San Pedro y San Pablo College, Mexico City

[2] It was called "Máximo" because it was built to oversee the training of priests in Mexico City, Tepotzotlan, Puebla, Guadalajara, Zacatecas, Guatemala and Mérida.

[2] The college's church, on the corner of El Carmen and San Ildefonso, was built by Jesuit architect Diego Lopez de Arbaizo between 1576 and 1603.

[4] The purpose of the college was to provide university-level education to young Criollo men, at least partially descended from white European colonial settlers.

[3] The school building was given to civil authorities, who first used it as a barracks and later to house the Nacional Monte de Piedad "credit union" charity foundation.

The altarpieces, paintings, and other decorative objects were redistributed to other churches, especially to the Metropolitan Tabernacle of the Mexico City Cathedral, where many of these pieces still remain.

[4] Later, the space had quite a number of uses such as a dance hall, an army depot and barracks, a correctional school called Mamelucos, a mental hospital, and a storage facility for Customs.

Vasconcelos had the church building redecorated, adding a number of important early modern mural works by artists such as Xavier Guerrero and Roberto Montenegro.

[2][5] In 1944, the church part was inaugurated by President Ávila Camacho as the National Periodical Archive (Hemeroteca Nacional), which it remained until 1979.

[4] It has a portal that is flanked by two pairs of Doric pilasters, which extend up to frame a window which is stained-glass in the design of the coat-of-arms of UNAM.

These interior arches have been painted with rustic-style flora and fauna created by Roberto Montenegro, Jorge Enciso, Gabriel Fernández Ledesma, and Rafael Reyes Espindola.

[5] The school buildings that housed the college, except for a facade with the seal of the Royal and Pontifical University of Mexico, are nearly devoid of decoration.

[2] The decorative paintings of rustic-style flora and fauna on the buttresses and arches, several wall murals and frescos, and Montenegro's stained glass windows, remain from that period and are conserved.

[4] In the stairway at the northwest corner of the cloister's patio, there is a fresco done by Roberto Montenegro in 1923, titled The Festival of the Holy Cross.

The Museum of Light moved out, and is now located in the colonial era San Ildefonso College building, also in the historic center of Mexico City.