MEXICAN ARCHITECTURE.
The history of Architecture in the New World, if fully and properly treated, is by no means confined to that of the structures erected by the English-speaking races of the continent. Long before anything worthy the name of Architecture existed in the United States the proud and wealthy Spanish colonists had raised in their cities grand cathedrals and extensive municipal structures, besides convents, markets, baths, houses, etc., which are well worthy the intelligent study of the prouder Northern race that now leads both in wealth and in energy. Even at the present day it may well be doubted whether there are in all America any buildings equal in grandeur to the finest of the churches and cathedrals of the Spanish colonies. It is true that the best period of the Spanish Renaissance had passed before the colonies had become sufficiently rich to erect structures worthy to be compared either in size or in beauty with those of the parent country. The decadence had commenced, and thus the ornamentation of the best churches is more or less baroque, while the worst descend very low into the depths of " Churrigueresco." Josef de Churriguera was an architect who in his day, like many bad architects, was successful—so much so that his name is a synonym in Spain for pretentious tastelessness.
The architects of New Spain, whether their detail was good or bad, understood thoroughly the art of massing it so as to give it the greatest possible effect. They comprehended the architectural value of broad plain surfaces contrasted with smaller adorned ones, and their great churches present us with some startling combinations of this kind. It is principally upon this account that the architecture of Mexico and of South America deserves a greater amount of study than has heretofore been accorded it. The chief elements of grandeur and of picturesqueness —which is to grandeur what prettiness is to beauty—are derived from the distribution of the masses, and are independent, in most cases, of what is known as style. Though the edifices of Spanish-speaking America are all conceived in various phases of that compromise between the round arched and lintelled styles—that anion of a screen of orders with struc tural piers—which has prevailed in Europe since the Renaissance, the change of their external details, and even of their internal details, into Gothic would not greatly alter the ensemble, provided the arrangement of the masses, the artistic contrast between the richly-decorated and the un adorned surfaces, and the outline of the whole, were left unaltered.
Mexico is not only the nearest to the United States of the Spanish speaking countries, but is also architecturally the most important, and must occupy the greatest share of the space at our disposal. Throughout
the whole of the past history of Mexico ecclesiastical buildings have pre dominated, as might be expected in a country colonized by a race which conquered equally with sword and with crucifix.
Church of San the earliest of these churches, as it is also among the few that now stand practically as left by their builders, is San Francisco at Tula, begun about the year 154o by Fray Alonzo Ranzell, the first missionary among the Indians of that region, and completed not later than 1561. In appearance it is more like a fort than like a church, since its ponderously-built walls are guarded by flanking-towers and it is enclosed by a heavy stone wall fourteen feet high.
ilerida Ca/hand, completed in 159S, is another work of the six teenth century. Its lofty and massive facade consists of a centre and two square towers, each of three diminishing stages set upon one another without an attempt to soften the transition. The vaulted roof is borne on sixteen massive columns. The sides of this structure are plain and fort-like, and the dome, though fine within, is externally inconspicuous in comparison with the western frontispiece.
The CaMedral of jfc.rico is the largest church on the continent, and is also one of the grandest. It is a broad, widespread pyramidal struc ture, somewhat lacking height, but full of repose. The twin-towers of the front have two ornamented storeys above a plain base, which serves as a background for the rich adornment of the portal that forms the centre of the facade. It is this concentration of the adornment which gives it grandeur. Nothing can be more severe than the plain stone work of the broad bases of the towers, and against them the narrower upper storeys and the rich entrance obtain the fullest effect. Six pairs of great scrolls form so many buttresses—flying-buttresses, it might be said—between the base and the upper part of the edifice; each tower has two pairs, while two others belong to the central part of the facade. Above the scrolls the second storey of each tower consists of five belfry openings, four smaller flanking a larger central one, while the uppermost storey consists of an octagon inside a square. Each tower has a low bell shaped cap which does not add t'o its beauty. The lower storey of the frontispiece of the main entrance is Doric, and is of better proportions than the Ionic storey above it. There are also richly-decorated entrances at the sides, and the entire round of the cornices of towers and main building is set with vases disposed at intervals upon the balustrades.