San Pedro of Andahuaylillas Church Cusco

Church of San Pedro de Andahuaylillas - Cusco Peru

In Peru, the Church of San Pedro of Andahuaylillas been called "America Sistine Chapel", and in some sense the comparison is relevant: his Church is one of the most amazing and beautiful Andean popular religious art examples.

It`s Church from the outside, it is still beautiful, despite its simplicity: built on a platform to which access by tiers, has as many Andean temples, a chapel open shaped balcony and a solid belfry of solid square, in addition to three bare stone that crosses it towered in the atrium. Possibly built on the site of a pre-Hispanic building, a huaca, perhaps, because inside there are remains of Inca walls.

This sober foreign image contrasts dramatically with which occurs just open the doors of the temple. An explosion of gold and carvings and paintings "scares", and say who had come there in the 17TH century, using the word in its significance at that time: "Marvel", "astonish to limit" the visitor as decoration in gold and murals, bread doesn't nearly free space.
The Church of San Pedro of Andahuaylillas must have been built at the end of the 16th century, because one of his murals, signature Luis Riaño, bearing the date of 1626. It was dedicated to Saint Peter, although the main altar is chaired by the Virgin of the Rosary and the Jesuits had her dependents. It consists of a single nave with lateral chapels and its thick walls are of mud.

Church of San Pedro de Andahuaylillas - Cusco Peru

If the sober exterior can describe as Renaissance, the interior is a wonderful sample of Baroque. It was an art that sought to impose on the viewer with the overwhelming presence of the ornamental. We must imagine the indigenous crowds newly converted to Christianity enter the Church and experiment visually "power" of the new faith expressed in this sculptural and pictorial richness that from the top and sides harassed.

The ceiling is almost completely covered with a decoration of Mudejar style and motifs floral and fruity. This rich stucco has been coated with gold leaf. This fixed decor is complemented by numerous canvases up all their luxurious frameworks also gold leaf. Most are works of Riaño Luis, painter Lima disciple of Angelino Medoro, born in 1596 and later established in Cusco, where still lived in 1667. It retains a "crucifixion", "The baptism of Christ" and the "Archangel". The painting of the Virgin of the Rosary in the chapel of the Blessed Sacrament has been ascribed to Diego Quispe Tito. There are also anonymous boxes of school cusqueña of painting.

One of the curious of this temple lies in the baptistery. The arch that leads to him has the inscription "I baptize you in the name of the father and son and the Holy Spirit." "Amen" in Latin, Spanish, Quechua, Aymara and puquina, witness the last language also spoken in that region.

But undoubtedly the murals are the most striking of the Church of Andahuaylillas. The most famous pair is found in the inner wall of the entrance surface. Shows the two ways of existence: to the left, the easy way, which leads to hell; right, difficult, which leads to paradise. Its simple and almost naïve symbology commensurate with its didactic character fails to overshadow the expressive power of his images. Most of these beautiful murals were made by Riaño.

San Pedro de Andahuaylillas Mural - Cusco Peru