Santiago Metropolitan Cathedral: Difference between revisions

The Metropolitan Cathedral of Santiago, located in the city's Plaza de Armas.

Santiago Metropolitan Cathedral (Spanish: Catedral Metropolitana de Santiago) is the seat of the Archdiocese of Santiago de Chile and the main temple of the Catholic Church in that country. As a Cathedral Church, it is the permanent seat of the Archbishop of Santiago, it is dedicated to the Assumption of the Virgin Mary and it is built between 1748 and 1899, designed by Joaquín Toesca and Ignacio Cremonesi.

It is located in the commune of Santiago, in front of the Plaza de Armas. The architectural ensemble of the cathedral is made up of the Archbishop's Palace, the Parish del Sagrario and the cathedral itself. All these buildings are considered national monuments.

Many temples preceded the one that exists today, the current one being the fifth built on the site.

History

The earlier cathedrals

When refounding the city of Santiago de Chile on an Inca tambo, Pedro de Valdivia assigned the Inca temple to the northeast side of the Plaza Mayor or Plaza de Armas for the construction of a church, and while it was being built, religious services such as the Eucharist, they were celebrated at the door of the governor's house, located where the Central Post Office is currently located. Probably, originally it must have consisted only of a chapel made of light materials, such as straw and mud; and at least since 1544, there is news that masses were no longer celebrated outdoors, so a suitable building had to be created to carry out Catholic practices.

Between 1566 and 1600 the first cathedral temple was built. With much smaller dimensions than the current ones, it was richly decorated and was arranged in a north-south direction, with its façade on Calle Catedral. However, later, its main access would be facing the square, in the so-called "Puerta del Perdón"; especially after a controversy that occurred around the year 1600, where it was argued that the north door should be closed due to the indecency of the houses that were in front of it (because they were neighbors and not part of the cult). That door was partially or totally blinded until its destruction in 1769.

On May 13, 1647, an earthquake affected the central area of ​​the Captaincy General of Chile, destroying almost the entire city of Santiago along with the cathedral. However, the central nave of the cathedral withstood the attack, although its sagrario collapsed and its belongings could only be rescued days later. Thanks to the initiative of Bishop Gaspar de Villarroel, it was quickly retouched, although not for long. By 1657, a new telluric movement almost completely ruined its structure, and a second reconstruction had to be carried out between 1662 and 1687.

Bishop González's project

The 1730 Valparaíso earthquake once again cracked the cathedral structure, thus determining that the repairs carried out four decades earlier had been useless. To this was added the numerous accidents that had affected the structure. That is why, in 1746, Bishop Juan González Melgarejo considered that the temple should be renovated in its entirety.

The plans for this new cathedral were the work of Pedro Vogl and Juan Hagen, two members of the Society of Jesus, of Bavarian origin, who sent their project to Spain for royal approval in 1753. However, the work had already begun in 1748. After Vogl and Hagen, Matías Vásquez de Acuña and Francisco Antonio de Barros continued as directors of the works. The latter had a short time in the works, since in 1779 the Italian architect Joaquín Toesca made his appearance, to direct the construction.

Bishop González acquired the properties next to the cathedral, at the corner of the current Catedral and Bandera streets, which belonged to the Pineda Bascuñán family; and decided to place the feet (the Altar) of the new building in Bandera and the front in the square, with a length of 100 meters, changing the direction that had originally been arranged by Valdivia in the 16th century. In order not to be forced to destroy the old temple, and to be able to continue celebrating religious services, González ordered work to begin in the new section. On July 1, 1748, the first stone of the new building was laid.

González contributed 55,512 pesos with 4 1/2 reales for the work, and his successor Manuel de Alday with more than 160,000 pesos. The Crown, by 1788, had donated 97,994 pesos with 3 1/2 reales. For that year, 390,235 pesos with 5 and 1/8 reales had been spent on the cathedral, which had already been nearly two-thirds completed. After that they spent 48,964 pesos with 2 1/3 reales for the work, totaling 456,772 pesos with 8 and 3 reales in the cathedral.

The fire of 1769

On the night of December 22, 1769, a fire broke out that destroyed the entire old cathedral, probably because the oil from the lamp that illuminated the Blessed Sacrament had spilled on some combustible object. To the clamor of the bells of the other churches, the people flocked to the scene of the incident, but it was already too late: only an image of the Virgin of Sorrows had been saved from the incident, which was located at the Puerta del Perdón. Apart from For this, according to Vásquez de Acuña, some molten silver and gold was saved thanks to the fire.

The religious service was provisionally transferred to the Church of la Compañía, which was in charge of Mercedarian religious as a result of the recent expulsion of the Jesuits from America.

However, this very circumstance was the event that accelerated the work on the cathedral. In December 1775, a part of the new temple was enabled, and the religious service was transferred there.

External links

• Website for the Cathedral