681

* *

Bombax ellipticum

East 3, South 1

C, fol. 49r. H, 1:145-146 S, 11:206, fig. 693

*

PLANTS

Yolloxochitl Flor de corazon El Huevito Heart flower Mexican magnolia Xiloxochitl Clavellina Red silk cotton tree Cacaoquahuitl Cacao

Theobroma cacao L.

East 3

C, fol. 38V H, 2:84, 303-304

*

*

S, 1 1 : 1 1 9 - 1 2 0 ,

4.

5.

Peterson_345.pdf 204

Tzapote Cochiztzapotl White sapote or zapote bianco Tolpatlactli Petlatolli Tule Reeds

Casimiroa edulis Casimiroa sapote

East 4

Typha Ancho latifolia L.

South 4

fig. 420 H, 1:92 S, 11:117, figs412, 413 C, fol. i8r H, 1:126 S, 11:195, figs. 640-643

*

* *

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Flora in the Malinalco Garden Frescoes 6.

7.

8.

9.

Atatapalcatl Ninfa Waterlily Nop alii Tlatonochtli Tzaponochnopalli Nopal Prickly pear cactus Nopalli Organo Organ cactus Ololiuhqui

Tlililtzin Manto de la Virgen Morning glory 10. Tecomaxochitl Copa de Oro 11. Huacalxochitl

Nymphaea flavovirens L. Nymphaea mexicana Z. Opuntia streptachanta Opuntia s. ficus-indica

East 3 and 4

South 4

H, 1:48:4, 5, figP- 445 S, 11:36 C, fol. 49V H, 1:311-312 S, 1 1 : 1 2 2 - 1 2 4 , 180, 210, figs.

*

* *

429-439, 599, 736 Stenocerius Weberi

South 5

Turbina corymbosa (Rivea) Ipomoea coccinea Ipomoea violacea L.

East 1

H, 2:74 S, 11:129, fig. 449 C, fol. 38r H, 1:346

South

S, 11:206 H , 1:142

Vaults

C, fol. i8v H, 1:389-391 S, 209, figs. 7 0 9 -

Phaseolus coccineus

Upper South 4

C, fol. 29V; f 49r. H, 1:66 S, 11:125, 132-133, fig. 460

Ananas comosus

Vaults

Muhlenbergia macroura

Exterior facade; vaults

Ipomoea coerulea Solandra nitida S. brevicalyx S. guerrcensis Philodendron affine Ph. pseudoradiatum matuda

710

12. Ayecotli/Ayacote Cimatl Frijoles indios Beans 13. Matzatli

Piria Pineapple 14. Malinalli Zacaton Raiz de Zacaton

S, 4:55

NATIVE AND EUROPEAN 15. Huitzquilitl Cardo Santo Thistle 16. Xocomecatl Ceoalchichiltic Grapes

Peterson_345.pdf 205

C, fol. I2V. H, 2:54

PLANTS

Native: Cirsium pinetorum mexicana European: Cirsiom

East 2

Native: Vitis tiliifolia, Vitis indica Domesticated: Vitis vinifera L.

All walls

C, fol. 32r., fol. 4ir, fol. 8v H, 1.377 S, 137, fig. 472a H, 1:319

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184

The Paradise Garden Murals ofMalinalco

Common Names

Botanical Name

Location

Sources

Medicinal

IMPORTED OR E U R O P E A N PLANTS 17. Acanthus 18. Granada Pomegranate 19. Rosa Rose POSSIBLE

Rosa var.

All walls South 4 and East All walls

IDENTIFICATIONS

20. Acocotli Chara huesca Dalia 21. Cempoalxochitl Flor de muerto Marigold 22. Coanenepilli Flor de la pasion Passionflower 23. Oceloxochitl Cacomite Flor de tigre Tiger flower 24. Tonacaxochitl Tonalxochitl Trompetillo Trumpet vine

Peterson_345.pdf 206

Acanthus A. mallis litifolius Punka granatum

Dahlia cav. Dahlia variabilis Tagetes micrantha

Passiflora jorullensis

Tigridia pavonia

Upper East 2

Upper East 2

S, 111214, figs. 737, 730

East 4

C, 185 H, 2:229-230 S, 11:148, fig. 522 H, 2:76-77

Vaults

S, 11:212, fig.

727a Pithecoctenium echinatum (Bignoniacea) Distictis buccinatoria (Phaedranthus buccinatorius)

South 4

C, fol. 54r H, 1:19:65 S, 11:175-176, 206, figs. 590, 695

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Appendix D

F A U N A IN T H E M A L I N A L C O GARDEN FRESCOES

Common Names i. Opossum Tlaquatl Tlacuache or Rat Quimichin 2. Monkeys Spider monkey or Howler Monkey Ogomatli 3. Coyote Coyotl 4. Deer White-tailed deer or Virginian deer Magatl 5. Rabbits Tochtli or Hares Citli 6. Snakes Coatl 7. Lizards Cuetzpalin

Peterson_345.pdf 207

Latin Name

Location

Sahagun 1950-^82

Didelphis marsupialis D. Mesoamericana Mus musculus jalapae

East 4 and South 2

11:11-12, figs. 20, 21

South 2

11:17-18, figs. 39, 40

Atelinae Alouattinae

East 3

11:14, figs. 26, 27

Canis latrans

East 4

1 1 : 6 - 8 , figs. 9, 10

Odocoileus virginianus mexicanus

East 3

11:15, figs. 28-31

Leporidae L. sylvilagus L. lepus

East 3, East 4, and North 5

11:12-13, figs. 22, 23

East 3 and East 4

11:70-72, 75-87, figs. 235, 236, 239, 240

East 3 and South 2

11:6, figs. 202, 205

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186

The Paradise Garden Murals ofMalinalco

Common Names 8.

Latin Name

Location

Sahagun 1930-1982

East 4

1 1 : 9 4 - 9 5 , figs. 3 1 5 - 3 2 3

N o r t h 4 and N o r t h 5

1 1 : 2 2 - 2 4 , figs- 5 5 ~ 6 o

East 1

1 1 : 2 4 - 2 5 , figs. 6 1 - 6 2

Tytonidae Tyto alba pratincola

East 1

11:46, 47, figs. 152, 154

Ardeidae Egretta thula

East 4 a n d S o u t h 1 North 3

1 1 : 2 7 - 2 8 , fig. 82

Anatidae Anas diazi

East 4

11:26, figs. 68, 70, 71

West 5 and S o u t h 5

11:48, 5 0 - 5 1 , figs. 159,

Butterflies Papalotl

BIRDS 9.

Parrots Thick-billed parrot Toznene 10. H u m m i n g b i r d s Uitzitzilin Colibri 11. B a r n O w l Chichtli Chiquatli Buho Lechuzo 12. H e r o n s C o m m o n heron "Snowy egret" Aztatl 13.

Ducks M e x i c a n duck(?) Canauhtli

14. D o v e s Inca d o v e Cocotli

Psittacidae Rhynchopsitta

pachyrhyncha

Trochilidae

Columbidae

163-166

or M o u r n i n g d o v e Uilotl 15. Birds of P r e y Falcon Quauhtlotli Eagle-hawks or C r e s t e d caracara Quauhtli 16. Finches R e d crossbill House finch Molotl

Falconidae

East 4

Accipitridae

East 3

1 1 : 4 0 - 4 1 , 4 3 - 4 5 , figs. 114, 1 3 3 - 1 3 5

Falconidae Fringillidae Loxia curvirostra Carpodacus mexicanus

East 4 South 4

11:48, fig. 157

wall E-3

11:47

East 5

n:53

Quachichil Sparrow Qacatlatli 17. Chachalaca Plain chachalaca

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Cracidae Ortalis vetula

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Appendix E

SIXTEENTH-CENTURY MURAL THEMES IN MEXICO AND PRIMARY MONASTIC LOCATIONS

Primary Locations within Monastery

Themes ORNAMENTAL

AND HERALDIC

"Grotesque" ornament Christian-Heraldic: Christological and mendicant monograms Geometric ceiling ornament (Serlio)

All walls and vaults

ESCHATOLOGICAL Last Judgment Paradise and Eremitic Life Apocalypse (Book of Revelations) Immaculate Conception/Apocalyptic Woman CHURCH

HISTORY

New World (Historical/Allegorical) Genealogy of the order (Tree of Jesse) Historical events and portraits of orders in Mexico European Saints, Augustinian martyrs, church fathers Founders of Orders Life of St. Francis St. Augustine Alone with attributes Sheltering friars under cape

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Capilla ahierta Porteria Church Lower cloister

Capilla ahierta Porteria Church Lower cloister Stairwell

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188

The Paradise Garden Murals ofMalinalco

Themes

Primary Locations within Monastery

With Passion scenes With "Ship of Church" "Mass of St. Gregory" Devotional Images of Virgin and Christ (including the Crucifixion) BIBLICAL AND Old Testament New Testament Life of Virgin Life of Christ Early life Passion cycle Classical Themes Philosophers Triumphs of Virtue

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CLASSICAL Stairwell Upper and lower cloister walks Communal monastic rooms

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NOTES

Chapter One.

Introduction

i . In Shiels 1 9 6 1 : 1 1 1 - 1 1 2 .

2. The full names of the three mendicant orders who arrived in Mexico between 1524 and 1533 are the Franciscans, or O.F.M. (Order of Friars Minor); the Dominicans, or O.P. (Order of Friars Preachers); and the Augustinians, or O.S.A. (Order of Saint Augustine). 3. The Augustinian monastery of Malinalco, Mexico, has been given at least three recorded names since it was called San Cristobal in the sixteenth century: Santiago Apostol, El Divino Salvador, and, today, Purification y San Simon. Because of such name changes, it is common in Mexico to call a monastery by the name of the town in which it is located, a convention that will be used here. The town's name (synonymous with the monastery's name) will be followed by the state in Mexico, such as Malinalco, Mexico. SAHOP (Secretario de Asientamientos H u manos y Obras Publicas) in Mexico was responsible for both phases of restoration at Malinalco; this department today is called S E D U E (Secretario de Desarrollo Urbano y Ecologia). Although portions of the upper cloister murals have been known since the 1940s, the garden frescoes were uncovered and major structural problems alleviated in 1974 and 1975 un-

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der the direction of architects Graciela Artola P. and Juan B. Artigas. Tests taken at that time indicated that similar murals originally decorated the narthex walls under the choir loft (sotocoro) and perhaps the walls of the church (Juan Artigas, personal communication). The second restoration program in 1983 and 1984 was also carried out by a SAHOP conservation team headed by the architect Gloria Alvarez and led to the discovery of further murals in the porteria, or cloister entryway, and the refectory. 4. Rojas (1963) and Angulo's pupil, Marco Dorta (1973), recognized the important role of colonial muralism in their surveys of colonial art but added little that was new to the understanding of sixteenthcentury frescoes. 5. Most notable are monographs on Actopan, Hidalgo (MacGregor 1955), Acolman, Mexico (Calders 1945), and Huejotzingo, Puebla (Garcia Granados 1934). 6. Although my essential arguments have not changed since my research was completed in 1985, I have incorporated intervening, often parallel advances in these areas. O n the means of production and social history of mendicant art, see Victoria 1986b and Reyes-Valerio 1989. A recent book on the Aztec, colonial, and contemporary periods of the valley of Malinalco includes the first published de-

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190 Notes to Pages 6-13 scription of the sixteenth-century monastery, written by Gerlero (1989). 7. O n the cultural "conquest," see Kobayashi 1974:145-146, 176; on the "spiritual conquest," see Ricard 1966. 8. O n the postconquest persistence of native elements see Lockhart 1973-1974, 1982, 1985; Anderson et al. 1976; Lockhart and Schwartz 1983; Karttunen and Lockhart 1980; Klor de Alva 1979, 1982; Collier 1982; Gossen 1986. 9. The very distinction between opposing groups of " w e " and "they" is called into question, favoring a definition of culture that embraces plurality and flux (Clifford 1988). 10. The give and take in a cultural interface with both sides represented is first described as a "dialogical frontier" by Tedlock (1983:324, 334), and is also applied to Nahua-European interchanges by Burkhart (1989:185-188). 11. O n the extinction of pre-Columbian elements see Kubler 1961. In a modification of his earlier arguments (1978), Reyes-Valerio (1989:164-170) concludes that the appearance of pre-Columbian features in colonial art is scarce, insignificant, and, when present, the work of older, less acculturated local artists. 12. O n the sources and nature of pre-Hispanic survivals in mural painting, I compare, in addition to Malinalco's frescoes, three cycles from the Augustinian churches of Ixmiquilpan, Santa Maria X o x o teco, and the open chapel of Actopan, all in the state of Hidalgo (Peterson 1987a). 13. For a discussion of the early twentieth-century mural movement as critical social realism, see Goldman I 9 8 i : x x - x x i , 1-11.

3. The cultural unity of the two valleys, those of Malinalco and Toluca, was reinforced by language dialects derived from the same Otomiana family (Carrasco 1950:11-13). For a full discussion of Matlatzinca society, language, and archeology, see Garcia Payon 1941, 1942-1943; Pina Chan 1972; Pina Chan and Brambila 1972; and Quezada 1972: pp. 37-72. 4. O n the Aztec conquest of the Matlatzincas, see Duran 1967, 2:267-274; Torquemada 1975, 1:244, 250-251; Codex Mendoza 1938, 3: fol. iov; Zorita 1963:266. 5. The Malinalcas are cited as one of the original tribes in the Aztec migration in the Codex Boturini (1964, plate 3), the Codex Aubin 0/1376 (1964, plate 4), the Codex Azcatitlan (1949, plate 3), and Torquemada (1975, 1:113). 6. In Andes de Cuauhtitldn (1975:16) and Historia de los Mexicanos (1973 170). 7. Malinalxochitl's son, Copil, had a daughter who reputedly married one of Huitzilopochtli's high priests, Cuauhtlequetzqui ("Flaming Eagle"); Cuauhtlequetzqui was also a name given to the second and/ or eighth chiefs of the wandering Aztec tribe (Chimalpahin 1965 : 55, 74, 273). The son from the union of Cuauhtlequetzqui and Copil's daughter married a Culhua princess (Tezozomoc 1949:52), thereby not only reuniting the blood lines between the Aztec and Malinalco but endowing the lineage with Culhua respectability. Further evidence for the unusual prerogatives allowed Malinalco can be gleaned from the appointment to Malinalco of a governor, named Citlalcoatzin, from the Aztec royal line (Historia de los Mexicanos 1973:62) and from the assignment of the Malinalcas to serve as an honor guard to Aztec rulers (Durbin 1970:155).

Chapter Two. Malinalco and the

8. See Codex Aubin 0/1376 (1963:50, 52) and Garcia Payon (1946:26-27). The most recent study of Aztec Malinalco by Townsend (1982) cogently brings together data from previous studies, including Garcia Payon's (1946) basic field work carried out in 1936-1939, Krickeberg's commentary (1949, 1:123-297), and Mendoza's (1977) study of the cosmic symbolism of Temple I. 9. See Grijalva (1924:191); Paso y Troncoso (1905-1948:143); Garcia Icazbalceta (1904:152); and Garcia Cubas (1890, 4:13). 10. In 1559 there were 212 Augustinians in 40 houses, 380 Franciscans in 80 houses, and 210 D o -

Augustinians

1. When Juan de Grijalva is cited, passages are from the second edition (1924) of Grijalva's 1624 chronicle; this and all other quotations from the Spanish are my translations. 2. A century ago a description of the Malinalco valley also included many varieties of trees, among them oak, cedar, pine, wild fig (amate), and the copal or incense tree. The forests then were still dense enough to provide hunting grounds for large numbers of deer, rabbits, and coyotes (Garcia Cubas 1890:295).

Peterson_345.pdf 212

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Notes to Pages 16-23 minicans in 40 houses (Kubler 1948, 1:54; Penalosa 1969:37; Ricard 1966:23). 11. The tally of Augustinian monasteries built by the end of the sixteenth century differs. Mendieta (1945, 3 :17, 208, 211) recorded "more than 70" Augustinian houses in one section of his history, and exactly 76 in another, out of an inflated total of 400 houses for all three orders. Other historians calculate the number of Augustinian establishments ranging from a low figure of 72 (Ennis 1957:29-31) and 73 monasteries (Vazquez Vazquez 1965:95-96) to higher estimates of 76 and 85 houses (Kubler 1948, 1:27, 60). 12. A viceregal decree of 1583 authorized the building of churches and monasteries with cut stone taken from temple-pyramid ruins (Garcia Payon 1946:13). There are no traces of a preconquest temple in or under the foundations of the Mahnalco monastery (personal communication, Graciela Artola P.), although blocks worked with stone tools and stones with pre-Hispanic designs are inserted into the walls and eastern apse of Mahnalco. 13. "Spiritual conquest" and the "church militant" were terms used by many of the chroniclers, as in Grijalva (1924:12-13, 57, 69, 119); Murioz Camargo (1978:267); Gonzalez de la Puente (1907, 1:64, 69-70); Torquemada (1975, 5:99-102). 14. It has been suggested that the monasteries' massive walls and crenellation offered protection from native rebellions (Ricard 1966:163-164; Kubler 1948, 1:81-82, 94-95). However, the handful of friars that inhabited the monasteries at any one time was not a match for a determined Indian uprising, and in central Mexico there was little fear of such an uprising. Nonetheless, in outlying areas raids of n o madic Indian groups known as Chichimecs did occur, damaging or burning monasteries and killing friars (Grijalva 1924:274, 599, 625; Basalenque 1963: 126, 147, 202). 15. The four principal Augustinian schools of higher learning included, with their founding dates, Tiripetio, Michoacan (1540), Colegio del Nombre de Jesus, Mexico City (1537), Tacambaro, Michoacan (1545), and Atotonilco, Hidalgo (1546-1548). 16. In addition to the three Augustinian friararchitects about w h o m there is general agreement, Chavez, Mata, and Utrera, four others were added by Gomez de Orozco (1927:42, 51): Juan Bautista Moya, Francisco de Villafuente, Rodrigo de Men-

Peterson_345.pdf 213

191

doza, and Alonso de Borja. Kubler's (1948, 1:128130) list omits some of the above but gives the following friars architectural responsibilities: Alonso de la Veracruz, the well-known theologian; Juan Cruzate, prior of Mahnalco; and Geronimo de la Magdalena. 17. Epazoyucan, Hidalgo, was erected in seven months (Grijalva 1924:157); Ucareo, Michoacan, took one year; and Tiripetio, Michoacan, two and one-half years (Basalenque 1963:63, 155). Acolman, Mexico, was founded in 1540, but it was not until the chapter meeting held there in 1560 that it was said to have been "recently completed" (Grijalva 1924:298, xliv). The mother house of the Augustinians in Mexico City took forty-six years to complete (Gomez de Orozco 1927:46). 18. The actual foundation date of Mahnalco is problematic as there is a discrepancy of three years in the chronicles. Our primary source, Grijalva (1924: 191), states that the convento was founded in 1543 (see also Kubler 1948, 2:512). Most commentaries, however, agree that Mahnalco was one of the m o n asteries established under the provincial Jorge de Avila, whose three-year term began at the chapter meeting of 1540, at which time Mahnalco would have been "claimed" by the Augustinians (Gomez de Orozco 1927:7; Vazquez Vazquez 1965:79). Both may be correct, in that the location for a monastery at Malinalco may have been designated in 1540 but not officially established as a parish until 1543. In the Dominican order there was a two- to eight-year difference between the assignment of friars to a site (asignaciones) and the formal declaration of responsibility for that location (aceptaciones), including the erection of a residence and church (Mullen 1975:30, 95)19. The Franciscan architect fray Juan de Alameda was also credited with four monasteries: that of Tula, Hidalgo, and those of Huejotzingo, Atlixco, and Huaquechula, Puebla; the latter three were within one day's journey of one another (McAndrew 1965: 334-339)20. O n these various Mexican sixteenth-century architectural styles see Kubler (1948, 2:383-416) and McAndrew (1965:171-174); on Purist architecture see McAndrew and Toussaint (1942). 21. The Gothic style that had prevailed in Spain during the fifteenth century continued into the sixteenth, when it merged with new Renaissance

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192

Notes to Pages 35-49

impulses from Italy to evolve into the hybrid plateresque (Camon Aznar 1970:11, 20-21). When exported overseas, plateresque was the most common style of the sculptural and painted decoration in Mexican monasteries, as described in chapter 4. Chapter Three. The Painters 1. In defining "native style" painting traits, Robertson (1959) used the Mixtec Codex Nuttall. Mixtec and Aztec pictorial works share many characteristics and have been subsumed under the general rubric of "Mixteca-Puebla style" (Boone 1982:155). H o w ever, the Codex Nuttall is thought to originate south of the central Mexican plateau, perhaps as far south as the Oaxacan region. This study relies on the images from the Codex Magliabechiano (Boone 1983) and Codex Borbonicus (1974), known to be closer to the Aztec style. 2. The growing competition from large numbers of competent native artists prompted a second set of ordinances. Both the first (1557) and second (1686) Ordinances of Painters and Gilders (Ordenanzas de pintores y doradores) are cited in Victoria (1986b: 151-166). O n guild regulations see Barrio Lorenzot 1921; Carrera Stampa 1954; and Victoria 1986b: 73-92. 3. Other Augustinian friars known for their retables were documented by name in Cuitzeo and Ucareo, Michoacan. The Augustinian Robedo of Cuitzeo was said to have been so skillful that he worked in other monasteries as well (Escobar 1970: 358). O n the other hand, Basalenque (1963:144) claims that Cuitzeo's altarpiece was from Mexico and was the "best and costliest in Michoacan." It is possible that these conflicting references were to two altarpieces at Cuitzeo. 4. O n Spanish fresco techniques see Post (19301966, 1:15, 2:196); Procacci (1968:19, 23); and Merrifield (1966:61-68). 5. O n the mixed use of colonial mural painting techniques see Moyssen (1965:20, 22); Carrillo y Gariel (1946:67-72); and Edwards (1966:65). Tests indicate that tempera painting was employed in the following sixteenth-century monasteries: Culhuacan, Mexico (Hernandez Saenz 1980:87, 108), Actopan, Hidalgo (MacGregor 1955:33-35), Ixmiquilpan, Hidalgo (Carrillo y Gariel 1961124), and Tecamachalco, Puebla (Camelo Arredondo et al. 1964:51-53). Au-

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gustinian chroniclers reported that tempera was used at Tiripetio, although it is not clear whether their references are to panel paintings or wall murals (Basalenque 1963 :6i; Escobar 1970:114). Gerlero (1982: 12) disputes the use of true fresco for murals in favor of the media of tempera, esgrafiado (scratching through the upper paint layer to reveal the lower), and, only rarely, oil paint on walls. It is clear that more research is needed on the chemical and technical aspects of colonial murals. 6. The use of cartoons in the pre-Hispanic paintings at Teotihuacan is mentioned by Miller (1973 :31, 178). Colonial muralists also used paper cartoons (MacGregor 1955:34; Carrillo y Gariel 1961:25; Moyssen 1965:22). Evidence of painting on amate or bark paper is also cited (Camelo Arredondo et al. 1964:50; and Reyes-Valerio 1967). 7. Caso compared the preconquest mural figures of Tizatlan with deity figures in the Codex Borgia (in Edwards 1966:36). H. B. Nicholson (personal communication) sees closer ties between the murals and the Codex Cospi. Although the relationship between scribes and muralists in the pre-Hispanic period is not well established, in the Maya area there are definite stylistic and iconographic affinities between manuscript painters, the poly chromed ceramic pottery (of the so-called "Codex style"), and certain murals (see Coe 1978). 8. Pictorial manuscripts and murals, often organized in horizontal friezes, were to be read as a running narrative. Bishop Landa relates how screenfold codices were used among the Maya: "They took the books out and laid them on a lawn kept for that purpose . . . when that was done, the wisest of the priests opened one of the books and examined the prognostications for that year and explained them to those present" (in Rodriguez 1969:72-73). 9. O n Nahuatl poetry see Karttunen and Lockhart 1980. James Lockhart drew my attention to the resemblance between the internal characteristics of the Malinalco song scrolls and the construction of Nahuatl poetry. 10. Emily Umberger first identified for me this sign in the vault murals as an ilhuitl. Nicholson (1955) studied the ilhuitl as it appears on preconquest stone sculpture of central Mexico and associated the symbol with the profession of tlacuilo. Thompson (1972:72, 88-89, 108-109) calls the ilhuitl a component of the Maya "celestial band." The precise mean-

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Notes to Pages 50-$g ing of the constellation of "celestial symbols" that includes the ilhuitl remains elusive and warrants further study. 11. O n the pre-Columbian calmecac education see Kobayashi 1974:66-98. O n the mendicant educational program, see Motolinia 1950:162, 243; Mendieta 1945, 3:66, 71, 4:54; Sahagun 1950-1982, 14: 77-79; Reyes-Valerio 1989:46-68. 12. See Carrera Stampa 1954:233; Kobayashi 1974:277; Lockhart and Otte 1976:119-123. 13. Only after the arrival in 1575 of a new general commissary, Rodrigo de Sequera, was the Franciscan Sahagun encouraged to renew his efforts to recopy the Nahuatl of his original text and add a Spanish translation (Nicolau d'Olwer and Cline 1973: 192-193). Book XI in the second bilingual copy (now known as the Sequera manuscript or Florentine Codex) is dated internally to 1576 in four places (Nicolau d'Olwer and Cline 1973: table 3). 14. The information on Dr. Hernandez's research methods and travels in Mexico was taken from Somolinos D'Ardois i960. Of the twenty-two original volumes written by Hernandez that made their way back to Spain, almost certainly all were lost in the Escorial library fire of 1671. In 1580 Dr. Nardo Recchi (or Reecho) was commissioned to revise Hernandez's work. It is from one of Recchi's three copies that an edition was finally published in Rome (1651) as Rerum Medicarum Novae Hispaniae (Somolinos D'Ardois 1960:202, 279). 15. See Somolinos d'Ardois 19511451. That both Malinalco and Ocuilan were visited by Hernandez can also be deduced from the numbers of plant specimens collected at each site. Malinalco is mentioned in the natural history volume as the source often different plants (Hernandez 1959, 1:3, 64, 70, 97, 141, 232, 271; 2:362, 130, 154) and Ocuilan as the source of fourteen specimens (Hernandez 1959, 1:63, 125, 136, 167, 283, 408, 418; 2:52, 78, n o , 120, 132, 150). 16. Scholars have rejected the possibility that a single artist, Agustin de la Fuente, a native of Tlatelolco, was solely responsible for the imagery of the Florentine Codex, in favor of a diverse group with uneven training and skills (Robertson 1959:176; Peterson 1988:275-278). This interpretation of the collective effort invested in the Florentine Codex coincides with Baird's (1979, 1988) conclusions about the workmanship on Sahagun's initial manuscript, the Primeros Memoriales (c. 1559-1561). Baird

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193

(1979:179-219) distinguishes six separate hands in the Primeros Memoriales based on selected traits in the treatment of the human figure. 17. In 1569 Juan de Ovando wrote: "They are such good Latin scholars that they have taught grammar for many years not only in this college [Tlatelolco] but in other regions with the regulars of all the orders [emphasis mine] . . . and they have served as interpreters to the Audiencias and . . . as assistants to judges and governors" (Steck 1944:50).

Chapter Four. The Sources 1. I am indebted to Elena de Gerlero and Elizabeth Weismann for their observations on the possible influence of tapestry design on Malinalco's cloister frescoes. Flemish tapestry design as a source for the sixteenth-century murals in the Casa del Dean, Puebla, has also been suggested by Kropfinger (1976:28-31). 2. O n the fifteenth-century discovery of grutesco designs in Roman murals, their impact on Italian painters and designers, and subsequent widespread imitation outside of Italy in the artistic media of graphics, tapestries, and frescoes, see Dacos 1969. 3. Sixteenth-century chronicles that mention preconquest murals include Las Casas 1971:10-11, 60; Anales de Cuauhtitldn 1975:8; Sahagun 1950-1982, 11:270; Zorita 1963:160; and Duran 1971:76. For a summary of the few examples of pre-Hispanic mural painting visible today in central Mexico, see Villagra Caleti 1971 and Gendrop 1971 ^ 2 - 9 5 ; the Aztec m u ral fragment uncovered in Structure III of Malinalco is described in Garcia Payon 1946:19-21. 4. O n sixteenth-century Spanish murals consult Angulo Imguez 1954:18; Post 1930-1966, 2:15, 4:198. 5. In order to see their original mural decoration, I was allowed to enter three cloistered (in clausura) convents of Catholic orders in Spain: Santa Ines in Seville and La Conception and Santa Isabel de los Reyes in Toledo. Permission was granted through the assistance of Dr. Enrique Valdivieso of the University of Seville and the Office of the Catholic Archbishop in Seville and Toledo. I am pursuing an expanded study of the influence of Spanish murals on Mexican wall painting. 6. See Serrera 1982; Gonzalez de Leon 1973:55, 63, 65, 431-434, 525.

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194 Notes to Pages 59-70 7. These ties have been verified by the similarities in the ground plans between the Salamancan Jeronymite church and the Mexican San Agustm (Kubler 1948, 2:286-288). Kubler (1948, 2:242, 274) additionally draws broad parallels between the building principles and proportions advocated by the Spanish architect Rodrigo Gil de Hontanon and Mexican m o nastic architecture, a connection elaborated by Mullen (1975:157-174) for Dominican monasteries in Oaxaca. 8. See Angulo Iniguez 1955, 2:358. In Spain arched niches that contain late fifteenth- and early sixteenth-century examples of Renaissance murals are seen on the end walls of the cloister of San Isidoro in Leon, in the walls flanking the entrance to the refectory of the Franciscan convent of Santa Isabel de los Reyes, Toledo (a "Pieta" and "Descent from the Cross"), and in the sacristy of the convent of Santa Ines, Seville (a "Crucifixion," dated c. 1500). 9. Italian Renaissance ideas penetrated Spain after 1500 and soon thereafter began influencing fresco design. The murals of the Italian-trained painter Juan de Borgofia, executed on the walls of the anteroom and chapter hall in the Toledo cathedral in 15051511, show a marked affinity with murals by the Florentine Ghirlandaio (Camon Aznar 1970:135138, 143). Traits of the High Renaissance did not appear in Andalusian murals until the work of Luis de Vargas (c. 1550) and Luis de Valdivieso (1547) (Camon Aznar 1970:402-406). 10. The influence of German prints, in particular of Martin Schongauer's engravings, has been noted on the following mural artists in Spain: Juan de Flandes (active 1496-1519) and Fernando Gallego (active 1468-1507) at the University of Salamanca (Post 1930-1966, 4 : 4 1 - 4 5 , 88-89, 98, 133-134, 138) and Alejo Fernandez (active 1508-1546) in Seville (Post 1930-1966, 10:12-20, 24, 62-66). 11. The convent of La Concepcion in Toledo was a Franciscan monastery until 1500, when it was occupied by the newly formed Concepcionistas, Franciscan nuns dedicated to the Virgin's Immaculate Conception (Garcia Oro 1971:265-269). 12. Kubler (1948, 2:374-378) stressed the derivation of most mural imagery from oil paintings and retables executed by professional painters in Mexico City. However, recent scholarship has confirmed the overwhelming influence of illustrated books, especially Bibles, and single devotional prints on six-

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teenth-century Mexican art. O n this see Soria 1959; Bantel and Burke 1979:30-36; Manrique 1982; Gerlero 1982:7-9; Victoria 1986b: 62-66; Pierce 1987, chapter 5; Sebastian 1989. 13. O n this see Leonard 1949:199-211; Fernandez del Castillo 1914:347-350, 39^-393, 398-399, 402-411. 14. In 1537 Juan Pablos (Giovanni Paoli) was sent by the Sevillan house of the Crombergers to manage their first press in Mexico City, but by 1548 he had established his own independent printing press (Leonard 1949:96-97). A second printer, Antonio de Espinosa, opened his office in front of the main Augustinian house in the capital. By the 1570s there were three other presses in operation in New Spain (Stols 1964:9, 20-21). 15. See Motolinia 1970:211; Romero de Terreros 1948:5. O n Spanish devotional prints, refer to Hind 1963, 1:34, 90, 123. 16. The early artistic ties between Flanders and Spain were strengthened by the virtual monopoly on liturgical texts held by the Plantin Press of Antwerp beginning in 1567 (Voet 1969, 1:28, 67, 213). Mannerist graphics had a greater impact than formerly believed, especially Flemish printmakers who collaborated with the printer Hieronymous Cock (1510-1570; see Riggs 1977). Among Cock's production, the prints of Dirk Volkertz Coornhert, Martin Heemskerk, and Bartolomeo O l m o (or Lulmus) have been singled out as the basis for the murals executed in the late 1570s in the Augustinian monastery of Meztitlan, Hidalgo (Victoria 1985:131-142). See also Sebastian 1989:56-78. 17. The Virgin of Mercy, or Madonna della Misericordia, was originally a symbol of Marian protection for Carthusians that was adopted by other religious communities in the fourteenth century. By 1500, the image of the protective Virgin of Mercy was being circulated in prints (see Hind 1938, 3: plate 315) and had become a common devotional image in Seville (Camon Aznar 1970:375). This image was also adopted by the early explorers as their protectress. In the well-known painting Virgin of the Navigators by Alejo Fernandez (c. 1530), the Virgin's mantle envelops Spanish and Portuguese explorers, among them Christopher Columbus, as well as merchants and native Indians (Angulo Iniguez 1954: plate 147; Post 1930-1966, 10:76-82). 18. Italian

engravers

whose

work

influenced

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Notes to Pages 72-84 195 Spanish and Mexican murals include Zoan Andrea (active 1475-1519), Agostino Veneziano (active 1505-1540), Nicoletto da Modena (active 15001512), and Giovanni A. da Brescia (active 14901525). See Levenson et al. 1973: plates 88-101 and 168-177. 19. In Hind 1963, 2:484, fig. 250. The Italian editions of Triumphs of Petrarch (Venice) came out in 1488, 1490, and 1492-1493, and in 1532 in Spain (Lyell 1926:182, plate 141). 20. This source for the ornamental borders at Actopan and Ixmiquilpan is also noted by Pierce 1987:145-146 and Sebastian 1989:50-51, fig. 44. 21. Although there were printed and illustrated herbals as early as 1470, the illustrations were stylized and diagrammatic, similar to the classical and medieval manuscripts on which they were based (Hind 1963, 1:348-352). Real pictorial advances in illustrated herbals began in 1530 with Otto Brunfels's Herbarium vivae eicones, or "Living Images of Plants" (Anderson 1977:121-129). In the herbals that succeeded the work of Otto Brunfels, new systems of taxonomy were accompanied by accurate illustrations (Anderson 1977:130-134, 137, 173). 22. The depiction of rooted plants, however, was not exclusive to European representations (Robertson 1959:158). Pre-Hispanic artists presented plants in a holistic manner, including their root systems, as seen in the murals of Classic (c. A.D. 150-600) Teotihuacan in central Mexico and continuing into Aztec-style manuscripts such as Codex Borhonicus (%• 23). 23. The nave murals in the Augustinian monastery of Ixmiquilpan, Hidalgo, do recreate on a large scale the vegetal patterns of grotesque ornament (Gerlero 1976:10-17; Pierce 1987:144, 161). Graphic prototypes for the Ixmiquilpan warriors and centaurs set among oversized acanthus leaves can be seen in decorative borders of Spanish publications, as, for example, in Lyell 1926:21-24, plates 13-15. 24. Relevant examples of Spanish murals painted to simulate tapestries occur in the tympanum cloister frescoes of the Leon cathedral by Nicolas Frances (1450-1468), in murals depicting the life of Christ in the church transept of Sanjeronimo, Granada, and in the murals representing Spanish victories (c. 1570) in the Sala de Batallas of the Escorial, near Madrid. 25. For illustrations of verdure and large-leaf verdure tapestries, see Ackerman 1932: plates 1, 2, 7,

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8; Cavallo 1967, 1: plates 26, 27, 28; Digby 1980: plates 68-72. 26. Gerlero (1989:80) cites the Giovio tapestry as a possible prototype for Malinalco's frescoes. The Giovio tapestry is one of a pair originally done for Paolo Giovio of Como, Italy, and now in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London (Digby 1980:47-48, plates 58a, 58b). At least six other tapestries are still extant that are similar in format, including one armorial woven with a cardinal's arms and another with a bishop's miter and crozier (Digby 1980:48). 27. After the twelfth century, Moorish weavers in Spain continued to produce rugs and weavings, working under Christian masters to create armorials. In mudejar-style armorials, the escutcheons of n o bility and royalty are displayed across a geometric grid; if birds, quadrupeds, or (rarely) human figures are included, they are abstracted. Spanish armorials never feature the lush vegetative backgrounds of those produced in Northern Europe. O n this see May 1977:1-5; Kuhnel and Bellinger 1953:1-3, 9-10, fig. R 84.18. 28. In Toussaint 1967:70-72. The subject matter of the tapestries is only cursorily described in the inventory and included both religious and mythological subjects; verdures per se are not listed. 29. However, the armorial theme does appear in sixteenth-century Peruvian tapestries woven by native craftsmen. Several extant examples from Peru feature coats of arms of the secular nobility as well as the ecclesiastical hierarchy and Dominican order. Around the shield in these tapestries are flowers and animals adapted from European prototypes but executed in the glyphic, geometric manner of Incaic textile patterns (Cavallo 1967, 1:185-192; 2: plates 57, 58). Chapter Five. The Imagery: Flora and Fauna 1. Citations are from the 1964 edition of Libellus de Medicinalibus Indorum Herbis by Martin de la Cruz and the two-volume 1959 edition of the Historia Natural by Francisco Hernandez. References to Sahagun's illustrations are taken from both the Dibble and Anderson edition of the Florentine Codex (Sahagun 1950-1982) and the facsimile edition (Sahagun 1979). The illustrations in Francisco Hernandez's Natural History must be used with great caution be-

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196 Notes to Pages 85-110 cause the original drawings were lost in the Escorial fire of 1671. European illustrations had been substituted when the volumes were published in 1649, although some copies of the originals made by native American artists survived in other works (see Somolinos d'Ardois 1954). 2. See Lozoya and Lozoya 1982:115. Another variation on the "travelers' safeguard" included the placement of pulverized yolloxochitl, vanilla, and other flowers in the hollow chalice of the huacalxochitl; this was hung around the neck of the voyager (O'Gorman 1961:42). Both the bark and flower of the yolloxochitl had many other curative functions. The flowers were ground and mixed with chocolate to alleviate fever (Sahagun 1950-1982, 11:20i). The plant was also used to expel bad humors from a patient's chest (Cruz 1964:213), to combat sterility, and to fortify the heart or stomach (Hernandez 1959, 2:5). 3. In Standley 1920:806-807. There is a clear relationship between cacao and trade. Among the Maya, the deity of the cacao (cacau) plantations was also the god of the merchants (Landa 1941:90, 164). 4. See Lozoya and Lozoya 1982:142-144. Sahagun (1950-1982, 11:117) lists seven species of tzapotl and Hernandez six (1959, 1:90). In Mexico today there is a tendency to use the term zapote or sapote generically to refer to many sweet round fruits grown on trees. 5. In Duran 1971:176. The spring festival of Tlacaxipehualiztli, dedicated to Xipe Totec, functioned on several levels: at the commoner and priestly level it was associated, as was Xipe Totec, with an ancient and widespread agricultural celebration (Broda 1970). 6. The two aquatic plants are identified by Antonio Lot of the Instituto de Biologia of the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, Mexico City, as reeds, or tule (Tyfa augustifolia L.), and a water lily, or ninfa (Nymphaeaflavo-virens). 7. Identifications of both cacti were verified by Helia Bravo and Hernando Sanchez of the Instituto de Biologia, Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico. They identified in 1982 the size, proportions, and flower of the nopal in the frescoes as those of the Opuntia streptachanta and the organ cactus as a Stenocerius weberi. 8. Scholars have always encountered difficulty in pinpointing the scientific classification of the ololiuhqui; it has been assigned variously to the genera

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Convolvulus, Ipomoea, Legendrea, Rivea, and Turbina (Schultes and Hofmann 1979:58-59). The distinction between the various members of the Morning Glory family are based on color and proportionate size. Since it is not possible to determine color in the murals and since size is relative, there is some ambiguity as to the precise species represented. Of the ample bibliography related to the ololiuhqui, the most recent synopsis of the literature and the plant's physical and chemical properties is in Lozoya and Lozoya 1982:231-247. 9. The identification of this trumpet vine as a Solandra mexican (also: S. nitida or S. guerrerensis) was suggested as a possibility by Javier Valdes of the Instituto de Biologia, Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico. 10. The Malinalco painting of the bean plant follows closely the illustrations of two related varieties: the ayecotli in Cruz (1964, fol.29v.) and the cimatl in Sahagun (1950-1982, 11: plate 443); both are identified as Phaseolus coccineus. 11. Malinalli has been identified as a grass or Gramineas in the Epicampes section of the genus Muhlenbergia Schrebner and, specifically, as two of the some sixty species of Muhlenbergia that exist in Mexico: M. emersleyi Vasey and M. robusta (Fourn.) Hitch. (Peterson 1983). 12. O n the Christian iconography of the red rose see Stokstad and Stannard 1983:22-23, 118; Cooper 1978:70, 142; Ferguson 1977-3713. This identification was made by Javier Valdes (personal communication). There were fifty different species of Tagetes, all indigenous to the New World (Everett 1981:3290). 14. Both the tree opossum (tlacuache) and rat or mouse (quimkhin) are tree-climbers with voracious appetites for almost all types of food; of the quimkhin Sahagun (1950-1982, 11:17) writes that it "eats like a human being," a reference both to its nimble paws and indiscriminate palette. 15. O n the coyote, see Seler i960-1961, 4:494, 498. The coyote was also thought to be a bad portent when associated with the Aztec deity, Tezcatlipoca (Sahagun 1950-1982, 5 :180). 16. In Duran 1971:400. O n the traits of thirtyone different species of coatl, or snakes, see Sahagun 1950-1982, 11:75-87; 4:50, 59. 17. O n butterfly symbolism, see Seler 19601961, 4:714; Klein 1976:136-138; Berlo 1983. 18. Several of the Malinalco representations may

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Notes to Pages 112-127 be the thick-billed parrot (Rhynchopsitta pachyrhyncha), a species that is as common in the pine forests of highland Mexico as in the coastal areas (Blake I953:i93-i94)19. As far as is known, the hummingbird exhibits only nocturnal torpor (Amadeo Rea, personal communication). However, hummingbirds do enter a torpid state to conserve energy during the dry winter months and, therefore, seem to hibernate until spring (Hunt 1977:62). 20. O n Mexican herons see Blake 1953:24-30. "Egret" is a corruption of the French aigrette, a reference to a heron's breeding plume, and is usually a name given to a white heron (Egretta thula). The "little egret," common in Europe, is considered one of the region's most beautiful birds and was used by designers in all media. 21. This goose-sized duck may be the so-called Mexican duck (Anas diazi) common in the highlands (Blake 1953:49)22. The reliance on an imported artistic model is further supported by the disparity between the doves in the mural imagery and those depicted in native sources (Seler i960-1961, 4: plate 647) and in Sahagun (1950-1982, 11: plates 159, 163-165). 23. O n falcons and eagle-hawks see Blake 1953: 92-100, 88-89. Amadeo Rea (personal communication) has suggested the possibility that a crested caracara in the family Falconidae (see Blake 1953 ^ 4 - 9 5 ) is being represented in the Malinalco murals instead of an eagle-hawk. Caracaras are far more common than eagles or eagle-hawks in central Mexico and even today are called "eagles." 24. Although the birds in the frescoes have some resemblance to roadrunners, common in Mexico (see Blake 1953:207-208), they are represented above ground, in the trees, where chachalacas typically nest (Amadeo Rea, personal communication). O n Cracidae see Blake 1953 :100-104; Aguilera 1983. 25. Cihuapatli, or "woman's medicine," has been identified as Montanoa tomentosa Cerv., which has a known efficacy that sustains its popularity today (Lozoya and Lozoya 1982:193-223). 26. See Duran 1971:156, 214-215, 412, 413, 419. 27. In Standley 1920:527; Lozoya and Lozoya 1982:130, 145. 28. Reports of the yolloxochitVs digitalislike activity (Standley 1920:276) are debated. Lozoya and Lozoya (1982:111, 125) discuss the cause of yolloxochitVs presumed efficacy and conclude that its powers

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197

to cure may be as much attributed to the strength of tradition as to its proven content of alkaloids akin to adrenalin. 29. Seejanson 1952:107-144, plates XVI, XVIII, % . 3Chapter Six. Paradise

Converged

1. O n the description and location of Aztec royal gardens see Hernandez, 1945:98-99; Duran, 1967, 2:247-248; Diaz del Castillo, 1956:214; Sahagun, 1950-1982, 8:30, 11:201; Heyden 1983b:43-49. 2. The five types of gardens in medieval Europe—the kitchen, medicinal, patrician, cloister, and pleasure garden—are described in Stokstad and Stannard 1983:45-59. 3. Hernandez (1945:98-99, 104) noted that the sacred precinct of Tenochtitlan as well as the garden of the Aztec ruler Moctezuma II had many medicinal plants; see also Las Casas 1971:63. 4. O n the overlapping realms of curers see Sahagun 1950-1982, 10:29-30, 53; Soustelle 1961: 191-200.

5. The earliest settlers of the Malinalco valley, the Matlatzincas, were reputed to enjoy "the bewitching of people, the blowing of evil upon people" (Sahagun 1950-1982, 10:183). In the town of Malinalco, the section or barrio of San Martin is said to be made up of the descendants of the town's original inhabitants and is still considered by Malinalco residents to be a hotbed of sorcery. 6. O n sixteenth-century monasteries with herbal gardens and hospitals, see Grijalva 1924, 1:58; Basalenque 1963:61-62, 85; Ricard 1966:155-159. 7. The earliest monastic ground plan, that of the ninth-century monastery of St. Gall, indicates a quadripartite cloister yard as well as a vegetable garden, orchard, and medicinal garden (Horn and Born 1979, 1:100; 2 : 1 8 1 - 1 8 3 , 2 1 1 - 2 1 2 ) .

8. O n this conflict see Giamatti 1966:13-15. The etymology of "paradise," from the Greek pardeisos, provides clues to its several conjoined meanings. The word was derived from the Persian word pairidaeza, the name for the royal gardens of the Persian kings. This ancient reference merged with the Hebrew pardes, a verdant enclosure, park, or garden; it became the Greek cognate paradeisos and the Latin paradisus (Giamatti 1966:11-12). By the middle of the third century B.C., paradeisos was used to refer more specifically to the Garden of Eden or the earthly para-

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198 Notes to Pages 128-135 dise in the Old Testament book of Genesis. The new meaning of "celestial heaven" was imposed on paradeisos by the Evangelists of the New Testament (as in Luke 23:43). 9. O n the literary and artistic interpretations of the Garden of Eden see Giamatti, 1966:70-82; Stockstad and Stannard 1983: plates 98, 108. 10. Many trees have been named as the Tree of Life, including the palm, pomegranate, and grape vines by Eastern cultures and the acanthus, cypress, apple, and fig by the Greeks (Ackerman 1932:37; Prest 1981:78-84). That the apple came to be favored as the forbidden fruit can be traced back to the meaning of the Latin word malum, meaning both "apple" and "evil" (Ferguson 1977:27). 11. Fior di Virtu ("Flowers of Virtue and Noble Habits"), written sometime before 1323, was one of the popular devotional tracts on this theme (Stokstad and Stannard 1983 :140). The Fior di Virtu was published in eleven languages and underwent sixty-six editions, including six Spanish editions from 1489 to 1499 {Fior di Virtu 1953). 12. St. Augustine 1866, 1871, 4:12, 114, 1 2 1 122; 9:527. 13. Escobar 1970:27, 37, 108, 131; see also Escobar's (1970:315) reference to the floral patterns on the ornately carved faqade of the Augustinian church of Yuriria, Michoacan, as an entrance to paradise. Although beyond the scope of this study, cloister gardens and their monastic compounds appear to have been conceived as "paradise" by all of the orders in the New World. Tom Cummins has drawn my attention to the 1651 Franciscan chronicle by Cordava Salinas in which he describes the two orchards in the cloister of San Francisco, Quito, Ecuador, as two paradises (dos paraisos). 14. See Panofsky 1948, 1: plate 117. 15. O n the Aztec otherworlds see Seler 19601961, 4 : 6 4 - 6 8 ; Ruz Lhuillier 1963; Leon-Portilla 1966:203 - 217; Lopez Austin 1980, 1:363-384; Klein 1982, 1983. 16. References to Tlalocan can be found in Sahagun 1950-1982, 3:45; 6:35, 115; Ruz Lhuiller 1963:252. 17. O n the House of the Sun see Sahagun 19501982, 3:47; 6:38, 114; Hernandez 1945:49. 18. The "woman warriors" or "valiant women" (mocihuaquetzqui), when deified at death, were also feared and worshipped as the cihuateteo ("female

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gods") or cihuapipiltin ("noblewomen"); see Sahagun 1950-1982, 1:19, 71-72; 6:162; Sullivan 1966: 81, 87. While "women warriors" initially were promised ascension to the House of the Sun, it is not clear whether their ultimate home, Cihuatlampa, encompassed the entire western hemisphere of the sky or only the junction between sky and earth, located in the west and known as "Ciuatlampa, because the women died there" (Sahagun 1950-1982, 7:14, 21). 19. The children's paradise went by several other names: Tonacacuauhtitlan ("place of the tree of the sun"), Chichihualcuauhco, or "in the breast tree" (Codex Rios 1964:4), and Xochitlapan, "place of flowers" (Lopez Austin 1980, 1:384-385). 20. O n the transformation of souls into flying creatures who "suck" the flowers also see Sahagun 1950-1982, 6:13, 15; 6:38, 163. In contrast, after four years those who were in the underworld Mictlan disappeared altogether (Sahagun 1950-1982, 3:42). 21. See also Pasztory 1983:85, plate 45. For a thorough discussion of the basic jade glyph and its variants in pre-Hispanic central Mexico see Thouvenot 1982. 22. The closest correspondents to the Malinalco bee images in Mexican pictorial manuscripts are the insects in the Codex Nuttall, identified as bees by Seler (1960-1961, 4: plates 918-923), and the "winged insect" in the Codex Borbonicus (1974: fol. 17). 23. See Garibay 1971, 1:122-124, and 1973:106; Leon-Portilla 1966:107-111, 388; Sahagun 19501982, 10:190. 24. In Codex Rios 1964:44; Leon-Portilla 1966: 388. For a thorough discussion of the varied translations and meanings given Tamoanchan, see Duverger 1983 :235-252. H. B. Nicholson and Arthur Anderson (personal communication, 1984) now favor a Nahuatl origin for Tamoanchan that emphasizes the word's connection to ancestral descent. Tamoanchan went by various other appellations, including Cincalco, or "house of corn" (Tezozomoc 1944:503509) and Tepeitic Tonacatlalpan Xochitlalpan, or "in the mountains, land of sustenance, land of flowers" (Garibay 1971, 1:260-261). In addition, Tamoanchan appears to be virtually synonymous with the mythical paradise Xochitlicacan, "the place where the flowers stand erect" (Codex Telleriano-Remensis 1964:23; Sahagun 1950-1982, 2:212). 25. See Sahagun 1950-1982, 7:14, 21. Although pointing out the shared properties between Tamoan-

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Notes to Pages 136-139 chan and Tlalocan, several scholars also situate Tamoanchan in the mythical west (Seler i960-1961, 2:1065; Soustelle 1961:105, 191). Klein (1976:74) concludes that the directions south and west were so closely related that the southerly location of Xochitlicacan and the western placement of Tamoanchan were virtually interchangeable. 26. The relationship of the split tree image to Tamoanchan has not been satisfactorily explained. Because blood is sometimes depicted as emerging from the severed trunk (Codex Telleriano-Remensis 1964: 23), the preciousness of blood and the sacrificial act in a place of birth is stressed (Codex Rios 1964:44). By contrast, the broken tree has also been interpreted as a sign for aging and death, a feature that would confirm placing Tamoanchan in the west, a region of dying and descent (Soustelle 1982:141-143). A more convincing explanation for the image may be found in the well-known episode of the "brokentree oracle" during the Aztec migration. Soon after leaving their place of origin, Chicomoztoc ("seven caves"), the Aztecs stopped to eat beneath a large, "leafy," "beautiful" tree (Chimalpahin 1965:66-67; Codex Boturini 1964:3). When it suddenly cracked and fell, the Aztecs were frightened. It was then that Huitzilopochtli, their tribal deity, commanded them to leave the other nomadic tribes with which they were traveling and gave them the name of Mexica, or Mexitin (Torquemada 1975, 1:114; Chimalpahin 1965 :65). Further, from that moment on, their militant character was likewise established as they took up arms (Chimalpahin 1965:67). The broken-tree incident, then, appears to have been decisive: it established the identity of a separate Mexica people (Duverger 1983 :197-199). Chimalpahin (1965:68) states that it was "with the incident of the broken tree that the history of the Aztecs began." The broken-tree motif may have come to symbolize for the Aztec nation the notion of "origins" or "emergence," equally applicable to and therefore appropriated as a symbol for the mythical paradise of Tamoanchan itself. 27. A 1683 document, said to be copied from an earlier sixteenth-century report by fray Juan de San Jose, recorded that the natives of this region and Ocuila worshipped an idol called "Oztoc-Teotl" (Oxtoteotl) or "god of the caves" (in Krickeberg 1949, 1:150). Scholars have suggested that Oxtoteotl represented a local and late variant of a more prestigious preconquest deity (Romero Quiroz 1957:25;

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Hobgood 1971:260-261; Tibon 1975:579). In 1540 the Augustinians reportedly had destroyed and replaced this idol with the sculpture of the black crucified Christ venerated today as Serior de Chalma (Ricard 1966:192-193). 28. The overt cave symbolism in the entrance to Aztec Temple I at Malinalco and its relationship to the Nahuatl glyph for cave, or oztotl, has been noted by Garcia Payon 1946:38; Krickeberg 1949, 1:165; Klein 1976:146-147; Mendoza 1977:72-74; and Townsend 1982:124-127. Chapter Seven.

Utopia and Imperial

Policy

1. Throughout the fifteenth century, adherents of a reform branch within the monastic orders known as the Observants already advocated more faithful observance of the vows of poverty and celibacy. Congregaciones Observantes Agustiniana existed as of 1438 and gained ascendance, with tighter discipline, by the sixteenth century (Garcia O r o 1971:161-162, 326-327). This reform movement formed part of the drive by the Catholic monarchs, Isabel and Ferdinand, to centralize and solidify their control in a Spain unified by a revitalized Catholic faith. 2. The unique combination of Utopian, political reformist, and spiritualist strains evident especially in the writings of the Franciscan chroniclers of sixteenth-century Mexico has been the subject of several books and articles (Baudot 1977; Phelan 1970; Bataillon 1966; Maravall 1949). 3. Quoted from Ecclesiastes (1535) by Erasmus (in Bataillon 1966:444-445). The works of Erasmus had become generally popular in Spain after several of his books were published in Castilian in the 1520s. They were subsequently carried overseas and read widely in the New World (Elliott 1963:151-152; Bataillon 1966:435-439). 4. See also Baudot 1977:78. Mendieta's interpretation of the missionary program in Mexico was based partially on the apocalyptic biblical passage of Revelation 3:12 and on the works of the medieval mystic Joachim of Fiore (Phelan 1970:25). Joachim had predicted that once the goal of converting all Jews and Gentiles was accomplished, a "Monastic Age" would dawn, a millennium dominated by the religious orders and characterized by a reign of peace and harmony (Phelan 1970:14-15, 19-23). 5. See Grijalva 1924:26. Basalenque's chronicle

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Notes to Pages 139-144

also contains many allusions to the apostolic role of the early Augustinians. Like the first twelve apostles, the friars went about their work walking barefoot and wearing simple tunics; their mission was to "throw out their nets to catch the souls" of the native population (Basalenque 1963:26, 28, 31-32, 135). 6. Many locations for the Garden of Eden were suggested that amalgamated non-Christian and Christian theories. The garden of paradise was said to be located on a garden-island, to the west of Spain, or high on a mountain top, or simply remotely "to the east" (Giamatti 1966:31-32, 80-82; Levin 1969: 59-60, 183-184; Prest 1981:31-33). The earthly paradise was also thought of as a prefiguration of the heavenly. It was in the earthly paradise that the faithful dead were to await the Day of Judgment, after which time they would enter the celestial version of paradise (Prest 1981:18). Columbus and later Leon Pinelo, in the seventeenth century, were convinced that they had discovered the terrestrial paradise, even identifying several of the major rivers in South America as those described in the book of Genesis as flowing out of the Garden of Eden (see Levin 1969:59-60, 183-184). 7. As in Torquemada 1975, 5:13, 14, 57-58. 8. The Augustinian builders at Ucareo, Michoacan, consciously sought parallels with the Temple of Solomon, as recorded by Basalenque (1963:4950, 155); further references are found in Escobar 1970:98, 100, 114, 121, 136, 357, 359. Escobar (1970:736-737) excused the magnificence of Augustinian monasteries because the friars were trying to recreate the temple of Solomon. Sebastian (1989: 111-119) relates the column and architectural designs of the cloister entry way (Portada de la Porciuncula) at the Franciscan monastery of Huejotzingo, Puebla, to the biblical description of the temple of Solomon (1 Kings 7) and ultimately to the millennial views of the Franciscan order. 9. St. Augustine 1967, 1:146-147; also see Deane 1963 .-28-30 and TeSelle 1970:274. In spite of Augustine's insistence on the distinction between the earthly church and the eternal kingdom (the true City of God), there was comingling of the two cities even in his writings (Deane 1963:31, 229-232). 10. The Franciscans Pedro de Gante and Mendieta used the City of God analogy with New Spain (Liss 1975:72). 11. The significance of patronato real for the colonies lay in the royal control over the quality of the

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clergy sent to the New World, the appointment of the posts of bishop and archbishop, and the establishment of the number and location of churches and monasteries and their financial support (Mecham 1966:23-35). For a full discussion of Spanish patronage, including the texts of the bulls for real patronato Espanol (1523, 1530, 1536) and real patronato de las Indias (1493, 1501, 1508), see Shiels 1961. A good summary can also be found in Mecham 1966:12-18. 12. See Elliott 1963:90-91, 192; Mecham 1966: 14-18. 13. According to Omnimoda (1522), the papal document itself, "This full power in both external and internal forms is conceded to their prelates and to those friars delegated by them, when they judge it opportune or expedient for the conversion of the said Indians and for their guidance and progress, and over any other of the Catholic faith . . . " (in Shiels 1961:213-214). The mendicant orders would not only elect their own prelates, they also could locate themselves wherever there was no diocese or bishop already established or wherever bishops were separated by a dieta, a distance of two days or approximately twenty miles. 14. See the discussion of encomienda in chapter 2. 15. Most orders, the Augustinian in particular, applied pressure to have reversed the 1542 New Laws that abolished encomiendas. From 1545 to 1549 the crown granted almost all concessions to the encomendero, including his right to collect tribute in kind and to use paid or corvee labor (Parry 1966:185-186; Hanke 1965:100-101). 16. The enduring debate on the "right to rule" provoked a steady stream of royal ordinances that attempted to establish the parameters for the waging of "just war." Official statements on the obligations of the conquerors toward potential Spanish subjects began with the document known as the Requerimiento, issued in 1513. It required the reading of a type of loyalty oath to the natives on contact (Liss 1975:18). Continuing sensitivity to the subject on the part of the Spanish crown was reflected as late as 1573, when Philip II issued an ordinance that reworked instructions governing initial Spanish and native encounters. The word "pacification" replaced "conquest." Spaniards were not justified in using force until they tried to explain reasonably to the native population the advantages of living under Spanish rule and the doctrine of the church (Hanke 1965:130-131). 17. O n this see ibid., 122-123, and Maravall

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Notes to Pages 144-153 1949:201-202, 210-211. In the inventory of virtues found among the indigenous peoples, the outstanding traits were their obedience, childlike simplicity, and dependency (Grijalva 1924:55). 18. This patronizing posture was rooted in the hierarchical attitudes prevalent in sixteenth-century Spanish society. Christian (1981) has described the discrimination and social inequality that marked the treatment of the lower classes by the parish priests in Spain. In a Spanish manual of 1530 instructing priests in the sacraments, the "nobles and virtuous people" are set apart from the "rustics and the ignorant," who, "if they are not rudely rebuked neither have shame for nor realize the gravity of their sin" (in Christian 1981:142). 19. Standardized town plans, organized around the hub of the monastic complex, reveal the friars' desire to regulate the lives of their parishioners. The platonic ideals for their urban communities also befitted the friars' grander ambitions to found a new republic in Mexico (Grijalva 1924, 2:222; see also Basalenque 1963:98-99). 20. Fray Diego Valades (1533-1582) was a teacher of the arts and wrote the Retorica Cristiana as a compilation of the methods of inculcating the Christian doctrine in order to produce better preachers (Palomera 1962, 1963). It was published in Perugia, Italy, in 1579. The value of the Retorica lies, in great measure, in the twenty-six engravings Valades produced to visually document mendicant activities. 21. Corpus Christi is held on the second Sunday after Pentecost (the fiftieth day after Easter) in late spring or early summer to commemorate the institution of Holy Eucharist or the Blessed Sacrament (the Santisima Sacramento described by Grijalva 1924:229). Pentecost and Corpus Christi coincided with feasts of first fruits and agricultural rites in the Old World and New. 22. Versions of the Corpus Christi celebration in Torquemada (1975, 5:341-344) and Las Casas (1971:29) included the construction of four mountains, each with a biblical scene: Adam and Eve with the serpent, the Temptation of Christ, and the saints Jerome and Francis. 23. This mural fragment at pre-Hispanic Malinalco disintegrated after it was exposed to rain during the 1946-1947 archeological excavations. Jose Garcia Payon (1946:57-60) identified the figures as mimixcoa, or deified warriors, on the basis of their costume elements and the "celestial band" of alternating eagle

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feathers and jaguar skin on which they were walking. In sixteenth-century histories the "messengers to the sun" are also depicted as wearing black eye masks and bifurcated feathered headdresses, with bodies striated in alternating bands of color, just as shown in the Aztec mural (Duran 1971: plate 16; Sahagun 1974: plate 2). 24. The information about the Berne Millefleurs tapestry, presently in Berne, Switzerland, is derived from Deuchler 1966 and 1983. The tapestry is illustrated in d'Hulst 1967:77-86. 25. The religious carried out the "tasks of Apostles, which means to say they were the envoys [of Christ]" (Grijalva 1924:26). A similar idea is expressed in Basalenque 1963 :135. Chapter Eight. The Augustian

Mural

Program

1. The friar-chroniclers Basalenque and Escobar referred to Tiripetio as the "Athens" of the republic, implying that it established many precedents before it was destroyed by fire in 1640 (Basalenque 1963: 61-64). The prototypical arrangement of the buildings of Tiripetio centered on the church, with the cloister sharing a common wall to the south. The hospital was situated to the east of the church, the school to the north, and the spacious forecourt, or atrio, to the west (Basalenque 1963 :6o). 2. The most complete study on the sixteenthcentury Mexican atrio and its attendant structures is Mc Andrew 1965. 3. Mc Andrew (1965:525-597) has divided sixteenth-century open chapels into two groups: the single cell and the portico chapel. Augustinians built both types. Single-cell chapels were vaulted and could be small rooms attached to the main church edifice (as at Epazoyucan, Hidalgo) or separate structures with immense vaulted spans (as at Actopan, H i dalgo). A second variation on the single cell was the raised chapel opening up from the second story of the cloister (at Acolman, Mexico, and Yecapixtla, M o relos). Other Augustinian portico chapels like Malinalco's include two three-arched examples in M o relos, Totolapan and Tlayacapan, and two examples in Michoacan, Cuitzeo (six arches) and Yuriria (four arches). Kubler (1948, 2:326-327) separates the "open chapel" (capilla abierta) from the administrative and fiscal capillas de indios ("Indian chapels"), although Mendieta (1945, 3 :85) speaks of the capilla de indios and capilla del patio interchangeably. Kubler

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202 Notes to Pages 153-161 (1948, 2:327-328) insists that the arcaded entrances or vestibules of cloisters not be termed "open chapels" unless they contain (or contained) a consecrated altar. Although over the centuries the altar blocks have been dismantled without leaving a trace in most cases, McAndrew (1965:591-592) argues that the retable and altar could have been portable accessories that were only set up when needed. Lacking a permanent apse or altar (as does Malinalco's cloister entry way), it is almost impossible today to distinguish between a portico chapel, or open chapel, and an entry way, or porteria. 4. See Kubler 1948, 2:240-242, 423. 5. The name Sala de Profundis is derived from the first verse of Psalm 130 (or 129): " O u t of the depths I cry to thee, O Lord" (De profundis clamavi ad Te, Domine). Most theologians interpret "depths" as a metaphysical reference to the profound sense of man's alienation from God. There is some disagreement as to the exact purpose of the Sala de Profundis. It has been equated with the chapter room or meeting hall for the mendicant community; in that instance Psalm 130 was read at the close of the meetings (McAndrew 1965:162). Kubler (1948, 2:343), however, identifies the Sala de Profundis with the anterefectory and states that the biblical verse was read before meals. 6. Kubler (1948, 2:365, 381) was first to suggest functional differences between the public and private sectors of the monastic establishment. Kubler's public areas include the chapels, churches, and porterias; the private zones incorporated all of the conventual rooms, lower and upper stories. The designations used in this study more closely follow Victoria's (1985) division of the public and private areas in a monastery; Victoria set aside the stairwell and upper cloister as "private" for the friars only. In his analysis of the murals in the Augustinian monastery of Meztitlan, Hidalgo, Victoria (1985:142-144) postulates a thematic and functional correlation between the murals on public display as primarily didactic and the private murals as devotional. Neither Kubler nor Victoria distinguishes a "semipublic" area for the church and lower cloister. 7. Kubler (1948, 1:22o) cites examples of monastic schools as annexes but concludes that "little or nothing remains" of them. McAndrew (1965:165) speaks of the classrooms as sometimes separate and sometimes within the monastery block, but "indistinguishable from the rest of the conventual complex

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and as a result cannot be surely identified today." Reyes-Valerio's (1978:39-44, 70-85) study on this problem concludes that, like their Spanish prototypes, the Mexican monasteries had two kinds of monastic schools: an internal school with a rigorous program and an external school with a less demanding curriculum. 8. ESTOS * SON * LOS * SIETE RELIGIOSOS * QUI VINIERON A PREDICAR * EL EVANGELIO * EL ANNO * DE 1 5 3 2 * SIENDO REY * EL EMPERADOR CARLOS * 5 * Y PONTIFICE * CLEMENTE * J * Y GENERAL DE NRA ORDEN * FR * GABRIEL . . . O * PUMAL * DE CAS . . . FR * FRco * DO . . . REY * DON ANTOE MENDOZA * . . .

DO . . .

E

CONVENTO EL * ANO * D . . .

9. As the father of David, Jesse prophesized the coming of the Messiah (Isaiah 11:1). In medieval Christian iconography, Jesse was depicted as a reclining figure with a tree trunk growing vertically from his stomach and his "descendants" in the branches— the kings of Judea, the Virgin and Child, or the crucified Christ. In Mexico the Tree of Jesse with the genealogy of Mary, the Mother of God, appeared among the first frescoes recorded, those in the open chapel of Tlaxcala, painted in 1539 (Motolinia 1970:238). 10. See Angulo Iniguez 1955, 2:368; Sebastian 1989:188-190, figs. 216-217. 11. Sample tests taken at various points in the Malinalco church reveal that there were murals with botanical designs on the walls and vaults of the sotocoro and perhaps down both nave walls as well, according to Juan B. Artigas (personal communication), one of the architects in charge of the 19741975 restoration of Malinalco. 12. The stairwell murals at Actopan, Hidalgo, and Atotonilco, Hidalgo, are derived from classical literature and ecclesiastical history (Sebastian 1976; 1989:123-131). 13. Characteristic fifteenth-century graphics of the pelican feeding its young include examples by the German engraver, Israel van Meckenem the elder (c. 1460; Berliner 1928, 1:3, fig. 2) and Italian engravings (Levenson et al. 1973: plate 51). Renaissance graphics also employed the motif, widely distributed as part of the collections of illustrated emblemata, or mottoes, of biblical and ancient origin (Daly 1979: 38). The pelican motif also appeared in tapestry, as in a sixteenth-century Flemish example in Cavallo (1967, 2: plate 24). 14. I found a similar pelican printer's mark in

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Notes to Pages 161-172 an Augustinian confessional (Confessio Augustiniana) produced by Sebaldren Mayer of Dilingae, Bavaria, in 1567 (Plantin Archives, Antwerp, Belgium, B-467). 15. Like Malinalco, the Augustinian stairwell m u ral of Cuitzeo, Michoacan, reminded the friars of their vows as they made the climb to the upper cloister. The mural entitled "Typus Veri Relegiosi" represents a black-robed friar with arms outspread in a penitential position, standing on an orb and a skeleton. Around the friar are biblical verses describing the three mendicant vows: obedience, chastity, and poverty. 16. In Sahagun 1950-1982, 6:15; 4:587. Aztec terms for fearlessness, honor, and warfare were given eagle qualifiers (Sahagun 1950-1982, 6:14, 244, 256; 10:23), qualities that were incarnate in the Aztec ruler, who was likewise compared to an eagle (Sahagun 1950-1982, 6:23). 17. See Schiller 1972:135. The pelican motif as symbol for the crucified Christ can be seen surmounting the cross in an Italian woodcut (c. 14601470; Hind 1938, 2: plate 31); in a Spanish woodcut (1495; Lyell 1926: plate 25); and on liturgical equipment fashioned out of precious metals (Schiller 1972: plates 489, 672, 736). 18. Gerlero (1989:78) likewise concludes that there were two different fresco periods at Malinalco but divides them in a slightly different way. According to Gerlero, the first to be painted were the botanical and epigraphic murals in the lower cloister walkway, rooms, and hallway and in the church; at a slightly later stage were the hagiographic and polychromatic murals of the porteria, stairwell, and upper cloister. 19. See Edwards 1966: plates 75-79. The mural Allegory of the Eremitic Life at Actopan, Hidalgo, was named and discussed by MacGregor (1955:113118). The mural appears on the north end wall of a room off the lower cloister that may have served either as the chapter room, cloister chapel, or schoolroom. 20. Escobar (1970:355) also chronicles what he called the "mystic life" painted on the walls and corners of the cloister entry way at Cuitzeo, Michoacan. Although it is not further described and is no longer extant, the mural was possibly a landscape in the tradition of Charo and Culhuacan. 21. Dance of Death imagery flourished in manuscripts, graphics, and frescoes from the mid-fifteenth

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to the mid-sixteenth centuries (Clark 1950). One of the most influential murals of the Dance of Death was painted in 1424-1425 in the cemetery cloister of the Church of the Holy Innocents in Paris. A Parisian printer, Guyot Marchant, published a popular edition (1485) of the Dance of Death in verse, illustrated with woodcuts based on the Holy Innocents' murals. Death, represented thirty-one times as a skeleton with spade, dart, or scythe, accompanies each living figure, ranging from monarch to thief. The Marchant woodcuts encouraged the use of the theme in wall paintings; one such mural cycle, in the Dominican cloister of Basel (1515), influenced Hans Holbein the Younger to produce in 1538 his Great Dance of Death (Grosser Totentanz), which, in turn, had widespread influence (Clark 1950:60-71). There are no known pictorial representations of the Dance of Death in Spain. It is likely that the imagery reached Mexico through European graphics or a prayer book such as a Book of Hours that incorporated Dance of Death themes, as did several of Philippe Pigouchet's Horae printed at the end of the fifteenth century (see Hind 1963, 2:691-694, plate 429). 22. Thomas a Kempir, or Kempis (1379/13801471), was a member of the Canons Regular of St. Augustine. He produced a corpus of literature on the monastic community, among which Imitation of Christ became the best known among both cleric and lay persons (New Catholic Encyclopedia 1967, 14:121-122).

Chapter Nine.

Utopia Lost

1. See Kubler 1948, 2:371-372. 2. O n this see Elliott 1963:174-199, 279-287; Parry 1966:227-257. 3. For a discussion of the multiplication of Spanish institutions and influx of officials and professionals in the mature colonial period (dated by Lockhart from 1580 to 1750), see Lockhart and Schwartz 1983:102-106, 122-176; Lockhart 1973-1974. 4. O n this see Hunt 1976:36-38; Lockhart and Schwartz 1983:154-155. By 1600 there were enough seculars to administer all four hundred to five hundred parishes in Mexico (McAndrew 1965:23). For an overview of the struggle between the regular and secular clergy as a cause of the mendicant decline, see Phelan 1970, chapters 8, 10, 11; Ricard 1966: 239-263; McAndrew 1965:86-90. 5. See Ricard 1966:109. A 1564 bull issued by

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204

Notes to Pages 173-177

Pope Pius IV revoked the privileges enjoyed by the religious in the New World and subjected them to episcopal control. This was rescinded in 1567 by Pope Pius V due to the pressure applied by the Augustinian Alonso de la Veracruz and other representatives of the regular clergy (Musgrave de Portilla 1978:147-155). However, the date 1564 marked a change in the European attitude toward the regular clergy and, according to some chroniclers, was the starting point of the "tempest" between the two branches of the church in Mexico (Garcia 1916: 8). 6. See Liss 1975:87; Ennis 1957:127. The episcopal tithe (1543-1544) is discussed in chapter 2. 7. The first two viceroys, Don Antonio de Mendoza (1535-1550) and Don Luis de Velasco (15501564), as well as the first archbishop of Mexico, fray Juan de Zumarraga (1528-1548), defended the rights of the regular clergy (Ricard 1966:252-260). 8. O n this, see Grijalva 1924:274-275; Ennis 1957:115-137. 9. See Grijalva 1924:467-468; Mecham 1966: 32-3310. Elliott 1963:208, 217-219, 226-228. 11. Before the Inquisition was officially established in Mexico, the first clergy carried inquisitorial powers; in addition, the first two archbishops, Juan de Zumarraga and Alonso de Montufar, directed trials (procesos) under the title of apostolic inquisitor (Greenleaf 1961:8-i7). In the 1560s provincial bishops, priors of monasteries, and even individual friars took on the inquisitor's role; the number of abuses stemming from the zealous execution of their selfappointed duties led to the establishment of a permanent and official tribunal by the crown (Greenleaf 1961:16-21). 12. See ibid. 1969:118-141, 153, 162. 13. Carrillo y Gariel 1946:115-119, 129-131.

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14. The second provincial council (1565) had already begun to place restrictions on the regular clergy's activities and had accepted the precepts established by the Council of Trent. However, the third provincial council of 1585 (Concilio III Provincial Mexicana), with its 576 decrees, finally gave teeth to the Tridentine doctrine and implemented the episcopate or parish system in Mexico, firmly establishing the supremacy of the secular clergy in principle (Peiialosa 1969:44,57-60). 15. See Torquemada 1975, 5:177-178; Grijalva 1924:298; Garcia 1916:67. 16. Also see Duran 1971:55, 150, 152; Mufioz Camargo 1978:203. 17. In Escobar 1970:355, 359, 421-436. 18. In ibid., 436; Edwards 1966:80. Reyes-Valerio (1989:25) also dates the Atlatlauhcan, Puebla, murals to 1572 and those of Alfajayucan, to c. 1576. 19. The Franciscan friar and chronicler Jeronimo de Mendieta divided his New World church history into two periods. The first was the "Golden Age" from 1524 to 1564, and the second was a subsequent period of trouble and disillusionment from 1564 to 1594. Mendieta used 1564 as the turning point, a date marking the death of the archbishop, Don Luis de Velasco, and the end of his pro-mendicant administration, as well as the arrival of Valderrama, the visitador who sought to increase the tribute of the Indians. Other historians see the termination of mendicant dominance as occurring a decade later, in 1572. In that year, the Jesuits arrived in Mexico, an order devoted to Creole society and the strengthening of the seculars; Pedro Moya de Contreras, a secular, was also elected archbishop in 1572. 20. See also Gonzalez de la Puente 1907:327. 21. Sahagun 1950-1982, 14:76,78.

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Marco Dorta, Enrique 1973 Arte en America y Filipinas. Vol. 21 of Ars Hispaniae. Madrid: Ed. Plus-Ultra. Martinez, Maximino, and Eizi Matuda 1979 Flora del Estado de Mexico. 3 vols. Mexico City: Biblioteca Enciclopedica del Estado de Mexico. Martinez Marin, Carlos 1968 Tetela del Volcdn. Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico. May, Florence Lewis 1977 Rugs of Spain and Morocco. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press. Maza, Francisco de La 1968 La Mitologia Cldsica en el Arte Colonial de Mexico. Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico. 1972 "Fray Pedro de Gante y la capilla abierta de San Jose de los Naturales." Artes de Mexico 150:33-38. Mecham, John Lloyd 1966 Church and State in Latin America. Rev. ed. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Mendieta, Geronimo de 1945 Historia Eclesidstica Indiana. 4 vols. Mexico City: Ed. Hayhoe. Mendoza, Ruben G. 1977 "World View and the Monolithic Temples of Malinalco, Mexico: Iconography and Analogy in Pre-Columbian Architecture." Journal de la Societe des Americanistes 64:63-80. Merrifield, Mary 1966 The Art of Fresco Painting. 2d ed. London: Alec Tiranti. Miller, Arthur G. 1973 The Mural Painting of Teotihuacan. Washington, D. C : Dumbarton Oaks. Molina, Alonso de 1977 Vocabulario en lengua Castellana y Mexicana y Mexicana y Castellana. Mexico City: Ed. Porrua. Moreno Villa, Jose 1942 La escultura colonial mexicana. Mexico City: Colegio de Mexico. 1948 Lo mexicano en las artes pldsticas. Mexico City: Colegio de Mexico. Motolinia, Toribio de Benavente 1950 History of the Indians of New Spain. Translated

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References Cited by E. A. Foster. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press. 1970 Memoriales e historia de los indios de la Nueva Espana. Madrid: Ediciones Atlas. Moynihan, Elizabeth B. 1979 Paradise as a Garden in Persia and Mughal India. N e w York: George Braziller. Moyssen, Xavier 1964 "Tecamachalco y el pintor indigena, Juan Gerson." Anales del Instituto de Investigaciones Esteticas 33:23-40. 1965 "Pinturas murales en Epazoyucan." Boletin del IN AH, Mexico 22:20-27. Mullen, Robert J. 1975 Dominican Architecture in Sixteenth-Century Oaxaca. Phoenix: Center for Latin American Studies, Arizona State University. Muiioz Camargo, Diego 1978 Historia de Tlaxcala. Commentary by A. Chavero. Mexico City: Ed. Innovation. Musgrave de Portilla, Laura M. 1978 "Los Agustinos en la conquista espiritual de Mexico, estudio basado en la cronica de la Orden de fray Juan de Grijalva." Tesis de maestria, Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico. New Catholic Encyclopedia 1967 New Catholic Encyclopedia. 17 vols. New York: McGraw-Hill. Nicholson, Henry B. 1955 "The Temalacatl of Tehuacan." El Mexico Antiguo 8:95-132. 1971 "Religion in Pre-Hispanic Central Mexico." In Handbook of Middle American Indians, vol. 10, edited by R. Wauchope, 395-446. Austin: University of Texas Press. Nicolau d'Olwer, Luis, and Howard F. Cline 1973 "Sahagun and His Works." In Handbook of Middle American Indians, vol. 13, edited by H. F. Cline, 186-207. Austin: University of Texas Press. O'Gorman, Helen 1961 Mexican Flowering Trees and Plants. Mexico City: Ammex. Palomera, EstebanJ. 1962 Fray Diego Valades, O.F.M.: Su obra. Mexico City: Ed. Jus. 1963 Fray Diego Valades, O.F.M.: El hombre y su epoca. Mexico City: Ed. Jus.

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Panofsky, Erwin 1948 Albrecht Durer. 2 vols. 3d ed. London: O x ford University Press. Parro, Sisto Ramon 1857 Toledo en la mano. 2 vols. Toledo: Severiano Lopez Fondo. Parry, John H. 1966 The Spanish Seaborne Empire. New York: Knopf. Paso y Troncoso, Francisco del, ed. 1905-1948 Papeles de Nueva Espana. 9 vols. 2d series: Geografica y estadistica. Madrid: Establecimiento tip. "Sucesores de Rivadeneyra." Pasztory, Esther 1983 Aztec Art. N e w York: Harry N . Abrams. Penalosa, Joaquin A. 1969 La prdctica religiosa en Mexico, s. XVI. Mexico City: Ed. Jus. Peterson, Jeanette F. 1983 "Sacrificial Earth: The Iconography and Function of Malinalli Grass in Aztec Culture." In Flora and Fauna Imagery in Precolumbian Cultures: Iconography and Function, edited by J. F. Peterson, 113-148. Oxford: B.A.R. Press. 1987a "Synthesis and Survival: The Native Presence in Sixteenth-Century Augustinian Murals of Mexico." Paper delivered at the Sixteenth-Century Studies Conference, Arizona State University, October 1987. 1987b "La flora y la fauna en los frescos de Malinalco: paraiso convergente." In Teologia, Iconologia y Sociedad: Arte Colonial Hispanoamericano, edited by E. Vargas Lugo, 2 3 - 4 2 . Instituto de Investigaciones Esteticas, U n i versidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico. 1988 "The Florentine Codex Imagery and the C o lonial Tlacuilo." In The Work of Bernardino de Sahagun: Pioneer Ethnographer of SixteenthCentury Aztec Mexico, edited by J. Klor de Alva et al., 273-293. Albany: Institute for Mesoamerican Studies, State University of New York. 1990 Precolumbian Flora and Fauna: Continuity of Plant and Animal Themes in Mesoamerica. La Jolla, Calif.: Mingei International Museum. Phelan, John Leddy 1970 The Millennial Kingdom of the Franciscans in the New World. 2d rev. ed. Berkeley and Los

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INDEX

Italicized page numbers indicate illustrations; pi. = plate. Acanthus, J J , 57, 70, 73, 75, 77, 97, 118, 120, 132, I95n23 Acevedo, Martin de, 159 Acocotli (dahlia), 98, gg Acolman, Mex. (Augustinian monastery), 5, 46, 52, 69, 163, 165-166, I 9 i n i 7 , 20in3 Actopan, Hidalgo (Augustinian monastery), 5, 52, 72, 76, 159, 164-165, 169, I92n5, 20in3, 202ni2, 203ni9 Adorno, Rolena, 8 Affresco technique, 45 Afterlife: Aztec beliefs in, 124, 132-136, 148-149, i 9 8 n n i 8 - 2 0 , 198-199^124-25; Aztec celestial heaven, 133, 148-149; Aztec terrestrial paradise, 132-136; Aztec underworld, 132; use as mendicant incentive, 137, 147-149. See also Eschatology; Last Judgment; Paradise Garden Ahuehuetl (cedar), 136 Ahuizotl, 13 Alameda, Juan de, 191m 9 Aldegrever, Heinrich, 65 Altarpieces. See Retablos Altdorfer, Erhard, 131-132 Al temple technique, 45 Andrea, Zoan, 195m 8 Anguis, Dr., 17-18, 173 Angulo Iniguez, Diego, 5 Animals. See Fauna; names of specific animals Anunciacion, Juan de la, 70, 71 Architects: colonial sources of plans and decoration, 25; friar-architects, 21, 51-52, I9inni6,19; native architects, 21-22

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Architecture, monastic. See Monasteries Armorials. See Tapestry Atamalqualiztli, 133 Atatapalcatl (water lily), 90 Atlatlauhcan, Morelos (Augustinian monastery), 159 Atlixco, Puebla (Franciscan monastery), I 9 i n i 9 Atocpa, Don Juan Inica, 159 Atotonilco el Grande, Hidalgo (monastery), 5, 159, 163, I 9 i n i 5 , 202ni2 Atrios (forecourt; patio), 153, 155, 156, 163, pi. 1; as instructional area, 146, 156-157 Augustine, St.: on birds as symbol, 134; birthplace of, 165; on church as garden, 130, 140; on City of God and City of Man, 140-142, 200n9; in murals, 6g~70, 159, 163-165, 187-188, pi. 8; on pelican legend, 161; on spiritual capabilities of all people, 166 Augustinian Order: apostolic role of, 20on5; and colonization, 1-2, 9, 14, 28; educational program of, 20, 51-52, 145-146, 152, 156-157, 191m5, 202n7; evangelistic program of, 17-18, 28; friar-architects in, 51-52, 191m 6; friars' direction of monastic architecture, 21-22; friars' relationship with native painters, 4 4 - 4 5 , 122-123; m Malinalco, 15-22; monasteries of, 5, 15-22, 16, 63, 179, 191ml; and monastery at Malinalco, 2 - 3 ; murals in monasteries of, 5; in New World, 15, 143, 158, 19on 10; relationship with natives, 19-20, 29, 144, 166-167; and religious engravings, 67; role of, 19-20; sources of income and labor for monasteries, 18-19; Utopian aspirations of, 139-142 Avila, Jorge de, 22, 158, I 9 i n i 8

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Axayacatl, 12 Ayecotli, i96nio Aztatl (snowy egret), 36 Barn owls, 112-113 Basalenque, Diego de, 19, 21, 52, 139, 156, 158, 175 Basket flower, 84, 85, 93, 94, 119 Bean plant, 93, 93, 118, 137 Bees, 47, 49, 134-155, I98n22 Benedictine monasteries, 129 Berne millefleurs tapestry, 150-151 Bibles: Garden of Eden in, 124, 127, 128, 129; as models for wall painting, 5,52 Birds, 36, 39, 40, 110-117, 120-121, 125, 126, 128, 129, 132, 133, 134, 146, 186. See also names of specific birds Bonaventure, St., 163, 169 Books, illustrated. See Engraving; Printing Borgona, Juan de, I94n9 Borja, Alonso de, 158, I 9 i n i 6 Brescia, Giovanni A. da, I95ni8 Broken-tree motif, I99n26 Brunfels, Otto, I95n2i Buon fresco technique, 45, 60 Burgoa, Francisco de, 45 Burkhart, Louise M., 7, 121, 136, 137 Butterflies, 109-110, 120, 133, 134 Cacaloxochitl, 118 Cacao tree, 8, 31, 54, 87-89, 105, 118, 119, 122, 125, I96n3 Cactus, 37, 90-91, 92, 126 Calendar, 47 Capilla posas. See Posas Capillas abiertas, 153, 20in3 Caracaras, I97n23 Casa del Dean, Puebla, 193m Catholic Church: and colonization, 13-14, 177-178; missionary enterprise of, 142-144; native responses to, 14; parish priests' attitude toward lower classes in Spain, 2 0 i n i 8 ; as primitive church, 139-141; reform of, in Spain, 138-142, 199m; regular versus secular clergy in, 15, 143, 172-173, 203~204nn4-i9. See also Augustinian Order; Dominican Order; Franciscan Order; Mendicant orders Cedar, 136 Cehualchichiltic (wild grape), 96 Cempoalxochitl (marigold), 98, 100, 118 Cesar, Cornelius Adrian, 174 Chachalaca, 117, 120, 1 9 7 ^ 4 Chalchiuhuitl (jade), 8 Charles V, 13, 80, 81, 150 Charo, Michoacan (Augustinian monastery), 44, 52, 159, 165, 176 Chavez, Diego de, 21, 23-24 Chichimec War, 6, 169 Chimalcuauhtli, 12 Chocolate beverage, 87-88, 93, 102, 119

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Christianity. See Catholic Church Christopher, St., 159-160 Church. See Catholic Church Cihuapatli (women's medicine), 118, I97n25 Cimatl, i96nio Cipac de Aquino, Marcos, 44 Cistercian monks, 129 Citlalcoatzin, I90n7 Clavellina, 85, 87, 88 Clergy. See Mendicant orders; Secular clergy Cloisters, 29, 153, 155-157, 159, 160, 162-164. See also Gardens Coanenepilli (passionflower), 100-101, 122 Coaxihuitl (snake plant), 91 Cock, Hieronymous, I94ni6 Codex Borbonicus, 35-39, 36, 37, 38, 48, 49, 54, I95n22 Codex Borgia, I92n7 Codex Cospi, 192117 Codex Magliabechiano, 35, 37, 38, 39 Codex Mendoza, 49 Codex Nuttall, 35, 36, 192m, I98n22 Codex Telleriano-Remensis, 49 Codex Tolteca-Chichimeca, 49 Colegio de Nombre de Jesus, Mexico City, 51, I 9 i n i 5 Columbus, Christopher, 95, 194m7, 200n6 Confessional, 167, 168 Congregaciones, 14 Coornhert, Dirk Volkertz, 194m 6 Copa de oro (cup-of-gold), 91, 93 Copil, I90n7 Cornsilk flower, 119 Cortes, Hernando, 13, 81, 139 Coruna, Agustin de, 158 Coxcoxtli, 117 Coyotes, 105, 106, 120, 146, 147, I96ni5 Coyotl (coyote), 105, 106 Cranes, 165 Crows, 146 Crucifixion, 60, 66, 67, 68-69, 162-164, 1 9 9 ^ 7 , pi. 8, pi. 9 Cruz, Francisco de la, 15, 158 Cruz, Martin de la, 52, 33, 54, 84, 87, 102, 120 Cruzate, Juan, 24, I 9 i n i 6 Cuauhtlequetzqui, I90n7 Cuautinchan, Puebla (Franciscan monastery), 47 Cuernavaca, Morelos (Franciscan monastery), 15, 18 Cuilapan, Oaxaca (Dominican monastery), 45 Cuitzeo, Michoacan (Augustinian monastery), 17, 21, 159, 165, 169, 176, I92n3, 20in3, 203ni5, 203n20 Culhuacan, Mexico City (Augustinian monastery), 159, 164, 176, I92n5, pi. 12 Cummins, Thomas, 9 Cupandaro, Michoacan (Augustinian monastery), 21 Cup-of-gold, 91, 93, 119 Dahlias, 38, 98, 99 Dance of Death. See Death Death, in mural painting, 167, 168, 203n2i

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Index Deer, 38, 40, 80, 106, 107, 108, 120, 121, 131, 132, 146, 147, 164, 165 Desert, as wilderness paradise, 165 Diaz del Castillo, Bernal, 146 Diezmo (tithe), 18 Doctrina (catechism), 20, 145, 156 Dogs, 118 Dolphins, 57, 70, 72, 73, 74, 7g, 80, 120, 132 Dominican Order, 1, 15, 22, 58, 143, 179, i 9 0 - i 9 i n i o Doves, 115, 120, 132, 162 Dragons, 72 Dry fresco technique, 45, 46 Ducks, 55, 115, 126 Duran, Diego, 123, 133, 175 Diirer, Albrecht, 65, 67, 68, 78, 131 Duverger, Christian, 136 Eagle-hawks, 115-116, 120, 126, I97n23 Eagles, 8, 47, 115-116, 162, 1 9 7 ^ 3 , 203ni6 Easel paintings, 171 Education. See Schools Egrets, 31, 40, 55, 56, 90, 113, 114, 115, I97n20 Embroidery, 50 Encomiendas, 14, 15, 143-144, 200m5 Engraving: Gothic lettering in, 75; of grotesque design, 70, 72- 76; as models for Mexican sixteenth-century murals, 67, 82, 194-195m8; as models for Spanish m u rals, 65, i94nio, I 9 4 - I 9 5 n i 8 ; of paradise garden, 7 5 - 7 7 ; plateresque column from books, 72, 75, 76; of religious figures, 66-67, 68; woodcuts, 65, 67, 126, 128, I2g, 131, 141-14.2 Epazoyucan, Hidalgo (Augustinian monastery), 5, 63, 68, 153, 163, I 9 m i 7 , 20in3 Erasmus, Desiderius, 1, 139, 141, 174, I99n3 Eschatology, 139, 164-169, 170, 187. See also Afterlife; Last Judgment Escobar, Matias, 17, 21, 44, 45, 51, 81, 141, 152, 160, 165, 166, 171, 176, 177, 203n20 Espinosa, Antonio de, 194m4 Esteban, Jeronimo de S., 158 Etl (bean), 93, 95 Falcons, 40, 115-116, 120, 126, 146, 147 "False" fresco technique, 45 Farfan, Jeronimo, 174 Fauna (animals and birds): as Aztec metaphors, 102, 104-106, 108-113, 115-118, 120; Christian symbolism of, 105, 108-111, 113, 115-117, 120-123, 131-132, 161-162; from Florentine Codex, 55-56; identification of, in Malinalco murals, 83-85; in Malinalco garden frescoes, 55-56, 102-117, 131-132, 185-186; medicinal uses of, 102, 104, 109; native depiction of, 122-123; omission of, from Malinalco murals, 118. See also names of specific animals Featherwork, 37, 50, 55 Ferdinand, King, 142, 150, 199m Fernandez, Alejo, i 9 4 n n i o , i 7

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Fernandez de Oviedo, Gonzalo, 87 Finches, 116-117 Flandes, Juan de, i94nio Flora (plants): as Aztec metaphors, 85, 87, 89, 90, 93, 94, 96, 101; Christian symbolism in, 9 6 - 9 8 , 101, 120-123; from Florentine Codex, 54-55, 117-120; hallucinogenic or intoxicating properties of, 91, 93, 118; identification of, in Malinalco murals, 83-85; in Malinalco murals, 54-55, 85-102, 131, 182-184; medicinal properties of, 85, 8 7 - 9 1 , 93, 96, 101, 102, 118-120, 125-126, I96n2; native depiction of, 122-123, 1951122; naturalism in representation of, 75-77; omission of, from Malinalco m u rals, 118; See also Gardens; names of specific plants Florentine Codex, 40, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 84, 85, 87, 88, 90, 91, 93, 102, 104, 105, 108, n o , 111, 113, I93nni3,i6 Flowers. See Flora; names of specific flowers Fountain, in garden, 127-128 Foxes, 132 Frances, Nicolas, 1 9 5 ^ 4 Francis, St., 147 Franciscan Order: and Augustinian doctrine on conversion, 166; educational program of, 146; friar-architects in, 51; history of, 139, 159; monasteries of, 22, 58, 179; monastic schools of, 50-51, 66; and morality plays, 146; in N e w World, 1, 15, 143, I90n 10; relationship with natives, 19; Utopian aspirations of, 139; view of New World, 141; and vow of poverty, 17. Fresco painting. See Mural painting Fresco secco technique, 45, 46, 60 Friars. See Mendicant orders Frijol indio (bean plant), 93, 95 Fuente, Agustin de la, I93ni6 Gallego, Fernando, i94nio Gante, Pedro de, 50 Garden frescoes. See Malinalco murals (garden frescoes) Garden of Eden, 126, 127-132, 128, 129, 131, 135, 138, 139, 141-142, 166, 200n6. See also Paradise Garden Gardens: Aztec royal gardens, 124-125, 126; as cosmic paradigms, 126-127; a n d curing, 125-126; European botanical gardens, 125, 127; European monastic gardens, 125-126, 127, 129, 132; fountains in, 127-128; in Moorish Spain, 125, 129-130; as paradise, 127-137; in sixteenth-century Mexican monasteries, 130, 140-141. See also Malinalco murals (garden frescoes); Paradise Garden Gerlero, Elena Estrada de, 132 Gerson, Juan, 4, 44-45 Ghirlandaio, I94n9 Gil de Hontanon, Rodrigo, I94n7 Giovio, Paolo, I95n26 Glyphs and symbols: of bees, 134-135; ilhuitl, 134, 1 9 2 - i 9 3 n i o ; juxtaposition with European motifs in, 7 - 8 ; in Malinalco murals, 134-135; malinalli as, 161-162; of places, 8, 49, 162, pi. 5; of preciousness, 134, 135; of songs, 48, 49, 134, I92n9; of speech, 49; trilobed symbol, 134, 135

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The Paradise Garden Murals ofMalinalco

Gothic lettering, 75 Gothic style, in monastic architecture, 25, I 9 i n 2 i Grapes and grapevines, 32, 77, 96, 108, 120, 132 Graphics. See Engraving Gregorio, Fray, 67 Grescia, Giovanni Antonio, 72 Grijalva, Juan de, 11, 15, 17, 19, 24, 51, 56, 58, 138-140, 144, 146, 152, 156, 158-159, 163, 166, 169, 171, 175-177 Grotesque, 70, 72-76, 82, 120, I95n23 Guadameciles (leather hangings), 81 Guaman Poma de Ayala, Felipe, 162 Guilds: membership of, 43-44; rank of maestro in, 21, 44; rank of oficial in, 21; regulations of, 4 3 - 4 4 Gumiel, Diego, 161 Hares. See Rabbits Heart flowers, 54, 85, 86, 87, 119 Heemskerk, Martin, 194m 6 Heraldry, in garden murals, 149-150 Herbals, 53, 125-126, I95n2i Hernandez, Francisco, 45, 52-53, 77, 81, 84, 85, 93, 101, 104, 105, 121, I 9 3 n n i 4 - I 5 , I95~i96ni Herons, 75, 113, 114, 115, 120, 121, 126, 128, 129, 132, I97n20 Hidalgo, Mex. (Augustinian monastery), 5, 64, 65 Hieroglyphs. See Glyphs and symbols Historia Tolteca-Chichimeca, 47 Holbein, Hans, the Younger, 203n2i Horror vacui, 6, 35 Huacalxochitl (basket flower), 33, 84, 85, 93, 94, 119, 125 Huachinango (Augustinian monastery), 24 Huaquechula, Puebla (Franciscan monastery), 191m9 Huatlatlauhca, Puebla (Augustinian monastery), 60, 63, 69, 71, 167, 168 Huehuecoyotl, 49 Huejotzingo, Puebla (Franciscan monastery), 22, 63, 76, 176, I 9 i n i 9 , 200n8 Huitzilopochtli, 12, 93, 112, 125, 133, 136, 162, 190117, I99n26 Hummingbirds, 40, 92, 111-112, 120, 126, I97ni9 Hunt, Marta, 112 Ilhuitl, 47, 49, 134, i 9 2 - i 9 3 n i o Indochristiano, 6—j Inquisition, 171, 173-174, 204nio Insects, 49, pi. 6. See also Bees Isabel, Queen, 95, 142, 150, 199m Ixcuincuitlalpilco, Don Pedro, 159 Ixmiquilpan, Hidalgo (Augustinian monastery), 6, 9, 24, 25, 27, 52, 63, 68, 72, 169, I92n5, I95n23 Jade, 8, 134, 135 Jaguar, 47, 101, 105, 118 Jaguar flower, 101, 118, 119 "Jar flower," 91, 93 Jerome, St., 109

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Jerusalem, and " N e w Jerusalem," 139-142. See also Paradise Garden Jesse, Tree of, 159, lomg Jesuit Order, 143, 204m9 Jewelry making, 50 Joachim of Fiore, I99n4 John, St., 116 John Climacus, St., 166 Jonacatepec, Morelos (Augustinian monastery), 24 Juxtaposition of native and Euro-Christian motifs in m u ral painting, 7 - 8 Kempis, St. Thomas a, 167, 169, 203n22 Klein, Cecelia F., 8, 149 Klor de Alva, J. Jorge, 14 Koran, 130 Kubler, George, 5, 159 Landa, Diego de, I92n8 Last Judgment, in mural painting, 169, 170. See also Afterlife; Eschatology Ley den, Lucas van, 65 Lions, 164 Lizards, 40, 109 Lockhart, James, 8, 121 McAndrew, John, 6, 22, 58, 174 Macaws, 110-111 Maestro, in guilds, 21, 44 Magdalena, Geronimo de la, 191m 6 Magnolias, 137 Malinalco, Mex.: agriculture in, 11; Augustinian program in, 15-22; Aztec temples in, 3, 4, 13, 45; conquest and control of, 11-15; geographical and ecological setting of, 11-12; pre-Hispanic, 12-13; as principal town of region, 10, 15, I90n7; region of, 3, 11, pi. 1; under Spanish rule, 13-15 Malinalco, Mex. (Augustinian monastery): altarpiece of, 22; architecture of, 2 - 3 , 22-28, 23-27, 29, 153, 154, 155, 156, 157, pi. 2, pi. 3; church at, 153, 155, 156; founding of, 22, 23, 191m8; name changes of, 18, i89n3; number of friars in, 18; restoration of, i89n3; sources of income and labor for, 18-19 Malinalco murals: chronology of, 164, 203m8; church and lower cloister murals, 159-160; of first Augustinians, 158-159; hagiology in, 164; Passion of Christ in, 67, 68, 162-164, pl- #> pl- 10\ pelican/eagle medallion in, 160-162, 161; porteria murals, 158-159, pi. 11; saints and church fathers in, 69, 159-160; stairwell mural, 160, 161, 162; in testerae of upper cloister, 67, 68, 162-164, pi. 8, pi. 10; upper cloister murals, 46, 67, 68, 72, 76, 162-164, pi. 8, pi. 10; vault murals, 134-135 Malinalco murals (garden frescoes): artistic team and the tlacuilo for, 40-50; as Augustinian Paradise, 130-132; and Augustinian program, 142; Aztec metaphors in flora and fauna in, 117-120; Christian symbols in, 57, 38, 75, 120-123, 149, 150, 151; design of, 29, 30-34, pi. 4;

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Index European traits in, 39-40; fauna identified in, 102-117, 185-186; flora identified in, 85-102, 182-184; fresco technique of, 46; grotesque elements in, 70, 72, 73, 74; heraldic elements in, 149-151, 150; Latin inscriptions above, 142; layout and internal composition of, 57—58; meaning of flora and fauna in, 117-123; medallions in, 75> 79-8o, 149-151, 150; native elements of, 35-46, 37; naturalism in floral representations in, 75-77; reference system for section of, 34, 35; and Sahagun connection, 52-56; tapestry as source of, 77-82, 132; testerae in cloister walkways, 61, 63; vault frescoes, 39, 41-42, 47, 49; wall frescoes, 35-39 Malinalli (twisted grass), 95-96, 161-162, pi. 5 Malinalxochitl, 12, 125, I90n7 Marchant, Guyot, 203n2i Marigolds, 98, 100, 118, 137 Mata, Andres de, 21, 51-52 Matzatli (pineapple), 93, 95 Mauricio, Miguel, 44 Meckenem, Israel van, 202m 3 Mendicant orders: arrival in New World, 15; and colonization, 1-2, 9, 14, 28, 177-178; conflict and cooperation among, 56; decline of, 172-176, 177, 203~204nn4-i9; division of tithe with secular clergy, 18; educational program of, 20, 145-146, 152, 156-157, I 9 i n i 5 , 202n7; and encomiendas, 143-144; internal problems of, 174-176; organization of, 15; patronage and program of, 142-149; power of, 2, 143, 151, 173, 20oni3; and reform, 1, 138-142; relationship with natives, 19-20, 29, 144, 166-167, 20ini9; and royal patronage, 142-144; schools of art of, 29, 50-52; versus secular clergy, 15, 143, 172-173, 203-204^14-19; Utopian aspirations of, 139-142. See also Augustinian Order; Dominican Order; Franciscan Order; Monasteries Mendieta, Geronimo de, 29, 43, 47, 50, 81, 139, 140, 156, 177, 199^4, 204m 9 Mendoza, Don Antonio de, 17, 158, 204n7 Mendoza, Rodrigo de, I 9 i n i 6 Metl, Francisco, 21 Mexican colonial art, scholarly recognition of, 3 - 9 . See also Mural painting; Native painting and painters Meztitlan, Hidalgo (Augustinian monastery), 5, 25, 27, 163, 176, I94ni6 Millenial Kingdom, 139. See also Utopia Moctezuma II, 47, 93, 98, 125 Modena, Nicoletto da, 195m 8 Molango, Hidalgo (Augustinian monastery), 24, 159 Monasteries: architecture of, 3, 21-22; of Augustinian Order, 15-22, 16, 179; criteria for location of, 16-17; and evangelistic program, 17-18; friar-architects of, 21, 51-52, I 9 i n i 6 , 19ini9; gardens in, 125-127, 129, 130, 132, 140-141, I97n7; as headquarters for friars, 15; libraries in, 159; mural programs in, 152-170; native labor for, 19; number of, 2, 16, 191ml; number of friars in, 18; as protection from native rebellions, 19in 14; public and private zones of, 153-157, 202n6; schools in, 29, 50-52, 145-146, 152, 156-157, I 9 i n i 5 , 202n7;

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sources of income and labor for, 18-19; time needed to construct, 1911117. See also Malinalco, Mex. (Augustinian monastery); names of other locations of monasteries Monkeys, 8, 31, 35, 36, 40, 54, 55, 75, 80, 104-105, 120, 122, 131-132 Montagna, Benedetto, 66, 68 Montufar, Alonso de, 173, 204nio Morales, Francisco de, 22 Morality plays, 146-147 More, Sir Thomas, 1, 140, 144 Moreno Villa, Jose, 4 - 5 , 6 Morning glory, 91, 92, 119, I96n8 Motolinia, Toribio de Benavente, 18, 51, 57, 146, 157 Moya, Juan Bautista, 1911116 Moya de Contreras, Pedro, 173, 204m9 Mudejar style, in monastic architecture, 25 Mural painting: audiences for, 152; Augustinian programs of, 152-170; Christian features in, 57, 58, 60, 63, 64, 65, 75, pi. 8; color in, 60, 63, pi. 8; eschatology as theme in, 164-169, 170, 187; European influences on, 4 - 5 , 7 - 9 , 39-40, 46, 56, 63, 65; fresco techniques of, 45-46, 60; friars' didactic use of, 146, 152; illustrated books and graphics as sources of, 65-77; juxtaposition m , 7 _ 8 ; locations of, 153-157, 187-188; as manifestation of acculturative processes, 1, 6 - 7 ; mendicant history as theme in, 158-159, pi. 11; native features of, 4 - 9 , 34-46, 56; Passion of Christ as theme of, 67, 68, 162-164, pi. 8, pi. 10; pelican legend as theme of, 161-162; pre-Hispanic antecedents of, 4 5 - 5 0 , 58-65; pre-Hispanic pigments and materials for, 46; in public and private zones of monastery, 153-157; saints and church fathers as theme of, 159-160, 187-188; sixteenth-century compared with twentieth-century muralism, 10; as social documents, 6; Spanish antecedents of, 46, 58-65, 60-62, 64, 180-181, I95n24, pi. 7, pi. 8; syncretism in, 8-9; in testerae of cloister walkways, 60, 61, 63, pi. 9; themes of, 2, 157-170; whitewashing of, 2 - 3 , 44, 171, 176-177. See also Malinalco murals; Native painting and painters Mushrooms, 118 Nahuatl, 6, 7, 46, 47, 49, I92n9 Nanacatl (mushrooms), 118 Native architects, 21-22 Native painting and painters: artistic team for Malinalco murals, 40-46; colors used in, 45; European traits in style of, 39-40; fresco technique in, 45; and friars, 44-45, 122-123; a n d monastic schools of art, 29, 50-52; "native style" of, 34-35; overlapping of forms in, 35; pre-Hispanic pigments and materials for, 46; shading and line in, 36-37, 39; stencils used in, 46; techniques of Malinalco vault murals, 39; techniques of Malinalco wall murals, 35-39; tlacuilo, 4 6 - 5 0 Natives: friars' educational program for, 20, 145-146, 152, 156-157, 191m5, 202n7; friars' relationship with, 19-20, 29, 144, 166-167, 2 0 i n i 9 ; as labor, 14-15, 19; Spaniards' relationship with, 20oni6; virtues of, 200-20ini7

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"Native style," definition of, 34-35 New Jerusalem, 139-142 Nezahualcoyotl, 98, 148 Nicholas of Tolentino, St., 159-160 Nochtli (prickly-pear cactus), 90 Nopalli (cactus), 90, 91, 126 Ocampo, Florian de, 72, 75 Ocelots, 101 Oceloxochitl (jaguar flower), 101, 101, 118, 119 Ocharte, Pedro, 174 Ogomatli (monkey), 55, 104-105. See also Monkeys Ocuilan, Mex. (Augustinian monastery), 16-17, 22> 23, 5i Ocuituco, Morelos (Augustinian monastery), 130, 153 Oficial, in guild, 21 Oil paint, introduction of, 171 Olmo, Bartolomeo, I94ni6 Ololiuhqui (morning glory), 91, 92, 119, I96n8 Ometeotl, 133 Open chapels (capillas abiertas), 153, 20in3 Opossum, 36, 102, 103, 104, 120, I96ni4 Organ cactus, 38, 9 0 - 9 1 , 92 Ortiz, Juan, 174 Oseguera, Juan de, 158 Ovando, Juan de, I93ni7 Owls, 8, 36, 39, 112-113, 120, 146, 147 Oxtoteotl, I99n27 Pablos, Juan, I94ni4 Padilla, Davila, 163 Painting. See Malinalco murals; Mural painting; Native painting and painters Palladio, 72 Pannemaker, William de, 80 Panofsky, Erwin, 131 Paradise, etymology of, 1 9 7 - 1 9 8 ^ Paradise Garden: and Aztec beliefs in terrestrial paradise, 126, 132-136; convergence of native and EuroChristian beliefs in, 136-137; in engravings, 75-77; four rivers and fountain in, 127-128, 130, 136, 140-141, 147; as Garden of Eden, 127, 128, 129, 131, 132, 141-142, 20on6; as Garden of Virtues, 129; and hortus conclusus, 127-129, 132; as incentive in Aztec state, 137, 147-149; as incentive in mendicant program, 137, 147-149; in Malinalco's garden frescoes, 130-132; monasteries as, 129, 132; in Moorish Spain, 129-130; in mural painting, 165-166; New World as, 138-142, 200n6; in tapestries, 132; in theater/morality plays, 146-147; Tree of Knowledge (or Tree of Life) in, 9, 121-122, 128, 130, 131, 139, 147, i98nio; and "wilderness paradise tradition," 165 Parrots, 36, 54, 75, 77, 110-111, 120, 121, 131, I97ni8 Passionflower, 100-101, 122 Patronage, royal, 142-144 Patzcuaro (Augustinian monastery), 44 Peiotl (peyote), 118

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Pelican, 8, 160-162, 161, 202-203^113-14,17 Pelican-eagle, 8, pi. 5 Peiiaranda, Juan de, 24 Pereyns, Simon, 22, 51, 174 Peyote, 118 Pheasants, 80 Philip II, 17, 52, 58, 81, 173, 174, 200ni6 Philip the Good, Duke, 150, 151 Picietl (tobacco), 118 Pictoral manuscripts. See Florentine Codex; entries beginning with Codex Pierce, Donna L., 5 Pieta, 64, 65 Pigouchet, Philippe, 203n2i Pineapples, 93, 95, 118, 137 Pinelo, Leon, 20on6 Pius IV, Pope, 204n5 Pius V, Pope, 204n5 Place glyphs, 8, 49, 162, pi. 5 Plateresque style: in monastic architecture, 25, I92n2i; in murals, 72, 76 Poetry, Nahuatl, 49, I92n9 Pomegranates, 97-98, 108, 120, 132 Porteria, 153, 154, 158-159 Posa, Pedro, 161 Posas (corner chapels), 153, 163 Prickly pear cactus, 90, 126 Printing: houses in colonial Mexico, 66, 174, I94ni4; houses in Flanders, 194m6; houses in Spain, 66, 161 Prints, single-sheet. See Engraving Purist style, in monastic architecture, 25 Quetzalpetlatl, 148 Quimichin (rat), 104, 196m4 Quiroga, Vasco de, 51, 139-140 Rabbits, 31, 32, 35, 36, 37, 38, 40, 55, 80, 108-109, 121, 128, 129, 132, 146, 147, 164, 165 Rats, 55, 104, I96ni4 Recchi, Nardo, I93ni4 Red crossbill, 116-117 Red-silk cotton tree, 85, 87, 88 Regular clergy. See Mendicant orders Renaissance style, 25, 1 9 1 - 1 9 2 ^ 1 Retablos, 22, 44, 51, 52, 171, I92n3 Reyes-Valerio, Constantino, 6 Roa, Antonio de, 159 Robertson, Donald, 34, 37 Rodriguez, Cristobal (Sebastian), 14 Rodriguez de Avalos, Cristobal, 18 Roman, Juan de S., 23, 158 Romero, Cristobal, 14 Roses, 98, 99, 130, 132 Royal College of the Holy Cross, 50, 52

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Sahagun, Bernardino de: on Aztec afterlife, 124, 133; banning of works of, 174; bilingual text of, 193m 3; Floren-

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Index tine Codex of, 40, 52, 53, 35, 36, 84, 84, 85, 87, $7, 88, 90, 91, 93, 102, 104, 105, 108, n o , H i , 113, I93ni3, I93ni6; on idolatrous practices, 1, 175-176; on Mexican mendicant church, 177; Primeros Memoriales manuscript of, I93ni6; on tlacuilo, 46 Sala de Profundis, 155, 202n5 Salinas, Cordava, I98ni3 San Agustin, Mexico City, 21 San Francisco, Mexico City (Franciscan monastery), 50 San Geronimo, Father, 44 San Jose, Juan de, 1 9 9 ^ 7 San Jose de los Naturales, 5 0 - 5 1 , 66 Santa Maria Xoxoteco, Hidalgo (Augustinian visita), 169 Santiago Tlatelolco, Mex. (Franciscan monastery) 19, 29, 50-53, 160 Sapote tree, 9, 32, 89, go, 119, 121-122, 131, I96n4 Schongauer, Martin, 65, 67, 68, 75, I94n9 Schools, monastic: of art, 29, 50-52; for natives, 20, 145-146, 152, 156-157, I 9 i n i 5 , 202n7 Seahorses, 72, 76 Secular clergy, 15, 18, 143, 172-173, 176, 203n4, 204ml 14,19 Sempasuchil (marigold), 98, 100 Sequera, Rodrigo de, 193m3 Serlio, Sebastian, 25, 72 Sevilla, Juan de, 159 Seville, Spain, 58, 62, 63, 65, 70, 73 Shells, 47, 49 Snake plant, 91 Snakes, 107, 109, 120, 121, 131, 132, 147 Snowy egrets, 113, 114, 115 Song scrolls, 48, 49, 134, I92n9 Sorcery and witchcraft, 125, 174, I97n5 Soria, Martin, 5 Sparrows, 107, 117, 120, 121, 131, 142 Speech scrolls, 49 Split tree image, I99n26 Stag. See Deer Swallows, 142 Symbols. See Glyphs and symbols Syncretism: in Christianity, 14, 28; as "double mistaken identity," 8, 121-122; in Malinalco murals, 83; in mural painting, 8-9 Tacambaro, Michoacan (Augustinian monastery), 191m5 Tamoanchan, 133, 135-136, 198-199^124-25 Tapestry: armorial designs, 7 8 - 8 1 , 78, 7g, 82, 150, I95n27, I95n29; Berne millefleurs tapestry, 150-151; in colonial Mexico, 81-82; European tapestry, 7 8 - 8 1 , 78—80; Giovio tapestry, I95n26; influence on Malinalco murals, 79-80; millefleur designs, 78, 132, 150-151; paradise-garden imagery in, 132; verdure designs, 78, S0-81, 132 Tapia, Juan de, 22, 52 Tecamachalco, Puebla (Franciscan monastery), 4, 5, 45, 67, I92n5 Tecomaxochitl (trumpet vine), 91, 93

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Tempera painting, 45, 46, 60, I92n5 Tenochtitlan, 50, 58 Teotihuacan, Mex., 46, 159, I92n6 Tequitqui, 5, 6 - 7 Tetela del Volcan, Morelos (Dominican monastery), 5 Tezcatlipoca, 196m 5 Tezontepec, Hidalgo (Augustinian monastery), 163 Theatrical plays, 146-147 Thistles, 96, g7, 120, 132 Tiger flower, 101 Tiripetio, Michoacan (Augustinian monastery), 51, 81, 126, 153, 155, 177, I 9 i n n i 5 , i 7 , I92n5, 201m Tithe, 18 Tizatlan, Tlaxcala, 47, I92n7 Tlacaxipehualiztli, 89 Tlacuache (tree opossum), 40, 102, 103, 104, 120, I96ni4 Tlacuilo (scribe-painter), 9, 29, 46-50, 49, 134, 178, i92nio Tlaloc, 148 Tlalocan, 132-133, 135, 137, 148, 1 9 9 ^ 5 Tlaxcala (Franciscan monastery), 46, 59, 202n9 Tlayacapan, Morelos (Augustinian monastery), 24, 20in3 Tlazazalco (Augustinian monastery), 173 Tlililtzin (morning glory), 91 Tobacco plant, 118 Toledo, Spain, 64, 65 Tonacatecutli, 133 Tonacaxochitl (trumpet flower), 101-102, 119 Tonalamatl, 47 Toponyms, 8, 49, 162 Toro, Pedro del, 21 Torquemada, Juan de, 17, 19, 43, 46, 50, 149, 156, 159 Totolapan, Morelos (Augustinian monastery), 71, 20in3 Toussaint, Manuel, 3 - 4 , 75 Townsend, Richard F., 13 Tree of Jesse, 159, 202n9 Tree of Knowledge (or Tree of Life). See Paradise Garden Tree opossum, 102, 103, 104, 120, I96ni4 Trexler, Richard C , 146 Trilobed symbol, 134, 133 Trompetillo, 101-102 Trumpet flower, 101-102 Trumpet vine, 91, 93, 119 Tula, Hidalgo (Franciscan monastery), 19in 19 Tule (water reed), 89-90, gi, g$ Tulips, 130 Tuna, 90, 91 Tzapotl (sapote), 89, go. See also Sapote tree Ucareo, Michoacan (Augustinian monastery), I 9 i n i 7 , I92n3, 20on8 Utopia: in European literature, 140-142; failure of mendicants to realize ideal of, 171-178; friars' programmatic use of, 142-149; in mendicant ideology for New World, 139-142; as theme of mural painting, 2. See also Paradise Garden Utrera, Juan de, 21

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Valades, Diego, 50, 81, 146, 152, 20in20 Valencia, Martin de, 51 Vargas, Luis de, I94n9 Vault frescoes, 39, 41-42, 47, 49, 75, 134-135, pi. 9 Velasco, Don Luis de, 50, 204n7, 204m9 Veneto, Gabriel, 158 Veneziano, Agustino, 75, 77, I95ni8 Veracruz, Alonso de la, 51, 69, 70, 173, I 9 i n i 6 , 204115 Verdure (verderon). See Tapestry Vicente, Fray Joan, 44 Vignola, 72 Vigue, Juan, 169 Villafuente, Francisco de, 19in 16 Vitruvius, 25, 72 Water lilies, 40, 90, 126 Water reeds, 89-90, gi, 126 Whitewashing of mural painting, 2 - 3 , 44, 171, 176-177 "Wilderness paradise tradition," 165 Williams, George H., 165

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Witchcraft. See Sorcery and witchcraft Woodcuts. See Engraving Xiloxochitl (red-silk cotton tree), 38, 85, 87, 88, 119 Xochimilco, Michoacan (monastery), 52 Xochiquetzal, 133 Xocomecatl (wild grape), 96 Yanhuitlan, Oaxaca (Dominican monastery), 160 Yecapixtla, Morelos (Augustinian monastery), 68-69, 20in3 Yolloxochitl (heart flower), 54, 76, 85, 86, 87, 119, 125, 137, I96n2, I97n28 Yuriria, Michoacan (Augustinian monastery), 52, 160, I98ni3, 20in3 Zacualpan Amilpas, Morelos (Augustinian monastery), 24 Zapote tree. See Sapote tree Zorita, Alonso de, 14, 175 Zumarraga, Juan de, 204nn7,10

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