Mexico Guide
Oaxaca
Santo Domingo
A block further up Alcalá stands the church of Santo Domingo (daily 7am–1pm & 4–8pm; no sightseeing during Mass; free). One of the finest examples of Mexican Baroque, this sixteenth-century extravaganza is elaborately carved and decorated both inside and out, the external walls (10m thick in some places) solid and earthquake-proof, the interior extraordinarily rich. Parts were damaged during the Reform Wars and the Revolution – especially the chapels, pressed into service as stables – but most of the interior was restored during the 1950s. Notice especially the great gilded main altarpiece, and, on the underside of the raised choir above you as you enter, the family tree of the Dominican order, in the form of a vine with leafy branches and tendrils, busts of leading Dominicans and a figure of the Virgin right at the top. Most striking of all, the church drips with white and gold-leaf throughout, beautifully set off in the afternoon by the light that floods in through the window. Looking back from the altar you can appreciate the relief scenes high on the walls, the biblical events depicted in the barrel roof and the ceiling of the choir, a vision of the heavenly hierarchy with gilded angels swirling in rings around God. The adjoining Capilla del Rosario is also richly painted and carved: the Virgin takes pride of place in another stunning altarpiece, all the more startlingly intense in such a relatively small space.