The Barroque Paradise of Santa María Tonantzintla (Part II)

The baroque church of Santa María Tonantzintla is located in the Valley of Cholula in the Central Mexican Plateau and it was built during 16th-19th century. Its interior decoration shows an interesting symbolic fusion of Christian elements with Mesoamerican religious aspects of Nahua origin. Scholars of Mexican colonial art interpreted the Catholic iconography of Santa María Tonantzintla church as the Assumption of the Virgin Mary up to the celestial kingdom and her coronation by the holy Trinity. One of those scholars, Francisco de la Maza, proposed the idea that apart from that, the ornaments of the church evoke Tlalocan, paradise of the ancient deity of rain known as Tlaloc. Following this interpretation this study explores the relation between the Virgin Mary and the ancient Nahua deity of Earth and fertility called Tonatzin in order to show the profound syncretic bonds which exist between Christian and Mesoamerican traditions.