San Francisco church
 San
Francisco, the most imposing of all Quito's architectural monuments,
is at once a temple, a series of chapels, and a convent. All this
together takes up nearly two whole blocks, and rises up above a wide
stone paved court, creating so noble an impression that Ernesto La
Orden called it the "Escorial of the Andes".
Shortly after the foundation of the city in 1536, Fray Jodoco Ricke
began the construction of the temple and the convent, helped by
architects and craftsmen like Fray Francisco Benítez, who was in
charge of the work throughout the last quarter of the sixteenth
century and finished it off in 1605. He also carved the benches and
the figures of the choir.
The atrium runs from one side of the square to the
other, and the facade of the temple and convent rise above it, with a
high retaining wall built of solid stone and interrupted in the middle
to give access to the plaza by means of a double fanshaped staircase.
The facade of the church is austere, in accordance with the
Renaissance canons of Greco-roman neo-classicism. The lower part has a
line of Doric columns which merge with the retaining wall, the upper
has slightly shorter Ionic columns.
There is hardly any adornment only the rope
belt of St. Francis which surrounds the great window above the
main entrance, the statues of St. Peter and St. Paul, on either
side of the window, and the figure of Christ above, all carved in
stone. On entering the church, one finds
oneself under a low ceiling, decorated with small paintings,
surrounded by ornamental groupings of cherubim arid flowers, all
in the Italian style. The central nave is high, and the justly
famous transept is supported by four main columns. There are
chapels on either side, all with beautiful altarpieces. That of
the main or high altar is covered in carvings, and curves around
the presbytery. |
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The carving of the great nave was of curved mudejar
art until the earthquake of 1755 made it necessary to replace that
with the present one. The original work can still be seen in the dome
of the transept. A separate and very detailed guidebook would be
needed to deal with all the artistic gems kept in the church and the
convent of San Francisco. Those of the convent have now been arranged
into a museum.
 Of particular size and beauty are the figure of San
Antonio of Padua, neo-classical in style, and which has, under a
canopy, one of the master pieces of Caspicara's genius; the Assumption
of the Virgin before the astonished eyes of the apostles, and on the
other side of the transept, the altar piece of tooled silver, with a
large central figure of St. Francis with silver wings also by
Caspicara. And, of course, there is the altarpiece of the high altar
itself, densely covered with images, from the seated figures of the
four evangelists at the bottom, through the twelve apostles up to the
crowning virtues at the top. In the central niche, the Virgin by
Legarda, and the baptismal group in the upper one, by Diego de
Robles. |
