Cathedral, Antigua, Nave under reconstruction

1669-1680

Porras, José de (architect); Andújar Cantos, Martín de (designer; 1602-1680)

Antigua Guatemala, GTM

The community of Antigua, the capital of the Audiencia of Guatemala, began work on its cathedral in 1669. The vaults, closed in 1680, were mostly destroyed by the great earthquake of 1773. Today, though neither as large nor as grand as the cathedrals of Spanish America’s viceregal capitals, Lima and Mexico City, this church bears witness to the divergent lives of religious buildings in the Americas.

Made of stone, brick and mortar, the building of the cathedral was an enormous enterprise, with workers—a hierarchy of Spaniards, mestizos and indigenous laborers—swarming the site for years.

Barbara E. Mundy

Dana Leibsohn and Barbara E. Mundy.
Vistas: Visual Culture in Spanish America, 1520-1820. http://www.fordham.edu/vistas, 2015.

Amerlinck de Corsi, María Concepción. 1981. Las catedrales de Santiago de los Caballeros de Guatemala. Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México.

Markman, Sidney David. 1966. Colonial Architecture of Antigua Guatemala. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: The American Philosophical Society.