House of the Puppets

Puebla State - Capital

Location: Maximino Avila Camacho Streets

It bears this name due to the 16 human figures made out of glazed tiles on its façade that seem to be dancing. Of baroque style and built in 1792, the house had mayor and town councillor Agustin de Ovando y Villavicencio as its first proprietor. It is said that the then Town authority ordered the placing of these figures to mock his political enemies, who fustigated and accused him of having built the house without the corresponding permit.
However, there are scholars who assure that the said images have no relation with ephemeral political conflicts whatsoever, but that they represent an ancient myth know as "Hercules' Tasks".

In 1983 the Autonomous University of Puebla acquired the old house. After some modifications that did not damage its original structure, its rooms became the exhibition rooms of the University Museum, where more than 200 colonial paintings, besides several instruments and scientific appliances, used in the lecture rooms and laboratories of this academic facility founded by the Jesuits, are exhibited.