Catedral Basílica de Nuestra Señora de la Asunción

The Catedral Basilica de Nuestra Senora de la Asuncion faces the Plaza de la Patria in the Zona Centro of Aguascalientes, Mexico, and is the largest and most visible historic building in the state capital. Its origins lie in a modest chapel raised soon after the Villa de la Asuncion de las Aguas Calientes was founded in 1575 as a defended stop on the silver road north to Zacatecas. Growth of the town through the seventeenth century made that chapel inadequate, and the present church was built over the course of the eighteenth century, with the main body consecrated in the 1730s and work on the towers continuing well beyond, the second tower not being completed until the twentieth century. The facade is baroque in the regional idiom, worked in local pink and ochre quarry stone, with paired columns, niches holding carved saints and a central relief of the Assumption to which the church is dedicated. Inside, the plan is a broad three-aisled basilica under a high dome, with side chapels along both flanks and a nineteenth-century neoclassical high altar that replaced earlier baroque work, a substitution typical of Mexican cathedrals in that period. The most significant holdings are the colonial paintings, including canvases attributed to Miguel Cabrera, the leading New Spain painter of the eighteenth century, together with a pinacoteca of religious art assembled from the diocese; these are displayed in the sacristy and adjoining rooms and are the reason the building repays more than a passing look. Raised to cathedral status when the Diocese of Aguascalientes was created in 1899 and later given the rank of minor basilica, the church has been restored repeatedly, most recently to clean and consolidate the stone facade, and it is in good condition. It remains a working cathedral with a full schedule of Masses; entry is free, hours run from roughly 7:00AM to 9:00PM daily, and visitors are asked to move quietly and dress modestly.