The millenarianism of the mendicant orders in the 16th century New Spain and its manifestations in architecture and art
Abstract
The aim of this article is to present the monastic architecture of the 16th century New Spain and its artistic decoration in form of mural paintings and sculptural reliefs. The article presents every individual elements of this unique architecture (mainly the innovative ones such as open chapels, posas chapels or atrio crosses) as well as the iconographic program of its plastic decoration.
However, the focus of this text is the interpretation of this architecture and its artistic decoration in terms of their functions in the process of evangelization of the native population of Mesoamerica. The term millenarianism will be used to refer to the evangelizing activities of the mendicant orders.
Special interest will be paid to the manifestations of these activities to the monastic architecture and art. The article concludes that millenarianism manifested mainly in the environment of the Franciscan order and it appeared not only in monastic architecture and art, but also in written sources.