Lights of Freedom

Abstract

The influence of enlightened thought that emerged at the end of the 17th century and the beginning of the 18th century was fundamental for the change of mentality of the inhabitant of New Spain. Under the bishopric of Fray Antonio Alcalde, Nueva Galicia experienced an important boom in its economic and cultural development. His futuristic vision allowed him to establish the link between health, education, culture, and drawing up strategies that would ensure a balanced development of the members of his diocese by integrating actions aimed at raising the cultural level of its inhabitants.

This cultural and social vision was echoed by his successor, Bishop Juan Cruz de Cabañas y Crespo, who in return invited architect José Gutiérrez to build a project of great social importance. A project with which he changed the mentality of the society of Nueva Galicia, by lecturing about his ideas of academicism, rationality, and scientificity that emerged from the Enlightenment, which are manifested in the advanced design of his constructions, thereby provoking a desire for independence, freedom and with it the birth of an incipient nationalism.