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A Propos de Cusco Attrait Colonial proche à la Ville |
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San Sebastián (5 km.):
Is well known for its fine church, which stands on the site of a chapel built to commemorate the victory of the Pizarro brothers over Diego de Almagro. The original collapsed in the earthquake of 1650. The present church has two towers-identical, despite the fact that 135 years separated the building of the two. The baroque portico gets a worthy mention from connoisseurs of porticos.
San Jeronimo:
It is located to ten kilometers of Cusco . It is very easy to arrive there, because San Jerónimo is on the highway. This tract of the trip is very pleasant and it allows to enjoy a typical landscape of the countryside that combines trees of eucalyptuses with the red earth of the hills.
The Temple:
The church of San Jerónimo was planned first as hermitage. According to Pablo Macera's investigations , here has lived most of the indigenous elite that looked for to demonstrate its power and its prestige through the construction of this magnificent temple.
According to Wethey, their architecture still keeps features of the XVI century. The facade, for example, is of Renaissance style. It is composed by three arches and a balcony in the superior part. The reed-mace that confers to the temple a bigger dimension also highlights.
Andawaylillas (37 km.):
A small community just off the main highway to the right, is the most attractive village for miles around. The main square is delightful, with its canopy of trees and the colonial houses surrounding it, some with murals painted on their facades. The village hall is graced with a proud Inca doorway in Imperial stonework-a sign that the structure which once stood here housed a noble of very high rank. The major attraction of the village is the church of San Pedro , which someone in a fit of hyperbole once called the "Sistine Chapel of the Americas ." It certainly is a splendid church, with a stunning multicolour and gold-leaf ceiling, beautiful murals and some especially fine colonial paintings. There is no church in the city of Cusco to compare with it.
The church dates from the early 17th century and was built by the Jesuits. The purpose of covering the inside of this church and others with murals was to evangelize the illiterate natives, often using imagery that harmonized with the indigenous belief system. The Moorish influence evident in the frescoes on the ceiling, for example, evidently appealed to Quechua aesthetic sensibilities, being geometrical and abstract, like many Andean textile motifs.
Local guides claim that the painting above the arch is by the 17 th century Spanish master, Murillo. A mural over the main doorway, no doubt designed to instruct the natives, depicts a sumptuously attractive (and crowded) path to hell versus a drearily virtuous path to heaven. The painting in the nave reflects the Cusco school, characterized by a surfeit of gilt ornamentation on top of the paint, whereas the chancel was painted by adherents of Italian Renaissance masters. The entrance to the baptistery to the left of the main door is crowned with a mural whose inscription is written in five languages-Latin, Spanish. Quechua, Aymara and the now-extinct Pukina, language of the Uru and Chipaya peoples of the altiplano.
The sponsor of most of the churchs artistic content was a priest called Juan Pérez de Bocanegro, whose image, kneeling before Saint Peter, appears on the pulpit. Many of the paintings were done around 1626-28 by one Luis de Riaño, whose signature sometimes appears. The parish has produced an informative pamphlet (in Spanish) with detailed information on the works of art in the church, on sale at the entrance.
The church at Huaro (44 km.):
Is another fine colonial church, decorated with beautiful murals and well worth visiting. These works are much later than Andawaylillas, signed by the artist and head of the project, Tadeo Escalante, and dated 1802. A terrifying painting of Hell occupies the right hand wall, and the ceiling is entirely covered with floral and animal motifs, among which native Peruvian species feature prominently. There are also scenes of the tree of life, and of pleasure, death and dying.
Recent excavations at Huaro have revealed the site of an important settlement of the Wari empire, virtually all of it buried beneath the modern town. An intricate and difficult study led by Cusco archaeologist Julinho Zapata is today revealing the extent of this site.
Oropesa (25 km.):
Which boasts 47 bakeries, and a colonial church with fine murals. Beyond the left-hand turn-off for Paucartambo of a nd the Sacred Valley , the road begins to climb to a small pass. To your right is the Laguna de Lucre, a beautiful reed-lined lake. Nearby are some seldom-visited Inca ruins known as the "Morada de Wascar"-Wascar's Dwelling-because this is thought to have been the birthplace and country palace of the Inca Wascar, who fought and lost in the civil war against his half-brother, Atawallpa.
