ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the influence and impact of Bonaventure’s Lignum vitae for Franciscan friars in colonial Mexico, showing the extent to which the Order understood the power of the medieval design in Spanish America. The connection between Franciscan conversion, baptism, and the Tree of Life is also apparent at the Franciscan monastic complex in Tlaxcala, where arboreal schemata decorated the open-air chapel starting in 1539. Friar Martin of Valencia’s presence is therefore significant, as this is the earliest instance of a “quasi” Lignum vitae incorporating a prominent friar associated with the spiritual conquest of New Spain. Cruz de Queretaro, de Christo Crucificado de Guatemala, y de N. S. de Guadalupe de Zacatecas del Reino de la Nueva Espana”, relied on an arboreal discourse to prove that the propagation of faith in the New World was, collectively, a Lignum vitae.
