Oratorio de San Felipe Neri

Located near the east end of Insurgentes, this multi-towered and domed church dates from the 18th century. The pale-pink main facade is baroque with an indigenous influence. A passage to the right of this facade leads to the east wall, where a doorway holds the image of Nuestra Señora de la Soledad (Our Lady of Solitude). You can see into the cloister from this side of the church.

Inside the church are 33 oil paintings showing scenes from the life of San Felipe Neri, the 16th-century Florentine who founded the Oratorio Catholic order. In the east transept is a painting of the Virgin of Guadalupe by leading colonial painter Miguel Cabrera. In the west transept is a lavishly decorated 1735 chapel, the Santa Casa de Loreto , a replica of a chapel in Loreto, Italy, legendary home of the Virgin Mary. Behind the altar (although rarely open), the camarín (chapel behind the main church) has six elaborately gilded baroque altars. In one is a reclining wax figure of San Columbano; it supposedly contains the saint’s bones.