La Catedral church
 Up
to the middle of the sixteenth century, the cathedral of Quito had
adobe walls and a roof of thatch. Then Bishop García Díaz Arias began
work on the present church, and the following bishop, who was also a
great builder, Pedro Rodríguez de Aguayo, continued it. It was
impossible at first to build it facing the main square because of a
deep valley inmediately behind it, and so a stone atrium was built all
along the north side.
The stone was brought down from Mount Pichincha,
and with the enthusiastic colaboration of those who lived in the
neighbourhood, work was completed between 1562 and 1565. Later on, the
altar-pieces were made and the pulpit carved. The temple was dedicated
in 1572. Nevertheless, what we can see today, is the result of work
carried out through the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. At the
end of the eighteenth century, the great dome was built which divides
the atrium in two and from which a circular staircase leads down to
the park, which is known as the shrine of Carondelet, after the
President of the Audiencia who built it. The dome was built in neo-classical style, as was
choir of the cathedral -carved by Caspicara- and the main altar bears
the great painting of the Virgin by Manuel Samaniego. Samaniego and
Bernardo Rodríguez painted scenes from the life of Christ in the
spandrels of the archways. And from 1802 to 1803, Bernardo Rodríguez
worked on the four great convasses now in the side naves: the miracle
of the fish, St. Peter curing a beggar, the conversion of St. Paul,
and St. Paul bitten by a snake. |
|
 In
addition to those already mentioned, the Cathedral of Quito contains a
large number of valuable treasures, despite its modest appearance: the
sculptured group known as "The Holy Shroud", one of the most
harmonious and moving of all Caspicara's works, the Virgin by Legarda,
the group of the Denial of St. Peter, attributed to Padre Carlos, the
legendary artist who carved the figure of St. Luke in Cantuña, in
1668, Miguel de Santiago painting of the death of the Virgin, on the
wall behind the choir, and the series of portraits of past bishops on
the walls of the chapter hall. |
