Amparo Museum
Encyclopedia
The Amparo Museum, located in the historic center of Puebla, is one of the most important historical museums in Mexico. It was inaugurated in 1991 and sponsored by the Amparo Foundation, which was founded in 1979 by Manuel Espinoza Yglesias in honor of his wife.

The museum is houses in two colonial-era buildings that date from the 17th and 18th centuries, which were popularly known as the Hospitalario. One of the buildings was the Hospital de Nuestra Señora y San Juan de Letrán founded in 1534. This building was made into a college for women by Bishop Juan de Palafox y Mendoza
Juan de Palafox y Mendoza
Blessed Juan de Palafox y Mendoza was a Spanish archbishop in the Roman Catholic Church. He also held political office in the New World. From June 10, 1642 to November 23, 1642 he was viceroy of New Spain.-Early life:...

 in the middle of the 18th century, and remained so until the 20th century. The other building is from the 18th century with a brick facade. It was part of the hospital for a time, then was converted into a “refuge” for married women. From 1871 to the 1980s, this building was the home of the Espinoza family. At that time, both buildings were restored and adapted for use as a museum.
The museum’s permanent collection traces Mexico’s development over its history. It has one of the most important collections of pre-Hispanic, colonial and modern art in Mexico, with dates of pieces ranging from 2,500 BCE to the present day, covering the pre-Classic period
Mesoamerican chronology
Mesoamerican chronology divides the history of pre-Columbian Mesoamerica into several periods: the Paleo-Indian , the Archaic , the Preclassic , the Classic , and the Postclassic...

 to the Spanish Conquest. The collection contains jars, figures, steles, altars, sculptures and utensils, from the Teotihuacan
Teotihuacan
Teotihuacan – also written Teotihuacán, with a Spanish orthographic accent on the last syllable – is an enormous archaeological site in the Basin of Mexico, just 30 miles northeast of Mexico City, containing some of the largest pyramidal structures built in the pre-Columbian Americas...

, Zapotec, Huasteca, Totonac
Totonac
The Totonac people resided in the eastern coastal and mountainous regions of Mexico at the time of the Spanish arrival in 1519. Today they reside in the states of Veracruz, Puebla, and Hidalgo. They are one of the possible builders of the Pre-Columbian city of El Tajín, and further maintained...

, Maya
Maya civilization
The Maya is a Mesoamerican civilization, noted for the only known fully developed written language of the pre-Columbian Americas, as well as for its art, architecture, and mathematical and astronomical systems. Initially established during the Pre-Classic period The Maya is a Mesoamerican...

, Olmec
Olmec
The Olmec were the first major Pre-Columbian civilization in Mexico. They lived in the tropical lowlands of south-central Mexico, in the modern-day states of Veracruz and Tabasco....

, Chichimeca
Chichimeca
Chichimeca was the name that the Nahua peoples of Mexico generically applied to a wide range of semi-nomadic peoples who inhabited the north of modern-day Mexico and southwestern United States, and carried the same sense as the European term "barbarian"...

, Mixtec
Mixtec
The Mixtec are indigenous Mesoamerican peoples inhabiting the Mexican states of Oaxaca, Guerrero and Puebla in a region known as La Mixteca. The Mixtecan languages form an important branch of the Otomanguean language family....

 and Aztec
Aztec
The Aztec people were certain ethnic groups of central Mexico, particularly those groups who spoke the Nahuatl language and who dominated large parts of Mesoamerica in the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries, a period referred to as the late post-classic period in Mesoamerican chronology.Aztec is the...

 civilizations. The Colonial Area is concentrated what was the home of the Espinoza Family, occupying eleven halls. These halls have been decorated to imitate how homes looked like during the various centuries of the colonial period. These rooms are filled with furniture, wood and ivory sculptures, silver items, Talavera pottery
Talavera (pottery)
Talavera pottery of Puebla, Mexico is a type of majolica pottery, which is distinguished by a milky-white glaze. Authentic Talavera pottery only comes from the city of Puebla and the nearby communities of Atlixco, Cholula, and Tecali, because of the quality of the natural clay found there and the...

 and well as oil paintings.

Parts of the collection have been lent for temporary exhibits such as in Chapultepec Castle in Mexico City
Mexico City
Mexico City is the Federal District , capital of Mexico and seat of the federal powers of the Mexican Union. It is a federal entity within Mexico which is not part of any one of the 31 Mexican states but belongs to the federation as a whole...

, including the museums emblematic pre-Hispanic piece, a throne from the late Classic Period from Rio Usumacinta, Chiapas
Chiapas
Chiapas officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Chiapas is one of the 31 states that, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided in 118 municipalities and its capital city is Tuxtla Gutierrez. Other important cites in Chiapas include San Cristóbal de las...

. As a cultural center, the museum hosts temporary exhibits by national and international artists. It also presents conferences, seminars, concerts and workshops to support education, research and the creative arts.

It was one of the first museums in Mexico to integrate technology such as multimedia systems and interactive CDs, which can provide guided tours in English, Spanish, French and Japanese through twenty one computer stations located in the fourteen halls of the permanent collections. Because of its collection and avant-garde
Avant-garde
Avant-garde means "advance guard" or "vanguard". The adjective form is used in English to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics....

 use of technology, this museum is considered to be one of the most important in Mexico and Latin America
Latin America
Latin America is a region of the Americas where Romance languages  – particularly Spanish and Portuguese, and variably French – are primarily spoken. Latin America has an area of approximately 21,069,500 km² , almost 3.9% of the Earth's surface or 14.1% of its land surface area...

.
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