The “least Franciscan” monastery
Dzidzantún is from the Mayan place name Ts’i’tsantun, which means “sprinkled stone” or perhaps Tsitshantun, which the Dictionary of Yucatecan Spanish derives from tists ja’, to sprinkle with water, and tun, stone.
At 78 m (256 ft) long by 11m (36 ft) wide, the monastery church of Dzidzantún is the largest single-nave church built in Mexico during the Colonial period, according to Miguel Bretos Cisneros in his book Churches of Yucatan.
This monastery. dedicated to St. Clare of Assisi, was established in 1567, and building work was begun by Friar Francisco de Gadea, who was transferred to Peru and Chile in 1570, but returned to Yucatan in 1600, remaining here until his death in 1625, according to the 17th-century Franciscan chronicler Bernardo de Lizana.
St Clare of Assisi was the founder of a Franciscan women’s order known as the Clarisses or Poor Clares. She was canonized in 1255, and her feast day is the 11th of August.
The date on which construction of the church began is unknown: chronicles of 1579 only refer to the monastery, but historical documents indicate that the complex was finished by 1588.
Because of the size of its nave and flaws in the construction, as well as weak foundations and a lack of support on the south wall, the church began to suffer structural issues. Attempts were made to fix these in the 18th century, but time took its toll, and the vault collapsed in the early 20th century.
Years later, as it was threatening to become a ruin, there was a proposal to demolish it. The plan was not carried through, but in the process, several of the monastery’s major architectural features were destroyed, including the Indian Chapel, the atrium and the capillas posas. In the 1980s, the church was roofed with concrete beams, and a tile floor was installed, which altered its original appearance.
The main entrance, now partially restored, is a beautiful Plateresque design bearing several high-quality sculptures. In the interior is a bust of St. Francis carved into the tympanum (the space between the lintel of a doorway and the arch above it) of the entrance to the sacristy.
Dr. Fernando Garcés Fierros notes that on the right-hand side of the ex-monastery there is the base of a narrow, unfinished bell-tower.
In its time, the church of St. Clare contained a wealth of artworks, such as murals and sculptures, as well as architectonic and aesthetic details that evoke Augustinian buildings from the center of Mexico, making it the least Franciscan and least Yucatecan 16th-century monastery church, as Bretos remarks in his Architecture and Sacred Art in Yucatan.
One of its principal jewels is beautiful fresco, possibly painted in the second half of the 16th century, according to Garcés Fierros, depicting the bodily assumption to Heaven of the Virgin Mary, and her reception and coronation by the Holy Trinity, accompanied by Sts Clare, Francis, Peter and Paul.
This unique work of art is located on the original wall of the chancel, the upper cloister and adjoining areas, and the east portico connecting to the atrium. Ana Raquel Vanoye Carlo, an art historian, mentions in her article The mural in the monastery of St. Clare in Dzidzantún, Yucatan, that the first attempts at restoration were made in the 1980s, by the expert Miguel Abrego.
However, work was suspended until 2011, when it was resumed by Dr. Garcés Fierros, under the auspices of the Yucatan Adopt an Artwork program. Restoration was concluded in 2013.
Behind the main altar, where the tabernacle used to be, there are some magnificent murals containing religious figures, peacocks, big cats, crowns and Latin phrases, all bearing mute witness to the long history of this building.
The importance of the monastery, and the prosperity of the area, attracted pirates, who threatened the coasts of the Peninsula throughout the Colonial period, attacking ports and the occasional inland settlement, including Dzidzantún in 1652.
The jewels of sacred art preserved in the ex-monastery of St Clare in Dzidzantún can be viewed during the normal times of religious services in the church. Dzidzantún is 76 km (47 miles) north-east of Merida.
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