Architecture sights in Cuzco
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La Catedral
Started in 1559 and taking almost a hundred years to build, the Catedral squats on the site of Inca Viracocha's palace and was built using blocks pilfered from the nearby Inca site of Saqsaywamán. The cathedral is joined with Iglesia del Triunfo (1536) to its right and Iglesia de Jesús María (1733) to the cathedral's left. El Triunfo, Cuzco's oldest church, also houses a vault containing the remains of the famous Inca historian, Garcilaso de la Vega.
Born in Cuzco in 1539, whose remains were only recently returned to Cuzco by the king and queen of Spain.
The cathedral is one of the city's greatest repositories of colonial art, especially for works from the escuela cuzqu…
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B
Templo y Convento de la Merced
Cuzco’s third most important colonial church, La Merced was destroyed in the 1650 earthquake, but was quickly rebuilt. To the left of the church, at the back of a small courtyard, is the entrance to the monastery and museum. Paintings based on the life of San Pedro Nolasco, who founded the order of La Merced in Barcelona in 1218, hang on the walls of the beautiful colonial cloister.
The church on the far side of the cloister contains the tombs of two of the most famous conquistadors: Diego de Almagro and Gonzalo Pizarro (brother of Francisco). Also on the far side of the cloister is a small religious museum that houses vestments rumored to have belonged to conquistador …
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C
Iglesia y Convento de Santa Clara
This 16th-century church, part of a strict convent, is difficult to visit but it's worth making the effort to go for morning services, because this is one of the more bizarre churches in Cuzco. Mirrors cover almost the entire interior; apparently, the colonial clergy used them to entice curious indigenous peoples into the church for worship.
The nuns provide the choir during Mass, sitting at the very back of the church and separated from both the priest and the rest of the congregation by an ominous grille of heavy metal bars stretching from floor to ceiling.
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