La Villa - Basílica station

Neighbouring stations

• 6Line 6Deportivo 18 de Marzo ← La Villa - Basílica → Martín Carrera

The story behind the icon

The station image is the silhouette of the Virgin of Guadalupe and the Basilica.

Before the conquest there was near Tenochtitlan a place called Pepeaquilla, where there stood a teocalli (indigenous temple) in which the ancient Mexica worshipped Tonantzin (the mother of the gods). Years later the teocalli was destroyed, as was the image of the goddess; as the story goes, in those places at the beginning of the sixteenth century the Virgin of Guadalupe appeared to an indigenous man named Juan Diego. These events took place from 9 to 12 December of the year 1531, precisely 10 years after the conquest was completed.

Basilica is the name given to the church that has housed for 400 years the tilma of Juan Diego, on which the image of the Virgin was imprinted. The first Basilica was built from 1695 to 1709 by the architect Pedro de Arrieta; from 1802 to 1836 the architect and sculptor Manuel Tolsá built a second altar, and on the occasion of the pontifical coronation of the Virgin of Guadalupe in the year 1895 the altar we can still see today was built by the sculptor Carlo Nicoli, in Carrara marble. It is known as the old Basilica. The present Basilica was planned by the architect Pedro Ramírez Vázquez; attendance there is the largest in the world; mass is celebrated 365 days a year and there are occasions when it exceeds 100,000 attendees. The basilica is designed for 12,000 people inside and 30,000 in the enormous atrium.