Versos e imágenes: culto y devociones marianas en el templo de la Compañía de Jesús en Zacatecas, México

Abstract

In 1750 the new church of the Society of Jesus was consecrated and dedicated to the Immaculate Conception in the mining town of Zacatecas, north of New Spain. The new building was decorated inside with eleven retablos according to a well-organized iconographic program, developed by the Father Ignacio Calderon, director of the Jesuit School in Zacatecas. Four of these retablos were directly dedicated to the cult of the Virgin Mary, who is also represented, under other different advocations, in two more altarpieces of the church. These exuberant retablos were erected to expose the main Marian devotions promoted by the Society of Jesus in New Spain in the 18th century. The poem attributed to the Father Diego Jose Abad Garcia and the anonymous description of the church, both composed in 1750, contributed to propagate the glory of the Jesuits and their new artistic creation. With them we can understand and reconstruct the devotional message of the Society and the original program of images that decorated the new Jesuit church in Zacatecas.