Road of Faith and Art, after our pilgrimage to the palaces, churches and cathedrals of Mantua, and then on through the Brenner Pass to Innsbruck, is back to Mexico, to give you over the next several days a series of reports on the history of the churches of Queretaro, as well as its fountains and aqueduct.
Aqueduct of Queretaro
Aqua est vita! Water is life, and its scarcity is the end of life.. When the Papacy wanted to breath new life into Rome during the late XVI Century, and the XVII century, one of the strategies was to repair its ancient aqueducts and to create a series of beautiful fountains, In this sense, Queretaro is Rome's twin city of fountains, aqueducts and plazas.
In the 1720s, the construction of the Aqueduct of Queretaro, started as a love store, or rather the story of a spurned lover. The marquis, Juan Antonio de Urrutia y Arana, fell in love during his youth with a beautiful woman. Even though this woman became a Capuchin nun, and the marquis was happily married with another woman, the marquis always felt a special devotion to his first love. He approached her, many years later, and told her that he respected her decision, and that if he could ever do anything for her, to ask him for it. Her response was a simple word, agua, water.
Always a man to honor his word, the marquis dedicate a large part of his considerable fortune to solve the problems of the lack of water in the higher neighborhoods of the city, in an effort that took some 10 years. The aqueduct is 1300 meters long, and at some points it reaches a height of 28 meters. The aqueduct was finished in 1738 and ever since has brought spring water from across a ravine, and solved the problem of the fresh water in Queretaro.
The next step was to create a network to bring fresh water to the access of every household in Queretaro. The solution was the creation of many public fountains throughout the city, from which watermen would carry house to house in carts, with terracotta vases.
Baroque granite fountain
ex Seminary San Agustin,
Queretaro
Neptune Fountain,
Outside Santa Clara,
Queretaro
Guerrero Park
Once part of the Convent
Santa Clara, Queretaro
The Cello Player Fountain
Behind San Francisco Church
Queretaro
The strings of the Cello are spurts of
fresh water in the fountain.
Estela at the Fountain
of Neptune.
This fountain in outside the Church of
Fray Junipero Sera
Fountain in the ex convent of
Santa Rosa Viterbo
The dancing Indian Fountain
Outside San Francisco Church
Fountains and gardens inside
Santa Rosa Viterbo ex Convent
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