The Franciscan Order
was founded by Saint Francis native from Assisi in present-day
Italy, toward the beginning of XIII century. The Franciscans
arrived to Qosqo by the first years of the conquest and were
located by the San Blas district, later in the Nazarenas Square,
in the ancient Qasana palace belonging to Inka Pachakuteq
in the Main Square and finally in their present-day location
over the San Francisco Square toward 1549. It is not known
who the architect was that designed the present-time building;
however, it is known that Francisco Dominguez Chavez y Arellano,
a Cusquenian architect who worked as the chief mason finished
it. The structure of the church is relatively simple and has
just one tower and two gates, but it is solid and made with
andesites from pre-Hispanic buildings. Its original artworks
were destroyed by a priest that "modernized" the
church with coarse neoclassical plaster-made artworks. Its
Major Altar is neoclassical and made in plaster having a Saint
Francis of Assisi effigy in the central part and above it
is the Virgin of the Immaculate Conception. There are also
11 other minor altarpieces, all of them made in plaster; it
has an ancient cedar wood pulpit too.
Its convent cloister is the oldest in the city and has a renaissance
style with diverse influences. It has an impressive ceiling
decorated with painted panels. Over here is an enormous canvas
that is possibly the biggest in the continent measuring about
12 mts. (39 ft.) high and 9 mts. (30 ft.) wide; it was painted
by Juan Espinoza de los Monteros toward 1699. That painting
represents 12 branches of the Franciscan order containing
683 personages, 224 coats of arms and 203 biography legends.
What is also impressive is the church's high choir that was
carved in local cedar wood by Franciscans Fray Luis Montes,
Isidro Fernandez Inka and Antonio de Paz, by 1652. That choir
contains images of 93 Saints of the Catholic Church; its lectern
is also very nice, and has an imposing German organ. More
over, there are many more canvases in the different rooms
and cloisters; almost all of them anonymous from the Cusquenian
School of painting.
