Caracas Cathedral

We continue in the time machine this time the tour I will share with you is from the first Catholic Church in Caracas. This history goes back to the 16th century.

The Metropolitan Cathedral of Santa Ana, Archdiocesan Cathedral of Caracas, better known as the Cathedral of Caracas.

The Spaniards arrive and with them the Catholic Church. In the place where it is located this structure was built in 1665, there were others before and ithas suffered different modifications.

In 1577 a small temple of stones is founded, but it is in 1636 that the king Felipe IV of Spain orders the transfer of the cathedral from Coro to Caracas, from there it becomes officially a cathedral in 1638. This first structure was demolished by the earthquake of 1641 and was temporarily rebuilt.

The history of this temple initiates in 1665 the construction of the temple was directed by Juan de Medina, in 1711 the construction of the new facade is initiated directed by Francisco Andres Meneses, finally in 1933 and 1967 Gustavo Wallis adapts the temple to the new exigencies of the religious one.

This National Monument is the seat of the Archdiocese of Caracas and was affected by several earthquakes in 1766 and 1812, which caused changes in its initial structure.

Let's talk about its architecture

The Cathedral of Caracas conserves its colonial failure, in its structure you can appreciate the time much of the time, the cathedral has only one tower, where is its bell tower, bell tower that I particularly like very much.

When entering the cathedral begins the tour of history, to be in its central body you find 45 columns and 88 arches a beautiful image, the cathedral is composed of 5 naves illuminated on the wall of the north side by 10 beautiful stained glass windows that fill the space of beauty.

Inside it there are several chapels one of them is the Chapel of Our Lady of Pilar stands out for its baroque style, in this chapel are buried the archbishops of Caracas.

The Chapel of the Holy Trinity, where the remains of the Liberator Simon Bolivar rested from 1842 to 1876, until they were transferred to the National Pantheon, in this chapel, still rest the remains of his parents and his wife of Maria Teresa.

There are also the Chapel of Santa Ana, the Chapel of Santiago Apóstol, the Chapel of Nuestra Señora del Pópulo, the Chapel of Nuestra Señora de la Paz and the Chapel of the Holy Sepulchre.

The history of the Metropolitan Cathedral of Santa Ana, better known as the Cathedral of Caracas, goes back to the 16th century. Visiting these places fills me with emotion to think that historical characters from different eras were there walking through the same streets, full of everyday events that later become history.

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