Beautiful Antigua Guatemala

Beautiful Antigua Guatemala January 31, 2013

On March 10, 1543, Spanish colonists founded the capital of the Kingdom of Guatemala in the Panchoy Valley giving it as its official name Santiago de los Caballeros de Guatemala.  Beautiful churches, public buildings and private homes were built in this city from which most of Central America was ruled by Spain.
The city suffered many devastating earthquakes throughout the years, but the Santa Marta earthquake of 1773 devastated the city to such a degree that the King of Spain ordered the capital moved.  Santiago de los Caballeros de Guatemala was abandoned and a new capital was built in a safer location.  La Nueva Guatemala is the present capital transforming the 1543 capital into La Antigua Guatemala (Old Guatemala) or Antigua for short.
Abandoned for many years, efforts were made in the twentieth century to restore the beautiful baroque buildings and make Antigua a tourist destination.  The efforts worked, Antigua is now once again a beautiful city.
Built in 1680 as the second cathedral on that location, most of the cathedral collapsed in 1773.  The facade of the restored cathedral is highly deceiving, the church behind it is very small, using only a small fraction of the original structure.

 

The University of San Carlos was founded in 1675.  A plaque at the university’s old headquarters reads, “From here culture radiated to the whole Kingdom of Goathemala.”

 

The Arc of Saint Catherine is Antigua’s most famous landmark.  Built in 1694 to connect  buildings of the Saint Catherine Convent, the convent church now lies in ruins (seen below on the right).

 

Completed in 1767 as the third structure on the same location (original from 1541), the Church of Our Lady of Mercy has an intricate and beautiful facade.

 

The restored cloister of the Monastery of Capuchin Sisters completed in 1736, it was the last monastery built in Antigua before it ceased to be the capital city.  The rest of the impressive monastery is in ruins (the church below)

 

A common site in Antigua, a church abandoned after the 1773 earthquake

 

 

Church of Saint Francis, 1714
Tomb of Fray Augusto Ramirez Monasterio at the Church of Saint Francis.  He was executed by the military in 1983 after refusing to reveal what a rebel had confessed to him in confession.
Tomb of Hermano Pedro at the Church of Saint Francis.  Hermano Pedro was canonized by Pope John Paul II in 2002.  Hermano Pedro arrived to Guatemala from Spain in the 17th century to work with the poor and founded a religious order to take care of them.
Ex voti in thanksgiving to Hermano Predo at his first tomb
Behind the iron fence is the place where Hermano Pedro died in 1667.  It is now part of the ruins of the  old convent of his order.

 

Gardens among the ruins where Hermano Pedro died

 

 

 

Pictures are mine, all rights reserved.

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