Symbol of the Sisal district
The monastery of St. Bernadino of Siena stands in the Sisal district of the city of Valladolid, and is one of the oldest and most important Colonial buildings in Yucatan. It was founded in 1552 by Friar Hernando de Guevara, who began construction three years later, with the collaboration of Friar Francisco de la Torre and the supervision from the friar-architect Juan de Mérida.
In his research The construction of Franciscan monasteries in the 16th century in Yucatan, the architectural scholar Manuel Arturo Román Kalisch states that the monastery and the church were built between 1555 and 1560, the date recorded on the main entrance to the premises.
Valladolid was founded on a pre-Colombian site called Zací, the capital of the Cupules chiefdom. The original toponym comes from the Mayan words sak meaning “white” and i meaning “sparrowhawk”.
The monastery’s patron saint was a famous 15th-century preacher and member of the austere Observant Franciscan Order; his feast is celebrated on the 20th of May. The monastery was founded in a town whose inhabitants were Spanish in origin, and was designed with some architectural differences compared to other monasteries built in Yucatan in the 16th century, especially as regards the size of the atrium and the absence of capillas posas.
The church boasts a simple but beautiful doorway, which shows off Juan de Merida’s mastery of the the Plateresque style. Below the choir window there is a small Franciscan crest.
Inside are some of the most significant paintings and reredoses of the Colonial era in Yucatan. On either side of the chancel there is a niche where the first original mural paintings survive from the 16th century. A few years later, at the turn of the century, the niches were covered by Renaissance-style reredoss, which still have their original estofado and 24-karat gold leaf finish.
Outside the left or northern side of the church is the monastery, consisting of upper and lower cloisters. In what used to be the orchard stands a large vault covering the saqiya, built above a cenote that extends under the church.
The cenote is called Sis-Há, which in Maya means “well of cold water” and which is the origin of the name, Sisal, given to this part of Valladolid, the “Sultana of the East”.
During the Caste War, the defenders of Valladolid were forced by the numerical superiority of the Mayan rebels to abandon the city. Their armament was too little to confront the insurgents, but too heavy to take with them, so to prevent it falling into enemy hands they threw it into the depths of the cenote.
The ancient ex-Monastery of St. Bernardino of Siena is one of the emblematic features of Valladolid. Also known as Sisal Monastery, it is connected to the city center by a lovely tourist route called Friars’ Footpath.
Valladolid, the second place in Yucatan to be given the official epithet of “Magical Town”, is 166 km (103 miles) east of Merida, and 38 km (24 miles) from the archaeological site at Chichen Itza.
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