Popayán's Colonial Churches: A City of Faith and Art
Popayán has more colonial churches per capita than any other Colombian city; each church is a repository of Quiteño baroque art, indigenous craft, and the religious history of the Cauca valley
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Iglesia La Ermita
La Ermita — the oldest church in Popayán, built in 1546 — is the simplest and most moving of the colonial churches; the single nave, wooden roof and whitewashed walls enclose high quality colonial religious paintings and a strong sense of living tradition
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Catedral de Nuestra Señora
The Popayán Cathedral – rebuilt after the 1983 earthquake – dominates the Plaza Mayor; the neoclassical reconstruction preserved the colonial proportions and the interior's Quiteño Baroque sculptures; the cathedral is the ceremonial heart of the Holy Week processions
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Iglesia de Santo Domingo
The Church of Santo Domingo (1741) has one of Popayán's finest facades — the Churrigueresque stonework combines Spanish Baroque with indigenous motifs; its current use as a museum rather than an active church allows the architecture and colonial art to be studied in detail
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Quiteño Baroque Art Collection
The colonial churches of Popayán have the finest collection of Quiteño (Quito School) baroque art outside of Ecuador — the polychrome sculptures of saints, the painted altarpieces, and the carved retablos were made in 17th- and 18th-century workshops in Quito and Popayán
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Manuel Chili Caspicara
Popayán sculptor Manuel Chili 'Caspicara' (1723-1796) – a native master of the Quiteño Baroque – produced the city's most revered processional sculptures; his work is the centerpiece of Holy Week processions and is considered among the finest colonial sculptures in America
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Monastery monastery
The surviving cloisters of Popayán—at the Convento de Santo Domingo and the Convento de San Francisco—are the most intimate architectural spaces in the city; the arcaded gardens, the colonial fountains and the religious silence of the monasteries is remarkable