San Marcos Garden
Location:
Schedule:
All day.
Cost:
This garden is the door to the most important fair in all of Mexico... The San Marcos National Fair!
At the beginning of the 19th century, in front of the temple of San Marcos, there were two and a half plots with a total extension of 205 yards long by 107 yards wide, which was property of the archdiocese of Guadalajara and served as a site for the flea market that was set up in the town of San Marcos a few days a week.
In these lots there were rose bushes and flowers in some sections, protected by dry branches and garbage that the wind was responsible for accumulating, as well as five fig trees, eight quince trees, nine pomegranates, six peaches and a mesquite tree, which were cared for by a woman named Madania María Montes, who paid the church $20 pesos a month as a tenant of the property, where she had a dark and dirty room. This improvised garden was popularly known as "the thicket of San Marcos", the water for its irrigation came from the "Estanque de la Santa Cruz".
During his term, the Political Chief of the Department, Don José María López de Nava, requested the sale of this orchard land from ecclesiastical authorities to transform it into a recreational center for the public. The sale was finalized on March 3, 1831, for the amount of $400 pesos in favor of the City Council.
It is said that the garden as we know it today is due to a whim of Governor José Nicolás Florentino Condelle Loyo, a Veracruz conservative soldier and politician of French descent who was in office for only one year, but to whom Aguascalientes the beauty of many squares, gardens and streets of the historic center, as well as the defense of its independence as a sovereign state. On March 9, 1842, on the occasion of the celebration in the month of April of the patron saint Marcos, work began on the construction of the balustrade and trophies, made of quarry, with the aim of turning it into "one of the most beautiful gardens in the province".
The chronicles say that Nicolás Condelle requested from the Drawing Academy, founded by Francisco Semería, a place where sculpture and architecture classes were taught, the design of a project to build the perimeter balustrade in quarry. They also say that Condelle had to force the inhabitants of the San Marcos neighborhood to cooperate with the work because they did not want to. However, the parishioners, upon seeing the works completed, understood the benefit it had left them for their recreation.
The work was completed in 1847, it was around these same dates that the City Council authorities decided to move the fair that was held in Paran to the garden. Later, in 1887, four corner fountains and ninety iron benches were added to the space. The wrought iron kiosk in the center was inaugurated in 1891, the year in which twenty vases with columns and a water feature in the fountain were also added.
In 1914, during the Sovereign Revolutionary Convention of Aguascalientes, the Chronicler, General, Politician and Historian José Vito Alessio Robles named it “The most beautiful garden in Mexico”.
Today the Jardín de San Marcos is a haven of calm in the middle of the hectic center of the city, home to trees, flowers and small animals, it remains the heart of the most important Fair in Mexico, the must-sees during your visit to Aguascalientes.
