Patrick, what is the history of the golden floral designs on the pink tunic? If these were additions, how do we account for the hair’s-breadth black outlines around the floral designs, as noted by Cabrera and Flores?I need to qualify this statement. There is paint in the tilma. The thing about the original image (which is inexplicable) is that it was actually embellished and even slightly altered. The face especially were (infamously) retouched in stages during the last century, resulting in Our Lady turning somewhat older, somber and slightly fatter in appearance.
(It’s actually pretty easy to tell many of the painted additions; these are usually the places in the image where you see cracking and fading, such as the golden sunburst rays or the black moon or the tassel.)
As per the 1979 infrared study of the image conducted by Philip Callahan, the Guadalupe image would have probably been simply of Mary in a praying pose. (I show Mary’s figure here in full length, but some people think that it’s possible that the image was originally just a three-quarter portrait than a full-length picture, with the lower third of the body being an addition.) The tilma would have been larger than it is today - the cloth was only later cut to size.
Then, the image was embellished by the addition of certain elements: the dark moon and the tassel, then the angel and lower fold (the so-called ‘Aztec fold’, that fringe of the mantle the angel is holding on), followed by the white background and sunburst (and a crown - which was removed in the 19th-20th century), then the gold trim with dark outline in the mantle and tunic, and finally the stars. The thick paint in these areas had cracked and peeled in numerous places, which is one of the things that distinguishes them from the ‘original’ parts of the image.
(Some writers argue that the sunburst and the moon were already part of the original image, albeit the rays would have been more subtle and the moon more smaller - and probably not black.)
There was even a time when someone tried to paint cherubs on the background, but these were eventually erased after they deteriorated badly.
As I continue to wrestle with these matters, this post is helpful. I think that the tradtitonal account (as found in the Nican Mopohua, Vega, Sanchez, Tanco, Florencia, and the oral traditions of Cuautitlan and Mexico city) is basically true, which is reflected in the miraculous nature of the image and the sanction of the Papacy for the devotion.Taking a page from the website I linked to earlier.
From what we can see from the sources, the devotion to Our Lady of Guadalupe seems to have been at first a local, native thing. Juan Diego was only really known in his native Cuautitlan, and the image was only really venerated by the natives. The Spanish were mostly ignorant about the Tepeyac Guadalupe or considered it unimportant until 1555-6, when a Spanish herdsman was miraculously cured after praying to the Virgin.
It was only around the 1550s that the Spanish in Mexico City began to take the devotion seriously (although they were still apparently mostly ignorant about Juan Diego or the image’s actual origin), and it wasn’t until the mid-1600s that the legend of Juan Diego became universal throughout Mexico.
As for Bishop Zumárraga, there’s the issue of whether he was really the friar Juan Diego went to or whether it was actually someone else. Even if he was, the thing about Zumárraga is that he was hardly the person you’ll expect to publicize the story.
The man opposed popular superstition and the pursuit of miracles (which could lead to idolatrous practices); he cracked down hard on people he deemed to be engaging in superstition. In fact, he instigated the Mexican inquisition in 1536-1543 to check idolatry among the converted Indios. (It was actually in 1536 that the natives began to convert en masse to Christianity.) Assuming that he was really a major player in the origin of the Guadalupe devotion, he would have still been wary that the devotion could easily devolve into error and superstition (a pressing concern of his), which is why he might have kept silent about it.
Even in the traditional legend of Guadalupe, Zumarraga is skeptical, even severe, towards Juan Diego; in fact, Zumarraga is never mentioned as returning to Tepeyac once the image is enshrined there. He participated in the first procession, but that’s about it.
Our earliest verifiable copies of the image date from the 1600s (I don’t count the supposed Aveto image or the Codex Escalada aka Codex 1548 here), and they’re pretty much nearly identical to the image as it looks like now (minus the crown on Our Lady’s head). So if Callahan is correct and the image was embellished, the additions would have been made before 1600: in other words, within 50-70 years after the image would have been made/formed.Patrick, what is the history of the golden floral designs on the pink tunic? If these were additions, how do we account for the hair’s-breadth black outlines around the floral designs, as noted by Cabrera and Flores?