Riobamba Cathedral (Catedral de San Pedro)
Cathedral whose Baroque stone front was rebuilt from the ruins of Riobamba's 1797 earthquake.
The earthquake of February 1797 destroyed the original Riobamba, and survivors moved the city to the plain of Tapi where it stands today. Carved blocks were retrieved from the rubble of the old settlement and reused to build a new cathedral, raised between about 1810 and 1835 on what is now Parque Maldonado. The result is unusual: a seventeenth and eighteenth-century Baroque facade of pale limestone reassembled on a nineteenth-century structure, and the oldest surviving fabric in the city.
The front is read in three registers rising to three towers, the central and tallest carrying an image of Saint Peter. Its carving mixes Spanish and indigenous motifs, with scenes from the Old and New Testaments, angels, flowers, hexagons and the crossed keys of the apostle. Behind it, the interior is plainer and was remodelled in later campaigns. The building is the mother church of the diocese of Riobamba, created in 1862 and renamed in 1955, and a national cultural asset.
Highlights
- Baroque facade reassembled from the pre-1797 city
- Carving blending Spanish and indigenous motifs
- Three towers crowned by an image of Saint Peter
- Oldest surviving building in modern Riobamba
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