Description of the attraction
The building that houses the Museum of Sacred Art was built between 1537 and 1538 on the foundations of the Roca Inca Palace, one block from Plaza de Armas in Cusco.
During the Inca Empire (in the Quechua language, Tahuantinsuyu - the largest Indian state in South America in the XI-XVI centuries), this place was the Inca Palace of Roca, in which the ruler Hatun Rumiyok and his family lived, as well as the Panaka Indian brotherhood was located there. Now you can see a polygonal block in the central part of the stone wall of the museum building - the famous stone of twelve corners, which the Inca Indians used in the construction of their structures.
The first bishop of Peru, Fray Vicente de Valverde, lived in this royal palace, his diocese stretching from Nicaragua to Tierra del Fuego and from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic. Then this building became the property of Pablo Costila and Gallineto, the Marquis of San Juan Buena Vista, whose remains rest in the crypt of the Santo Domingo de Cuzco temple. Later, the building passed into the ownership of the Contreras and Jaraba family, the Marquesses of Rocafuerte, who were the patrons of local artists. In 1948, Monsignor Felipe Santiago Hermoza y Sarmiento, the first archbishop of Cusco, acquired this palace with funds from the diocese. In 1957, after reconstruction, this building became the Palace of the Archbishop of Cuzco, Monsignor Carlos Maria Jurgens.
In 1966, Monsignor Ricardo Durand Flores, Archbishop of Cuzco, took the first steps to transform the palace into a museum of religious art, which was opened in 1969 with the support of Don José Orihuela Jabar. The Jose Orihuela Jabar Foundation donated 169 paintings and an ivory collection, crucifixes, furniture and images of high artistic value to the museum. Also donated was a gilded baroque altar that was installed in the chapel of the archbishop's palace.
The collection of the museum mainly consists of paintings of the religious art of the Cusco school. You can also appreciate the classic architecture of the colonial era of the building itself, walk through its courtyard, surrounded by arcades and decorated with mosaic tiles brought from Seville. In the halls of the museum you can see the works of Juan Marcos Zapata and other masters of painting of the colonial era, as well as paintings by the local artist Diego Quispe Tito. It is worth taking some time to explore the chapel, decorated in various styles, and the halls of the palace with amazing carpeting.
