434 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. I02 



Chapter XXI 



Continuing the Description of Lima ; and of the Remarkable Con- 

 vents It Contains. 



1244. This famous city has remarkable Dominican. Franciscan, 

 xA.ugustinian, Mercedarian. and Jesuit convents. The Dominican is 

 sumptuous, with a building and cloisters of admirable architecture : 

 the apartments over the cloisters each has its fountain in the center : 

 the first contains excellent paintings with the life of the Patriarch 

 St. Dominick from the brush of Francisco Pacheco, famous painter 

 of Seville, and portraits of saints by that great master of painting, 

 Mateo Perez de Alecio, the one who painted in Seville the San 

 Cristobal which is by the Lonja entrance. It has a most imposing 

 temple, all adorned above and on the walls of the three naves with 

 gold and paintings of this Alecio ; they take them down for the 

 celebration of festivals, because the paintings in the chapels are 

 covered with taffeta canopies against the dust. 



1245. The riches of its sacristy are worth over 300,000 ducats, 

 for its ordinary is of 15 chapels and altars, all equally adorned with 

 rich hangings and vestments ; and it is a sight worth seeing when 

 all the priests, each from his altar, gather after the sermon and 

 walk out together, all alike in rich chasubles of one color and one 

 weave ; and although many prelates have contributed to this wealth 

 of adornment, the initiator was Fray Don .Salvador de Ribera, former 

 Bishop of Quito, and the one who lavished wealth upon it was Fray 

 Don Augustin de Vega, who died when he was Bishop-elect of 

 Paraguay, and his brother. Fray Francisco de Vega, Candidate for 

 M.A., Provincial of that ]:)rovince. 



1246. There is a chapel and Confraternity of the Rosary, very 

 devout and with large membership and wealth, provided with every- 

 thing ; every year they marry off seven or eight orphan girls. The 

 convent has over 250 friars ; it maintains a college for students, 

 where they really teach letters ; they have professorships in arts, 

 philosophy, and theology, as do the other religious orders, all as 

 flourishing educationally as any leading university in the world, with 

 public defense of theses, at which all are present in turn by invita- 

 tion. They have famous preachers and scholars, both among those 

 who have come over from Spain and among the natives of this 

 country, where the skies seem to induce brilliancy of intellect and 

 distinction of character. There is another very strict convent of this 

 same Order of Preachers, the convent of Recollects of La Madalena, 

 distinguished for their virtue and remarkable for the architecture of 

 their church and home. 



