The Church of the Company of Jesus is the most elaborately decorated church in Cusco — a Jesuit church built on the foundations of the Inca Palace of Huayna Capac between 1571 and 1668 whose Baroque facade is so extravagant that the bishop of Cusco complained to the Pope that it outshone his own cathedral (the Pope agreed and ordered the Jesuits to tone it down; they didn't).
The facade is a masterpiece of colonial Baroque — a two-storey composition of twisted columns (Solomonic columns, the signature element of Spanish Baroque), carved saints, angels, and the IHS monogram of the Jesuits, all executed in the pinkish andesite stone that gives Cusco's colonial architecture its distinctive warmth. The interior is equally elaborate, with a gilded cedar retable that climbs the full height of the apse and paintings from the Cusco School that line the nave.
The church was built on the site where Huayna Capac (the Inca emperor whose death from a disease introduced by the Spanish triggered the civil war that weakened the empire before the conquest) held his court, and the Inca stonework is visible in the foundations. The church's position on the Plaza de Armas, directly facing the cathedral, creates an architectural dialogue between episcopal and Jesuit ambition that is one of the defining features of Cusco's colonial landscape.
Verified Facts
The church was built on the foundations of the Inca Palace of Huayna Capac
Construction lasted from 1571 to 1668
The bishop complained to the Pope that the church outshone his cathedral
The facade features Solomonic (twisted) columns
Get walking directions
Avenida Arcopata, Cusco, Peru
