Chile Guide
Santiago
Museo de San Francisco
Opening time: Tues– Sat 10am–1.30pm & 3–6.30pm, Sun 10am–2pm
Price: CH$700
Website: www.museosanfrancisco.cl
Address: Londres 4
The monastery adjacent to Iglesia San Francisco houses the Museo de San Francisco, where you'll find a highly evocative collection of paintings, sculpture, furniture, keys and other objects dating from the colonial period, most of it religious and a good deal of it created in Peru, the seat of colonial government. Note the immense eighteenth-century cedar door of the first room you come to off the cloisters; carved into hundreds of intricately designed squares, this is one of the museum's most beautiful possessions. Inside the room, you'll find another arresting sight: a gigantic painting of the genealogical tree of the Franciscan Order consisting of 644 miniature portraits. Other highlights to look out for include the Cristo Chilote, a small wooden image of Christ on the cross, bearing unmistakeably South American features, carved in Chiloé in 1780; a roomful of delicately crafted locks; and, squeezed into the Gran Sala, a collection of 54 paintings depicting the life and miracles of St Francis of Assisi, quite overwhelming in their sheer size and number.