It was built by the architect from Queretaro, Francisco Martínez Gudiño, on the initiative of María Josefa Lina de la Canal y Hervás.
Upon the death of her parents, María Josefa Lina de la Canal inherited a capital of 70,000 pesos. Around 1751, when she was barely fifteen years old, she made her desire to become a nun known to Father Luis Felipe Neri de Alfaro, who recommended that she go to the sanctuary of Atotonilco, so that with the protection of prayer and penance she could define her thoughts. After eight days of confinement, he reiterated not only his decision to take the habit, but also to found a convent in the town of San Miguel el Grande, dedicated with deep fervor to the Immaculate Conception, using the capital that his father had inherited from him.
From the very beginning of the foundation of the convent, Maria Josefa de la Canal worked to support economically and spiritually the project she herself had devised. He died five years after the inauguration of the Convent of the Conception (August 9, 1770).
The Temple of the Conception has a valuable collection of paintings by renowned New Hispanic painters of the eighteenth century, such as Miguel Cabrera, Juan Rodríguez Juárez, Jesús Gómez and Miguel Antonio Martínez de Pocasangre (who decorated the temple of the Shrine of Atotonilco).
Location: Hernández Macías esq. with Canal, 37700, San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato.