axes in The ciTy • 173high by 35 wide, the work is quite large, and its imagery was
drawn from a European print of the Salvator Mundi (Sav-
ior of the World), the figure of Christ holding an orb with a
cross on top to symbolize his triumph over the globe. Even
today, the work retains a shimmering quality imparted
by the feathers used in its manufacture; these are densely
packed on its amatl-paper surface. Typically, the less expen-
sive feathers used in the lower layers would have been dyed,
while those on the top layer were not. The feathers came
from both local birds and ones found only in tropical zones
of the country, like parrots and quetzals. The luminous
turquoise-blue field that dominates the background invites
comparison to The Mass of Saint Gregory (see figure 5.3);
however, in contrast to the complex interaction of figures
in the Gregorymass, this work was designed to have greater
visual impact when seen from afar, with the gleaming white
of the Christ’s face set off against the dark frame of hair.
The dramatic colors work to the same end: the purple
cloak, set off with bands of red and gold; the brilliant red
tunic edged in yellow; the turquoise background against
the gold frame. While the broad framing text is so much
like that of the Gregorymass that they could have been
produced in the same workshop, in this case, the repeating
text is not completely readable, written in an uncommon
script. Even for literate viewers of the time, the letters here
would have been for effect only. This, too, speaks to a kind
of legibility from afar, as the text signified the Holy Word
without needing to be actually read.
PRocessionaL oRdeR
and sociaL cohesion
Just as the images that were carried in the processions had,
on the surface, European imagery but were of indigenous
facture and indigenous materials, so too were the cofradías
that played a starring role in the organization and order of
the Holy Week processions. These religious sodalities were
established as early as the mid-1530s, funded and peopled
by the Nahua residents of the city. Holy Thursday featured
the oldest cofradía, that of Veracruz, whose cult object was
the cross, which would have been fashioned of silver. Writ-
ing in 1595, Mendieta describes how the next day, Good
Friday, was dominated by the cofradía of the Soledad de
la Virgen (a version of Our Lady of Sorrows), which was
one of the newest cofradías at the time of his writing, estab-
lished in 1591, and the number of devotees thronging to the
procession suggests its immense and immediate popularity.
On Easter itself, the most important day of the liturgical
year, it was the cofradía of San José that went first, to be
followed by Veracruz and Soledad. 20
If the larger order of the processions of Holy Week was
determined by perceived hierarchies of the Nahua cofradías
of the city, we can also see evidence that the social geogra-
phy of the city was on display at these public events. Men-
dieta underscores the presence in the procession of 230
platforms that were carried aloft, and upon them were set
images of Jesus and Mary and other saints, “todas doradas
y muy vistosas” (all guilded and brilliant). But where did
all these images come from? Earlier in his history, Men-
dieta comments on the large number of images appearing
in processions in New Spain in general, “ . . . which are
many in large towns, because in addition to those that the
head town [cabecera] has, are those that hamlets or subject
towns carry in,” which tells us that political hierarchies as
well as spatial concepts of center and periphery were given
expression as the images of the towns subject to the head
town were brought from their outlying homes to the more
powerful center. 21 Within Mexico-Tenochtitlan, the same
dynamic would have held. Some of the images would likely
have been housed in San Francisco, or within the seven
arches of the chapel of San José, but 230 is a large number of
images, and many were certainly supplied by the neighbor-
hood chapels, many if not all of these representing the city’s
tlaxilacalli, as well as subject towns from the surrounding
valley. One indication of the alliance of a cult image with
a particular chapel comes from the indigenous historian
Chimalpahin, who writes of a moment in 1597 when the
Franciscans, whose once-contested control of Santa María
Cuepopan was firmly confirmed by royal order, took out
the statue of “the precious lady Santa María who was kept
at San José” and returned with her to Cuepopan. 22 Such
circulation of the holy image was also a standard feature
of Spanish practice; some months before this statue of
the Virgin made her way back to Cuepopan, the Virgin of
Remedios was brought for a ten-day stay at the Cathedral
of Mexico before returning to her regular “home” in her
shrine near San Bartolomé Naucalpan, about six miles to
the west of the city. 23
Mendieta also offers us an indication of the rules gov-
erning the order of the procession, writing of the general
crowd that “they went ordered by their neighborhoods
[barrios], according to the prominence, or lack of, that they