Casa del Deán isn’t grand. It’s a much quieter presence than Puebla's nearby cathedral but just as loaded with stories. Built in 1580 by Don Tomás de la Plaza Goes, it's the oldest private house in Puebla still standing.
Some of it, anyway. Most of the residence was torn down in 1953 to make way for a movie house (progress!), and it came terrifyingly close to being lost forever. At nearly the last moment, a coalition of preservationists and historians raised the alarm and pushed back against the cultural amnesia of the era. They could only save the façade and two mural-adorned rooms, though.
Architecturally, the facade is a mash-up of Renaissance swagger and local craftsmanship. While the motifs are overwhelmingly of Spanish and Catholic traditions, local artistry is woven into the details. There’s a coat of arms, scallop shells (a nod to St. James and Spanish pilgrim culture), and enough columns and pediments to make any 16th-century humanist weep with joy. But Indigenous artisans embellished the entry with intricate stone carvings that echo pre-Hispanic designs, too.
Don Tomás was a man who appreciated Renaissance art and dramatic symbolism, and the house holds some of the oldest and most elaborate murals in the Americas. I imagine him to be the kind of client who kept coming in to check on the painters’ progress and offering notes like, “Needs more apocalyptica and women on horseback.”
The first of the two rooms is the Hall of the Sibyls—10 women on horseback, each rendered with striking detail that feels meticulously planned and mythically charged. The mural opens with Synagogue (Synagoga), blindfolded and holding broken tablets—a Renaissance symbol of Judaism as incomplete (problematic much?).
She’s followed by a procession of nine sibyls, ancient Greek prophetesses who, according to Renaissance Christian thought, foretold various aspects of Christ's life. Each carries a banner and an emblem representing key events, from the Annunciation to the Crucifixion. The entire procession is framed by friezes teeming chaotically with angels, Indigenous motifs, and animals—deer, foxes, coyotes, jaguars, monkeys (obvs because this is Mexico and monkeys are practically cultural VIPs), and the odd snake for dramatic tension. One naughty monkey is busy urinating. I guess the artist wanted to keep it real. There’s even a centaur gathering hallucinogenic plants— ololiuhqui or maybe peyote—which probably explains a lot about these murals.
The next room moves from prophecy to allegory, drawing on the Renaissance fascination with classical literature. The murals here are inspired by Triumphs, a 14th-century narrative poem by Italian humanist Francesco Petrarch. The poem charts the journey from earthly love to Christian salvation through a sequence of symbolic triumphs—Love, Chastity, Time, Death, and Fame.
In this visual interpretation, each concept rides in its chariot, drawn by carefully chosen animals. Love is pulled by white horses, a symbol of purity. Chastity, appropriately elusive, is led by unicorns. Time charges ahead with deer while Death lumbers behind heavy-footed oxen. Fame, transcending earthly concerns, rides above it all in a chariot pulled by peacocks representing both vanity and immortality.
It’s all very dramatic. Time’s chariot tramples angels underfoot, Death rolls over monarchs and commoners alike, and Fame soars above, indifferent to the wreckage below. Petrarch's message was about the fleeting nature of life and glory, and these murals aggressively drive the point home. If there's a moral lesson here, it's that life's a chariot race, and you're probably not going to win.
But honestly, that this place even survived modernization in the ‘50s deserves a mural of its own. Maybe a chariot driven by furious preservationists running down wrecking balls? Now that would be a Triumph.
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