Museo de Guadalupe

The Museo de Guadalupe is more properly called the Museo Regional de Guadalupe. This gives nothing away of its true importance, and in fact, it was the first museum in the state and it remains the most important of its kind by a long shot. The museum offers an incredible and priceless collection of colonial era religious art and it's all housed in a tremendously important architectural complex. It's run today by the country's leading museum-managing organization, the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH). 

The complex was built for the Propaganda Fide of Our Lady of Guadalupe of Zacatecas. Founded in 1622 by Pope Gregory XV, this was the premier Franciscan organization working for the evangelization of pagan peoples and to that end it founded some seven colleges to train Franciscan brothers in the task. This was one of those seven and it was dedicated in 1707.

The school operated for 152 years training Franciscans in how to convert and work with indigenous peoples. In 1859, it was decommissioned and taken over by the government. Even still, some Franciscans stayed on the property to safeguard some of the treasures within. It went through all of the other uses put to decommissioned religious buildings: school, barracks, asylum and orphanage. In 1918, a few remaining Franciscans helped to re-open it as the Museum of Antiquities of the Former Convent of Guadalupe. Although the property was still serving, in part, as an asylum and orphanage. Restoration began for real only in the 1970s. 

Today the collection includes some 800 works of colonial-era art from the old college, plus paintings and works from other monasteries and churches in and around the city of Zacatecas. The library holds some 14,000 volumes, mostly from the 18th and 19th centuries. In 2010, it all became part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site, as a key stop on the Camino Real de Tierra Adentro.

But people visit for the cloisters, for the side chapels, and for the incredible spaces and perspectives within. The Cloister of San Francisco contains 26 paintings depicting the life of Saint Francis of Assisi once used for daily instruction - and that spirit of educational purpose lives on.​

To visit Zacatecas and to miss its premier museum is unthinkable. The site is right on the Jardin Juarez, the main town square of the already important Pueblo Magico of Guadalupe. Getting here from the Plaza de Armas in Zacatecas takes about 30 minutes in a cab. But it's the best way to gain insight to the incredible and prolific history of the town, its peoples, and historical culture.