Source: WTL© digital photograph taken on site at the former monastery of San Agustín Acolman.
Comments: Let us focus on the main entrance portal to the nave of the monastery's chapel. At the top is the simple Christian cross. Immediately below are three bells used to toll the hours, to call people to mass, and to sound alarms. Flanking the bells are battlements, reminiscent of the fortress church style seen in the Catedral de Mérida. In place of a rose window, the upper storey has a simple Renaissance-style Plateresque doorway. At ground level we see the magnificent artwork of this exemplary Plateresque façade—exemplary, that is, for the early Renaissance in Mexico. On the right side of this photograph on the second floor we see half of an outdoor altar, which we will study a couple of pages later in this visual tour of Acolman.
Humanities Questions: What is your feeling about this façade in the 21st century and from your own cultural background? How would various visitors to this monastery (Spanish, Mestizo, Indians) have felt about it in the middle of the 16th century in central Mexico?