Museo Nacional del Virreinato, Tepotzotlán

The complex at Tepotzotlán began in the 1580s as a Jesuit missionary college for training priests to evangelize indigenous communities in New Spain, and construction of its church, cloisters, and residential wings continued in phases over nearly two centuries until the Jesuit order was expelled from the Spanish Empire in 1767. The Iglesia de San Francisco Javier is the complex's centerpiece, its facade and interior covered in Churrigueresque ornament, an exuberant late-Baroque style of gilded retablos, estipite columns, and densely carved surfaces that represents one of the most complete examples of the style surviving in Mexico. Following the Jesuit expulsion, the buildings passed through various uses, including a seminary and later a public building, before deteriorating in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The Mexican government restored the complex and reopened it in 1964 as the Museo Nacional del Virreinato, dedicated to art and material culture from the roughly three centuries of Spanish colonial rule (1521-1821). The site preserves original cloisters, a sacristy with polychrome sculpture, and kitchen and refectory spaces alongside the museum's galleries of viceregal painting, furniture, and religious objects, making the architecture itself as much a part of the visit as the collection it houses. Restoration work has continued intermittently since the 1960s to conserve the gilded retablos and mural surfaces.