The first church on this spot was a modest parish built in 1568, barely adequate for a frontier mining settlement. A second, larger temple replaced it and was consecrated in 1625. But Zacatecas was growing rich on silver, and its citizens wanted a cathedral worthy of their wealth. In 1731, the architect Domingo Ximenez Hernandez began raising the walls of the current building, incorporating fragments of the earlier temples into his design. The episcopal vicar Don Jose de Izarraguirre laid the first stone. By 1752, the structure was dedicated, though it would not be fully consecrated until 1841. The north tower was not completed until 1904, the work of master builder Damaso Muneton, who topped it with a clock donated by Governor Genaro Garcia Rojas. On January 26, 1863, Pope Pius IX elevated the temple to cathedral status when he erected the Diocese of Zacatecas.

The principal facade, completed on April 24, 1745, is routinely described as the finest example of baroque art in Mexico. It rises in three tiers of extraordinary density. The first level features Corinthian columns with stems carved in angels, vines, and plant motifs, flanking niches that hold stone sculptures of the apostles James, Peter, Paul, and Andrew. The entrance arch is mixtilineal -- a complex shape decorated with reliefs of diamonds, angels, and flowers. The second level frames the choir window with an excessively ornamented ring bearing the four Latin Doctors of the Church -- Gregory the Great, Jerome, Augustine of Hippo, and Ambrose of Milan -- positioned in its corners. The third, smallest tier holds five niches with baroque pilasters, culminating in a sculpture of Christ. Above everything, the pediment presents a vision of the Eternal Father presiding over the entire composition. The two side portals are scarcely less ambitious: the south entrance features a sculpture of Our Lady of Zacatecas, said to have been carved by an artist sentenced to death who won his reprieve through the quality of his work.

Step inside and the contrast is startling. Where the exterior explodes with ornament, the interior is austere -- large Doric columns, neoclassical side altars, a sobriety that makes the space feel almost Protestant. But the main altarpiece, completed in 2010 by Michoacan artist Javier Marin, reasserts the cathedral's devotion to spectacle. It stands 17 meters high and 10 meters wide, built from Finnish birch -- a wood chosen because it neither expands nor shrinks with humidity changes. The entire surface is covered in 24-carat gold leaf, 25 kilograms of it, extracted from the mines of Mazapil in Zacatecas's own semi-desert. The altarpiece weighs 20 tons. Eleven figures occupy its niches: the Virgin of the Assumption at the summit, her parents Anne and Joachim flanking her, and saints from John the Baptist to Ignatius of Loyola arrayed below. On the sides stand the Zacatecas martyrs San Mateo Correa and Blessed Miguel Agustin Pro. The bronze cross, cast using the lost-wax method, measures 4.2 meters high.

Zacatecas's historic center, including the cathedral, holds UNESCO World Heritage status. The building sits in a city shaped entirely by silver -- the wealth that built its churches, funded its aristocracy, and drew settlers to this high, dry plateau in central Mexico. The cathedral's three facades each tell a different story: the north honors the Santo Cristo de la Parroquia, considered miraculous by generations of miners; the south celebrates Our Lady of Zacatecas, patron saint of the city; and the principal facade depicts the Sacred Communion, with the Holy Trinity surrounded by the Apostles, all gathered around the Eucharist carved in the keystone of the rose window. It is a building that took longer to finish than most nations take to rise and fall, and it is still not quite done changing -- not as long as the afternoon sun keeps painting its stones a different color every hour.