A Franciscan antique in a Magical Town
Just like the miracles attributed to its patron, the main altarpiece in the church of the ex-monastery of St. Bernardino of Siena in Valladolid (the pre-Colombian city of Zací) represents the miraculous survival of one of the most significant treasures of sacred art from Colonial Yucatan.
This priceless altarpiece, which escaped both the destruction of the Caste War and the religious devastation caused throughout the Peninsula by the Revolutionary forces under Salvador Alvarado, shines out from the Sisal neighborhood of this Magical Town, 158 km (98 miles) east of Merida.
This structure holds pride of place in the semi-circular apse of the church attached to the second largest monastery in Yucatan, after Izamal. Fernando Garcés Fierros states that its characteristics, manufacture and Baroque-style estipite decoration place it in the 18th century.
However, he goes on, its original finish, undoubtedly of gold leaf and ornate polychrome, was covered by layers of paint, possibly applied in the 19th century, in an attempt “to recreate the look of marble on the cap, niches and friezes, more appropriate to the neo-Classical age.”
The exquisitely carved reredos, dedicated to St. Bernadino of Siena, whose feast is celebrated on the 20th of May, measures eight meters wide by 13 m high (26 x 42 ft). It has three levels, a cap, and three vertical divisions, curved like a triptych. The predella at the bottom is of unadorned masonry.
In the center there is an empty space where the tabernacle used to be. Above the reredos is a spectacular double rib vault in a Plateresque style common to Franciscan churches in 16th-century Yucatan and New Spain.
At the sides there is profuse acanthus leaf ornamentation encompassing all three levels. In the three, blue niches on the first level are statues of St Joseph, the patron saint (in the center), and St. John the Baptist.
The second level is similar to the first, although the predominating color is red. The three niches contain images of Christ tied to the pillar with St. Peter, a crucified Christ, and St. Martin de Porres.
The central niche on the final level, which is topped by a closed crown, houses an image of the Virgin of Guadalupe. To the sides are carvings of St. Rose of Lima and the Sacred Heart of Jesus. At the pinnacle is an image of the Sacred Heart in the midst of a radiant glow.
The high altarpiece in the ex-monastery in Valladolid is decorated in estofado, using gold leaf and red and blue polychrome.
When the first restoration work was carried out on the church in 1978, some of the lateral altarpieces revealed traces of mural paintings behind them, presumably from the original 16th-century altars.
Twenty years later, the high altar was embellished thanks to a private donation, and fifteen years after that the two lateral mural altarpieces (“Christ in His Majesty” and “The Baptism of Jesus”) were restored, along with a wooden one dedicated to St. Francis of Assisi in one of the two chapels.
The main reredos in the ex-monastery of St. Bernadino can be visited during the time of religious services in the church.
Location