The Santo Domingo Church (Spanish: ''Iglesia de Santo Domingo'') is a Dominican

church Church may refer to: Religion * Church (building), a building for Christian religious activities * Church (congregation), a local congregation of a Christian denomination * Church service, a formalized period of Christian communal worship * C ...

in the historical downtown of

Santiago de Chile Santiago (, ; ), also known as Santiago de Chile, is the capital and largest city of Chile as well as one of the largest cities in the Americas. It is the center of Chile's most densely populated region, the Santiago Metropolitan Region, whose ...

. It is located at the corner of Santo Domingo Street and 21 de Mayo Street.

History

The present structure is the fourth church built on the same site to house the Dominican congregation in Santiago. Earthquakes in 1595, 1647, and

1730 Events January–March * January 30 (January 19 O.S.) – At dawn, Emperor Peter II of Russia dies of smallpox, aged 14 in Moscow, on the eve of his projected marriage. * February 26 (February 15 O.S.) – Anna of Russia (Ann ...

destroyed the early churches. The fourth church began to be constructed in 1747 under the design of architect Juan de los Santos Vasconcellos.

Joaquín Toesca Gioacchino Toesca e Ricci (1745–1799; known as Joaquín Toesca in the Spanish Empire) was an Italian architect who worked at the service of the Spanish Empire, mainly in Chile. He was mainly a Neoclassical architect although he also built Baro ...

worked on its construction between 1795 and 1796. The church has suffered two important fires. The first occurred in 1895 and the second fire occurred in 1963, which destroyed the interior of the church.

Architecture

The main body of the church is built in

ashlar Ashlar () is finely dressed (cut, worked) stone, either an individual stone that has been worked until squared, or a structure built from such stones. Ashlar is the finest stone masonry unit, generally rectangular cuboid, mentioned by Vitruv ...

masonry. The

bell tower A bell tower is a tower that contains one or more bells, or that is designed to hold bells even if it has none. Such a tower commonly serves as part of a Christian church, and will contain church bells, but there are also many secular bell tower ...

s are constructed of clay brick masonry covered with stucco. The front facade features

pilasters In classical architecture, a pilaster is an architectural element used to give the appearance of a supporting column and to articulate an extent of wall, with only an ornamental function. It consists of a flat surface raised from the main wall ...

and statues set in niches. The

attic An attic (sometimes referred to as a '' loft'') is a space found directly below the pitched roof of a house or other building; an attic may also be called a ''sky parlor'' or a garret. Because attics fill the space between the ceiling of the ...

is surmounted by three statues.

References

{{Commons Category, Iglesia de Santo Domingo (Santiago de Chile) Churches in Santiago, Chile Roman Catholic churches in Chile

History

Architecture

See also

References