Ex-Convento de San Gabriel, Cholula

The Ex-Convento de San Gabriel sits beside the main plaza of San Pedro Cholula in the state of Puebla and was constructed beginning in the 1540s by Franciscan friars on a site closely associated with pre-Hispanic ceremonial structures in what was one of the most important religious centers in the Mesoamerican world before the conquest. The complex includes three connected religious spaces: the main church of San Gabriel, the adjoining open-air Capilla Real with its distinctive forest of stone columns supporting a multi-domed roof modeled loosely on the Great Mosque of Córdoba, and the smaller Capilla de la Tercera Orden. The Capilla Real's forty-nine domes and columned hall are considered an architecturally unusual solution among New World colonial chapels, designed to accommodate large indigenous congregations for open evangelization. Original 16th-century stone vaulting survives across the complex, and the atrium in front of the church retains fragments of its colonial-era cross and boundary walls. The complex's construction directly atop or immediately adjacent to Cholula's pre-Hispanic ceremonial plaza reflects a deliberate Spanish strategy of asserting religious authority over existing centers of indigenous worship. Restoration campaigns by INAH have concentrated on structural reinforcement of the Capilla Real's domes, several of which required consolidation work after seismic activity affected the roof structure in past decades, while original stonework has been retained rather than rebuilt.