Peru Guide
Arequipa
Monasterio de Santa Catalina
Address: C Santa Catalina 301
Opening time: Daily 9am–4pm
Price: $10, guides are optional at around $3–4
The most important and prestigious religious building in Peru, the Monasterio de Santa Catalina is a convent which housed almost two hundred secluded nuns and three hundred servants from the late sixteenth century until it opened some of its outer doors to the public in 1970. Its enormous complex of rooms, cloisters and tiny plazas takes a good hour or two to explore. Some thirty nuns still live here today.
Originally the concept of Gaspar Vae in 1570, though only granted official licence five years later, the convent was funded by the Viceroy Toledo and the wealthy Maria de Guzmán, who later entered the convent with one of her sisters and donated all her riches to the community. The most striking feature is its predominantly Mudéjar style, adapted by the Spanish from the Moors, but which rarely found its way into their colonial buildings. The quality of the design is emphasized and harmonized by a superb interplay between the strong sunlight, white stone and brilliant colours in the ceilings and the deep-blue sky above the maze of narrow interior streets.