SAN FRANCISCO CHURCH

Built at the location of the chapel of the Franciscan convent, destroyed by the earthquake of 1641, San Francisco church was itself damaged slightly by the earthquake that ravaged half of the city in 1812. It was in these walls that in 1813 ceremonies were held during which Bolívar was awarded Libertador title.

It was also here that a year later the leader of the independence movement regrouped the heads of families, before the exodus to the east caused by the troops of the Royalist and Sanguinaire Sanguinaire. It was still in San Francisco that on December 17, 1842, the ashes of the national hero died in Santa Marta and that a funeral mass was solemnly celebrated in his memory.

While it may be regrettable that the façade was modified at the end of the th century under Alexei Blanco, to "respond" shimmering at Capitole, the interior and its treasures remained intact, such as the rococo altarpiece of the Child Jesus, or the more sober, of the Virgin, work by José Miguel de Arteaga.