The Museum of the International Baroque opens up to great acclaim in a city that was once at the crossroads of world trade.
Before the Panama Canal, all trade from Asia came across the Pacific Ocean to a port in Mexico or Peru, both part of “New Spain.” The advantage that Mexico had in this is that the section of the Americas it occupies is comparatively narrow, and well-trodden paths had been active for centuries before Europeans arrived, paths that linked the west and east coasts of Mexico. Hence, goods from India and China were consolidated in the Asian capital of New Spain, Manila, shipped to Acapulco and brought overland to the great markets in Puebla, from which they wended their way to Veracruz and Havana before reaching Europe. Literally, Puebla was the market center where east and west met in the baroque era, a global city well before provincial Boston or Philadelphia were founded.
