William Taylor's aptly titled latest book focuses on Mexican devotions to religious images from the seventeenth to the nineteenth century. It is a collection of six essays, three of them previously published, written over the past decade. In subject matter and theoretical orientation, Taylor's book is influenced by William Christian's classic Local Religion in Sixteenth-Century Spain (Princeton University Press, 1981). This fine volume will prove just as valuable for the Mexican context as Christian's work on local piety is for early modern Spain. Despite similarities of approach, Taylor is careful to point out that veneration of images in New Spain differed significantly from Spain. Most importantly, widespread devotion to images started later in Mexico, in the early seventeenth century, and flourished much longer, well into the nineteenth century and beyond. The frequent comparison of Mexican and contemporary European devotional trends is one of the book's great strengths; others include Taylor's thorough research and careful attention to local context and variation.

Taylor divides the volume into three sections. Part I contains two essays, one an introduction to miraculous images in colonial Mexico and the other a case study of a particular miraculous crucifix, the Santo Cristo de Ixmiquilpan, also known as the Señor de Santa Teresa, and the divergent devotions it inspired in the Indian pueblo of Mapethé and Mexico City. These two articles in essence offer a history of sacred immanence in New Spain. Taylor demonstrates that miraculous images were few in the sixteenth century. At that time, divine manifestations occurred primarily as apparitions. In the seventeenth century, however, miraculous images became the most popular channel for sacred immanence. Indeed, most of the over 300 shrines founded in the colonial era began in the seventeenth century. The images housed in these shrines manifested the divine and thus were integral to the ‘individual and collective well-being’ (p. 18) of the colonial faithful. Perhaps more significantly, Taylor argues that Christocentric images were just as popular as Marian ones. Of the 480 colonial and nineteenth-century shrines for which he found data, slightly over half were dedicated to images of Christ. Of these, almost two-thirds were crucifixes. Additionally, Taylor argues that the Virgin of Guadalupe was only one of many popular miraculous images and that her image at Tepeyac did not attract long-distance pilgrimage at the time. In fact, he argues that no miraculous image in the colonial period attracted pilgrims from more than a local or regional area.

Part II offers three essays on the history of devotion to the Virgin of Guadalupe, each chapter dedicated to a different historical moment in her burgeoning popularity. The first article focuses on the cult of Guadalupe in the seventeenth century. It argues against two earlier notions: that devotion to Guadalupe was spontaneous, indigenous and widespread as early as the sixteenth century, and, in contrast, that it was largely invented by creole priests in the mid-seventeenth century. By examining financial records from the shrine at Tepeyac, Taylor contends that Guadalupe drew a modest number of both Spanish and indigenous devotees from Mexico City and the Valley of Mexico in the seventeenth century. Also, although financial receipts indicate her increasing popularity, this growth was neither overwhelming nor linear. The second essay centres on the rapid expansion of the cult in the middle third of the eighteenth century. Taylor views this period as the watershed of guadalupanismo. In 1737 Guadalupe was credited with halting a plague and named patroness of New Spain by the archbishop of Mexico. In 1754 the papacy officially recognised the Guadalupan apparition story, established 12 December as an obligatory feast and confirmed Guadalupe's status as the colony's patroness. During and after these years, popular devotion to and official promotion of Guadalupe (though Taylor points out that it is difficult to disentangle the two) dramatically increased. Despite the flourishing cult, little evidence of long-distance pilgrimage to Tepeyac exists before the late nineteenth century. Rather, growing devotion in areas distant from Mexico City was based on a multitude of faithful copies of the ‘matrix’ image. The last essay in part II examines Guadalupe at independence; here Taylor argues that Guadalupe did not serve as a national symbol in the early nineteenth century and that she was as likely to be invoked by loyalists as she was by insurgents.

Part III consists of a single essay in which Taylor offers preliminary conclusions about image-based devotions in the nineteenth century and suggestions for future research. He primarily sees ‘eventful continuities’ (p. 204) rather than marked changes in Mexican piety in this period. Although some shrines declined in the nineteenth century, most popular colonial images continued to draw devotees. Some old images and a few new ones began to attract the faithful from farther afield. Some new advocations, like the infant Jesus and the Sacred Heart, arose. Despite the decline of the institutional Church after independence, this was not a period of disenchantment – rather, as priests became fewer, the laity assumed greater control over images, shrines and the devotions directed to them.

Historians of religion and Latin America will welcome this important and nuanced work. It simultaneously presents large trends in colonial and early republican Mexican pious practice as it uncovers the intricacies of select local devotions. In both cases Taylor charts new ground in the historiography, and thus his ‘synoptic’ view of image-based piety will help to guide research on Mexico's religious history for years to come.