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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.
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