Taxco de Alarcón - Casa Figueroa

Going through the Calle de San Agustín from the church back towards the main square, the visitor will pass the Plaza de los Gallos, which is still suffused with the atmosphere of old Spain, and the Casa Figueroa (Calle Guadalupe 2). This building dating from the middle of the 18th c. was originally called "Casa de las Lágrimas" ("House of Tears"), because the nobleman who commissioned it, Conde de Cadena, had it built by Indians under conditions of slave labour, many of whom were literally worked to death. The artist Fidel Figueroa acquired it in 1943 and the house is now a museum which is looked after by his widow.