Church and Convent of San Francisco

Introduction

The Church and Convent of San Francisco is Santa Fe's most significant surviving colonial building and an Argentine National Historic Monument since 1942. The Franciscans were the first order to settle at old Santa Fe la Vieja; after the city moved to its present site in 1660 they raised a provisional mud-wall, thatch-roof convent, began the church that stands today in 1673 and finished it in 1688, with cloister works continuing for years. What makes the building remarkable is earth and timber: thick adobe walls and a red-tile roof carried by hardwood and cedar beams, joined with leather and wooden dowels rather than nails, with hand-carved doors opening onto a nave with a gilded pulpit. Lightning damaged it in 1824, followed by a century of decline and ill-judged remodelling, until architects Angel Guido and Mario Buschiazzo restored the original facade and structure between 1938 and the early 1950s. Two stories cling to the place: during the 1825 flood a jaguar drifted in on floating vegetation and attacked Father Magallanes, whose tomb is inside; the provincial caudillo Estanislao Lopez and his wife are also buried here. One cloister wing houses the San Francisco Historical Museum, with ceramics, furniture, silverwork, weapons and sacred art, plus a Hall of Constituents with wax figures of the assembly that drafted Argentina's 1853 constitution. The church remains an active parish, so avoid Mass times.

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