Museo Nacional del Virreinato, Museum in Tepotzotlán, State of Mexico, Mexico
The Museo Nacional del Virreinato is a museum of colonial history in Tepotzotlán housed in a former Jesuit college from the 16th century. The building is organized around several courtyards with surrounding arcades, a main church with a painted dome, a smaller chapel, and spacious rooms that once served as dormitories, library, and kitchen.
The Jesuits founded the College of San Francisco Javier in the 1580s as a training center for priests and a school for native children. After the order was expelled from New Spain in 1767, the building passed to other religious communities and was later converted into a museum.
The collection displays crafts from the period of the viceroyalty, including gilded carvings, painted cabinets, and liturgical textiles from the 16th to 18th centuries. Visitors can follow how artisans in New Spain combined European models with regional materials and skills.
The museum offers guided tours in several languages and is accessed through a large courtyard leading to the main building. Rooms are located on the ground floor or reached by stairs, so visitors with limited mobility should inquire about accessible areas in advance.
The altarpieces in the Church of San Francisco Javier were made in the 18th century by Higinio Chávez from white cedar covered with gold leaf. The church facade, built 1760–1762 in grey stone to a design attributed to Ildefonso Iniesta Bejarano, replaced the original 17th-century front and repeats the themes of the altars inside, with the Virgin as patroness of the Jesuits and the archangel Michael at the crest.
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