The Cristo Comes to Life
The Cristo Comes to Life
Lived Religion in Colonial Mexico City
In 1583 the Augustinian order moved the Cristo Aparecido to Mexico City where the image quickly became part of the religious life of urban, baroque Mexico. The belief among the friars and indigenous Christians of Mexico City was that the Cristo Aparecido demonstrated signs of animate life and the image became among the most celebrated sacred images in New Spain. The fame of the image led to an Inquisition hearing that scrutinized the Cristo’s origins. Over the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, in Mexico City the image was not only a baroque adornment, an object of beauty, but also functioned as a “shield of arms,” protecting the poor residents of Mexico City from repeated waves of epidemic disease.
Keywords: New Spain, Mexico City, Inquisition, baroque art, epidemic disease, Virgin of Guadalupe, religious ritual, relics, miracles, illness and healing
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