Capilla del Rosario

The Capilla del Rosario is the chapel of the Virgin of the Rosary attached to the Dominican church of Santo Domingo, on the pedestrian street 5 de Mayo a short walk north of the Zócalo. It is usually counted the high point of 17th-century New Spanish Baroque. The Dominicans, who promoted devotion to the rosary, gave a chapel to the Virgin in each of their convents, and this was the first in Mexico dedicated to her. Fray Juan de Cuenca began it in 1650, and two other friars finished it forty years later. It was consecrated on 16 April 1690, the anniversary of the city's founding, with eight days of sermons, processions and masses, and that same year Fray Diego de Gorozpe called it the eighth wonder of the world in print. Its other old name is the Casa de Oro, the House of Gold.

The church you walk through first is a plain contrast. Santo Domingo was begun in 1571 with the architect Francisco Becerra, who also drew up the cathedral, and its grey stone front is in a severe purist style, topped by a marble Saint Dominic and the dogs with torches that are the order's emblem. The chapel opens off the left arm of the transept through a simple arched doorway, and then the walls, vaults and dome explode in stucco reliefs covered in 24-carat gold leaf. Among the leaves and flowers are the virtues of Faith, Hope and Charity, some sixty angels, many playing instruments around the choir, and in the dome Divine Grace with the gifts of the Holy Spirit and sixteen female saints.

Below the gold, a dado of Talavera poblana tiles runs along the nave, and six large canvases by José Rodríguez Carnero show the joys of the Virgin. Under the dome a ciprés, a domed shrine on twelve Corinthian columns of Tecali marble, holds the image of the Virgin of the Rosary. A team funded by the Mary Street Jenkins foundation restored the whole chapel between 1967 and 1971, and when John Paul II visited in 1979 he called it the reliquary of America. It is a working chapel with regular masses, so visits fit around services and the hours are split into morning and afternoon.