Templo y Ex Convento de San Francisco / Museo Regional de Querétaro

The Museo Regional de Querétaro occupies the former Templo y Ex Convento de San Francisco, a monastery complex begun in the sixteenth century by Franciscan friars soon after the Spanish founding of Querétaro. Its collections span pre-Hispanic archaeology, colonial-era religious art, and materials from Mexico's Independence and Reform periods, reflecting the building's long institutional life as both monastery and state museum. Among its most significant holdings is the hall where, in 1848, representatives signed the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, formally ending the Mexican-American War and transferring more than half of Mexico's territory to the United States, an event of enormous consequence for both nations. The museum's exhibits are arranged largely chronologically, moving visitors from pre-Columbian artifacts of the Bajío region through viceregal painting and religious sculpture to displays on the Independence movement and the loss of the northern territories. The building itself preserves a large colonial cloister with stone arcades and a bell tower, architectural features original to the Franciscan complex, giving the museum an atmosphere distinct from a purpose-built exhibition space. Restoration work over the decades has focused on stabilizing the cloister structure and adapting monastic cells into gallery rooms while preserving the original stonework, and the complex remains one of the best-preserved Franciscan monastic sites in the Bajío region.