Cathedral Basilica of the Assumption of Our Lady, Guadalajara, Mexico

In the space occupied by the temple of Santa María de Gracia was where the Church of San Miguel, the first cathedral of Guadalajara, was built, under the patronage of Saint Michael the Archangel. It is worth mentioning that this church was next to the first main square of the city and is now known as the Plaza Fundadores. The old cathedral was a fairly simple adobe temple. There was a fire on May 30, 1574 that severely damaged the church. Sometime later the center of Guadalajara moved to the new main square, where the new cathedral was built.  On May 18, 1561, authorization was obtained from Philip II of Spain by royal decree to build the new cathedral church, the cost of which would be covered by the Treasury Council ; so on July 31, 1561, Pedro de Ayala , then the second bishop of New Galicia , laid and blessed the first stone of the temple. However, its construction did not begin until 1571. It was consecrated on October 22, 1618. In the 19th century, the architect José Gutiérrez replaced the gilded wooden baroque altarpieces with similar but now neoclassical ones.  In 1818, a powerful earthquake struck the city, leaving a new tragedy in its aftermath: the towers and dome had collapsed. They were replaced by new ones, which also collapsed during a subsequent earthquake in 1849. Bishop Aranda commissioned the construction of the new ones to the architect Manuel Gómez Ibarra, whose works in Guadalajara include the dome of the Hospicio Cabañas, the portico of the Temple of Our Lady of Pilar , and the Sanctuary of San José de Gracia . It is said that after the Corpus Christi procession , around 1850-1851, the prelate mitigated the intense heat of June with pitayas , served on a platter adorned with figures and landscapes, which also illustrated pyramidal bell towers, just like the current ones with which the architect modeled this religious enclosure, who used pumice stone as construction material to lighten them in the face of the danger of seismic episodes . The investment from July 30, 1851 to June 15, 1854, was 33,521 pesos, plus 7,166 pesos in fees for the architect, at a rate of 2,000 pesos per year.  In 1915 it was stripped of its atrium with wrought iron grille that adorned its front, which had been ordered to be built by the first archbishop of Guadalajara, Pedro Espinosa y Dávalos. Governor Manuel M. Diéguez ordered its destruction to widen the Avenida Alcalde.  On December 21, 1938, Pope Pius XII elevated it to the rank of minor basilica, dedicated to the Assumption of Mary.  In 1988, work began on the cathedral. In 1993, the towers were restored and the old high altar, which was made of Carrara marble and featured sculptures of the evangelists, was demolished.  The cathedral church is currently in danger: it has been damaged by earthquakes in 1932, 1957, 1979, 1985, 1995 and 2003. Among the risks it presents are: the brief inclination of the north tower, its slight subsidence and the structural damage suffered by the dome, among others. Due to the constant vibrations generated by vehicles circulating in the tunnel under Hidalgo Avenue, the building and the north tower, which borders this road, are being damaged.