The La Mejorada convent, to which the colonial neighborhood of Mérida owes its name, is celebrating 400 years of construction. This was the last bastion of the Franciscan order in the city.
The Franciscan convent began to be built in 1621, when Diego García Montalvo, a neighbor with a solvent position, allocated land of his property for the construction.
According to Ángel Gutiérrez Romero, a member of the Mexican Association of Ecclesiastical History and collaborator of the Archdiocese of Yucatán, the idea was to provide the friars with a space where they could dedicate themselves to prayer, penance and community life, unlike their counterparts who left the monasteries to evangelize.
“Initially the friars themselves were not so willing to establish the foundation. The Great Convent of San Francisco, the main one of the Franciscans in Yucatán, already existed”—which over time disappeared and was located where the San Benito market is now located—, he reminds the Diario.
They thought, he adds, that in a small city with few economic resources it would be difficult to sustain two convents.
But on April 13, 1624—a date that marks four centuries this year—the donation was finally accepted.
Its original name was Convento del Tránsito de la Madre de Dios and in colonial times it began to be called La Mejorada. García Montalvo handed over the plots, what had already been built and other materials to the Franciscans and their provincial, Brother Jerónimo de Porras, took possession of the donation.
Ángel Gutiérrez points out that historians of the time claimed that the founding of La Mejorada was miraculous because it was built without asking for alms or special donations from the population.
On January 22, 1640, the church, which remains to this day, was completed and dedicated to the Transit of the Mother of God.
The historian cites Diego López de Cogolludo when indicating that in 1629 a friar who at the time had a reputation for holiness and miracles was buried in the church: Juan de Urbita. The measure, he adds, sought to give the new convent its own identity, its own spirit, because in this way it was given a certain weight and the space was made sacred.
The idea of having a convent of Recollect friars could not be completely maintained. There are records that La Mejorada was inhabited by up to twelve friars in the cloister area, facilities where the Uady Faculty of Architecture now operates.
“We know that by the end of the 18th century Mejorada had 60 pious foundations, a significant number,” he admits. “Usually it was a layman who decided to give a sum of money to the convent to create a foundation for the celebration of some festival. The convent lent that money, which generated income and with these the festival was celebrated.”
In addition to the cloister, the convent included other areas that covered ample space.
In 1821, liberal laws ordered the closure of all convents in New Spain and the extinction of religious orders. In Yucatán, the Franciscans were given the option of becoming diocesan or concentrating on the only convent they were authorized to maintain, that of La Mejorada. “So that in the entire Yucatan Peninsula the last Franciscan stronghold was that of Mejorada.”
At some point the Franciscans had plans to build two new cloisters and an infirmary, a plan that ultimately did not come to fruition.
In 1861, in compliance with the Reform Laws, temples and convents were expropriated, including Mejorada, which ceased to be property of the Church and passed into civil administration. “From this point on, the convent complex had several uses, in fact it functioned as a civil hospital when the San Juan de Dios closed. In the first half of the 20th century it was used as a neighborhood.”
Military neighborhood
The soldiers assigned to the Dragon Barracks lived with their families in Mejorada. “The complex began to fall into progressive abandonment until 1975, when it was designated as the headquarters of the School of Architecture, now the Faculty, and its consolidation began,” he recalls.
Ángel Gutiérrez points out that the La Mejorada church, like other Franciscan churches in Yucatán, is very austere on the outside: made of stone, with large walls and ashlars on the façade. “The convent also follows these architectural elements.”
“Now we identify the devotion to Our Lady of Carmen with the parish of La Mejorada. It is a devotion that began in colonial times and there is also documentation of devotions that have been lost, among them that of Nuestra Señora del Pilar, a very important festival founded by Governor Antonio de Oliver.”
Likewise, before, the celebrations of the Lord of the Good Death, San Antonio de Padua and the wounds of San Francisco were relevant. Now “the church is a parish and its foundation was in the 20th century, with the title of Nuestra Señora del Carmen.”
The Franciscan friars who lived in Mérida began to die and eventually the order in the city was extinguished for this reason.
Ángel Gutiérrez emphasizes that this architectural space is a jewel of Mérida and, 400 years old, is in very good structural condition. “It is an emblematic space and we cannot talk about La Mejorada without mentioning the chronicler Jorge Álvarez Rendón, a deceased resident of the neighborhood, to whom we owe one of the legends related to the convent, which is that of the corner of the Ave de Oro.” — CLAUDIA SIERRA MEDINA
