Today after school we visited the beautiful and justly famous Monistario de Santa Catalina here in Arequipa. This convent, still home to some 30 cloistered nuns (who bake excellent cakes as we found out), was at one time one of the wealthiest and largest religious communities in Peru. Our guide Martha told us that it was customary for all important families to send one of their daughters to live in the convent. The beautiful art found throughout the convent is testament to centuries of patronage by the rich and famous of colonial Arequipa. It´s a stunning place.
For centuries, the women of the community lived entirely within the confines of this one city block. The community has its own streets, facilities and kitchens. There are plazas and meeting rooms, many chapels and houses for the various nuns, some of whom were aparently wealthy and important, like their families on the outside. Here, an artist sketches the main plaza with the convent:
The rooftops served as gardens and lookouts. Here´s a view from the top of one of the building, towads the convent church:
It is hard to describe how much being in the compound it felt like going back in time. Until 1970, the nuns still lived and worked in these halls. How the remaining sisters live in a more modern building next to the old convent.
Here´s one of the many walkways:
And the convent bakery with its well:
A beautiful carved cabinet door:
Many of the nun´s rooms had images of the virgin mary or other saints. Here is one of the mourning virgin:
This room contained portraits of 13 of the mother superiors and the ornate stretcher upon which nuns were carried after death to their final resting place in the adjacent cemetary:
This is one of the most amazing places either of us had ever been.
-MP
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