Visiting Assistant Professor of Art History, Swarthmore College

“Miraculous Images and the Devotional Topography of Colonial Mexico City” 

At the height of the baroque period in colonial Mexico City (ca.1650-1775), miraculous paintings and statues drew throngs of devotees to countless chapels arrayed across the urban landscape.  Professor Burdette will examine the important role played by these miraculous statues in the construction of a sacred landscape within the urban sphere of Mexico City and its environs.  Looking beyond the more famous examples of miraculous imagery found in rural shrines, including Our Lady of Guadalupe, Burdette will argue that the city’s lesser-known statues and paintings played a vital role in shaping the devotional and political life of Mexico City.  These neighborhood images, although less well-known, were woven into the fabric of the city, shaping a devotional topography that concretized religious and social order within the contested space of the city.