Iglesia de Santa María Tonantzintla

The Church of Santa María Tonantzintla in Puebla features a Latin cross floor plan with a hexagonal apse, tower, dome, sacristy, baptismal chapel, and adjoining chapels. Its sober exterior contrasts with a richly decorated interior in polychrome stucco, considered the highest expression of Indigenous Baroque art in Mexico.The temple’s iconography fuses Christian elements with Indigenous worldview, represented through dark-skinned angels, children wearing feathered headdresses, tropical fruits, and ears of corn. This decoration allows for two interpretations: a pagan one, linked to Tláloc’s earthly paradise, and a Christian one, evoking the main Marian passages and the Heavenly Paradise according to the theology of Saint Thomas Aquinas.The church was built on the site of an ancient teocalli dedicated to the goddess Tonantzin and was declared a Historic Monument in 1933. Today, it is one of the most visited religious sites in the state of Puebla.