The Sacred Heart Church (), also known as the Church of the Orphans (), is a

Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

church dedicated to the

Sacred Heart The Most Sacred Heart of Jesus () is one of the most widely practised and well-known Catholic devotions, wherein the heart of Jesus Christ is viewed as a symbol of "God's boundless and passionate love for mankind". This devotion to Christ is p ...

, located at the intersection of Jirón Azángaro and Jirón Apurímac in the

historic centre of Lima The Historic Centre of Lima () is the historic city centre of the city of Lima, the capital of Peru. Located in the city's districts of Lima and Rímac, both in the Rímac Valley, it consists of two areas: the first is the Monumental Zone est ...

, Peru.

History

The first chapel in the area was built at the beginning of the 17th century and was financed by the Spanish Luis de Ojeda, known as 'Luis Pecador'. In its origins it was linked to the shelter of orphans, hence its name and its

dedication Dedication often refers to various religious and secular ceremonies and practices such as: * Dedication (ritual) the ritual or ceremonial establishment of a purpose for a person, place, or thing ** Dedication of churches ** Child dedication, a C ...

to the Virgin of Atocha. In 1612 this was elevated to the category of vice-parish. In 1657 the church was intervened but the nature of the changes made is unknown. The temple appears with a different and inverse layout with the current one in the plan of the Mercedarian Pedro Nolasco Mere de 1685. It had a double-sided coverage on a wooden framework. The earthquakes of 1687 devastated the structure. Since the earthquakes and during the first decades of the 18th century, the site was used as a

warehouse A warehouse is a building for storing goods. Warehouses are used by manufacturers, importers, exporters, wholesalers, transport businesses, customs, etc. They are usually large plain buildings in industrial parks on the rural–urban fringe, out ...

for

carriage A carriage is a two- or four-wheeled horse-drawn vehicle for passengers. In Europe they were a common mode of transport for the wealthy during the Roman Empire, and then again from around 1600 until they were replaced by the motor car around 1 ...

s and as a

stable A stable is a building in which working animals are kept, especially horses or oxen. The building is usually divided into stalls, and may include storage for equipment and feed. Styles There are many different types of stables in use tod ...

. In 1742 the land changed hands and it was decided to build a new church designed whose dimensions coincide with those of the current one, and which was by Manuel de Torquemada and built by Cristóbal de Vargas. The earthquake of 1746 caused the collapse of this second structure, which had been completed that same year. Despite the destruction, there are indications that the current construction has the same plans as that of that time. The temple was inaugurated on April 6, 1766. The design is attributed to the

Jesuit The Society of Jesus (; abbreviation: S.J. or SJ), also known as the Jesuit Order or the Jesuits ( ; ), is a religious order (Catholic), religious order of clerics regular of pontifical right for men in the Catholic Church headquartered in Rom ...

priest .

Architecture

It is the only Catholic temple in Peru and Latin America with an elliptical plan, similar to that of the Catholic temples of

Austria Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...

. It is in the ''Rococo limeño'' style, with late Baroque ornamentation. It has a light blue vaulted roof, from the beginning of its construction, which sought to imitate the nuances of the

sky The sky is an unobstructed view upward from the planetary surface, surface of the Earth. It includes the atmosphere of Earth, atmosphere and outer space. It may also be considered a place between the ground and outer space, thus distinct from ...

. The main door on the main façade is flanked between twin

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 to ...

s. These have an

octagon In geometry, an octagon () is an eight-sided polygon or 8-gon. A '' regular octagon'' has Schläfli symbol and can also be constructed as a quasiregular truncated square, t, which alternates two types of edges. A truncated octagon, t is a ...

al plan on which there is a

drum The drum is a member of the percussion group of musical instruments. In the Hornbostel–Sachs classification system, it is a membranophone. Drums consist of at least one membrane, called a drumhead or drum skin, that is stretched over a ...

with the same shape that rests on four

pillar A column or pillar in architecture and structural engineering is a structural element that transmits, through compression, the weight of the structure above to other structural elements below. In other words, a column is a compression member. ...

s. They also have a

balustrade A baluster () is an upright support, often a vertical moulded shaft, square, or lathe-turned form found in stairways, parapets, and other architectural features. In furniture construction it is known as a spindle. Common materials used in its ...

over the

entablature An entablature (; nativization of Italian , from "in" and "table") is the superstructure of moldings and bands which lies horizontally above columns, resting on their capitals. Entablatures are major elements of classical architecture, and ...

. The façade is composed of two bodies. The first is made of stone and contains the entrance opening,

pilaster In architecture, a pilaster is both a load-bearing section of thickened wall or column integrated into a wall, and a purely decorative element in classical architecture which gives the appearance of a supporting column and articulates an ext ...

s and a

frieze In classical architecture, the frieze is the wide central section of an entablature and may be plain in the Ionic order, Ionic or Corinthian order, Corinthian orders, or decorated with bas-reliefs. Patera (architecture), Paterae are also ...

with

triglyph Triglyph is an architectural term for the vertically channeled tablets of the Doric frieze in classical architecture, so called because of the angular channels in them. The rectangular recessed spaces between the triglyphs on a Doric frieze are ...

s and

metope A metope (; ) is a rectangular architectural element of the Doric order, filling the space between triglyphs in a frieze , a decorative band above an architrave. In earlier wooden buildings the spaces between triglyphs were first open, and ...

s in the

Corinthian style The Corinthian order (, ''Korinthiakós rythmós''; ) is the last developed and most ornate of the three principal classical orders of Ancient Greek architecture and Roman architecture. The other two are the Doric order, which was the earliest, ...

. The second is characterized by the counterpoint between curved and straight lines, which gives rise to binary pilasters,

pinnacle A pinnacle is an architectural element originally forming the cap or crown of a buttress or small turret, but afterwards used on parapets at the corners of towers and in many other situations. The pinnacle looks like a small spire. It was main ...

s and an oblong elliptical window, above which is the single

niche Niche may refer to: Science *Developmental niche, a concept for understanding the cultural context of child development and growth *Ecological niche, a term describing the relational position of an organism's species *Niche differentiation, in ec ...

on the façade, which contains the effigy of the

of Jesus. Due to the contrast between the bodies, the church harbors stylistic similarities with the Panteón de los Próceres and Saint Paul's College, and due to the use of multiple binary pilasters with the church of San Pedro. For its part, the side cover is from the 19th century and its design is neoclassical. The interior is made up of the subchoir, the

nave The nave () is the central part of a church, stretching from the (normally western) main entrance or rear wall, to the transepts, or in a church without transepts, to the chancel. When a church contains side aisles, as in a basilica-type ...

and the presbytery, with the addition on the right side of a

baptistery In Church architecture, Christian architecture the baptistery or baptistry (Old French ''baptisterie''; Latin ''baptisterium''; Greek language, Greek , 'bathing-place, baptistery', from , baptízein, 'to baptize') is the separate centrally planned ...

that evokes the main façade of the . Around the curvature there are four shallow niche chapels.

References

{{coord, -12.05265, -77.03155, format=dms, type:landmark_region:PE, display=title Sagrado Corazón de Jesús (Huérfanos) Historic Centre of Lima Buildings and structures completed in the 17th century

History

Architecture

See also

References