When México's President Claudia Sheinbaum wears clothing with red roses in the design, what is she saying? This is a seriously contested space in México today and has been ever since Frida Kahlo proudly appeared in Oaxacan Tehuana dress. With Sheinbaum, is it cultural appropriation by the new

Should an Irishwoman who died in 1886 be a national heroine of Paraguay? In 1961, then-Paraguayan dictator Alfredo Stroessner declared "Madame Lynch" a national heroine and had her body, which was buried in Paris, exhumed and brought back to Paraguay. Eliza Lynch had gained notoriety as the

If the national foundation myth of México could be said to be Cortés and Malinche, in Venezuela and much of South America it's the story not just of Simón Bolívar and liberation from Spain, but also of Doña Bárbara, Santos Luzardo and Marisela. They are the central characters

In early 2025, a statue of the Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro was reinstalled in Plaza de Armas in the center of Lima, Peru, 22 years after it had been banished to a faraway park. The return of the statue (above) enraged indigenous locals who have long regarded Pizarro as a

* 1499 Birth of Bernardino de Sahagún * 1517 Martin Luther nails the 95 Theses to the church door in Wittenberg * 1519 Cortés expedition arrives in Mexico (March 4) * Charles (Carlos) of Spain becomes the Holy Roman Emperor as Charles V * Death of Leonardo da Vinci * 1520 Night of Sorrow (La Noche

Pedro is a mysterious figure who gets very little credit in the stories of the Conquest but he certainly got around. Even if the historians ignore him, he appears in Latin American folklore all the way from New Mexico, Puerto Rico and Guatemala to Argentina and Chile, where he is

Coyoacán is the place to stay in Mexico City if you love art and history. The original house of Malinche and Cortés is there. It dates from around 1521 and 1522 and it is on Higuera Street, across the street from the Plaza La Conchita, but it does not look

Below is Vision Of Hell (Visión Del Infierno) (1962), based on another vision of the Virgin Mary, in 1917, by three children in Fátima, Portugal. They claimed they saw a beautiful woman, dressed in white and standing above a bush. I guess Dalí dropped that bit.

Don Quixote and Sancho Panza were Cervantes' extremely popular but rather less than successful heroes. The celebrated images above and below are by, respectively, Jules David in 1887, Pablo Picasso in 1955 and Honoré Daumier in 1850. This Pedro de Urdemales image from lower down in another sidebar page,

Cōātlīcue, the Aztec mother of gods, is a powerful symbol in Kahlo’s self-portraits. And Kahlo at the opera? "It was the entrance of an Aztec goddess, perhaps Coatlicue, the mother deity wrapped in her skirt of serpents, exhibiting her own lacerated, bloody hands the way other women

This is José Clemente Orozco's great mural of Cortés and Malinche (Cortés y La Malinche) as Adam and Eve. Is the figure beneath them México? It is hard to see this mural of 1926 as anything other than a very negative image. Then compare this with his other

It is known today as Museo Frida Kahlo and it is where she was born and raised, it is where she lived on and off with Diego Rivera, and it is where she died in 1954 - her cremated ashes are in an urn on display here. The museum's

La Celestina is regarded as the greatest work of early Spanish literature aside from Don Quixote. Written by Fernando de Rojas and published in different editions between 1499 and 1502, it certainly must have influenced Cervantes. The initial title was Comedia de Calisto y Melibea (later it became a Tragicomedia)

For many in México today, Malinche is someone they have never heard of. For those who have, she is a symbol of anyone willing to sell out their country to the gringos. As Cortés’ translator, she was nicknamed la Lengua, “the tongue” for her diplomatic skills and, with Cortés, she

Is this a positive image or a predatory image? Some critics view this lithograph from around 1929 as a nurturing image where the Franciscan father embraces the emaciated Indian - Orozco was more sympathetic than most to the early colonial Catholic priests and their mission to the Indians. Others see a

In Tepeyac today, on a hill to the north of Mexico City, this is the old basilica, Antigua Basílica de Guadalupe, shown in the center of the magical photo below, with the new Basílica de Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe on the right. Below, this is a view from in front,

In 2008, Playboy México caused a storm of controversy by releasing this issue to coincide with the December 12 holiday of the Virgin of Guadalupe. It sold well...

Quetzalcoatl, the "feathered serpent" - deity of the Toltecs, Aztecs and Mayans - was said, in one of the local legends, to have been driven into exile by his people. But, he promised to return. This legend was capitalized upon by the Spanish conquistadors and priests who elevated it to

Rubens' The Virgin as the Woman of the Apocalypse (1623-24): a new Virgin Mary for the Counter-Reformation era. She is accompanied by the warrior Archangel Saint Michael, along with two other warrior women, and God is at the top. She is a Virgo Bellatrix who doesn'

The Black Legend (La leyenda negra) was a term invented by Spanish historian Julián Juderías y Loyot in 1914. He was referring to the way Spain’s era of imperial conquest in the Americas had been blackened over the centuries by Spain’s enemies. Those enemies, he argued, were Protestant

Sandro Botticelli was dead by 1510, Leonardo da Vinci by 1519 and Raphael in 1520 (aged only 37). It was the end of an extraordinary era in art. But digital technology is giving us new leads in understanding the paintings of those times. Certainly it has helped with a puzzle

These are my two favorite Frida Kahlo paintings. The one above is Self-Portrait with Bonito, where she appears to be mourning the loss of her father, from 1941. The painting below - strong on symbolism - is from 1949: El abrazo de amor de el universo, la tierra (México), yo, Diego,

We do not know when or where la Malinche died, but Hernán Cortés died in Spain in 1547 aged 62. Since then his body has been moved eight times, but it was always his wish that he be buried in "New Spain" in a monastery at Coyoacán in

The cloister of the Monastery of Santiago Tlatelolco is the white/red building joined to the old church of Santiago (Saint James, patron saint of the conquistadors). It is now a Convent (see below), but formerly it was the Colegio de la Santa Cruz de Santiago, the first college in