Said Freddy, one of the friends. He was not impressed that I’d spent my days in the echoing ugliness of Diversia and nights insulting men with Patricia and packed me off to the local museum, on the other side of the river, in a district of the town which was once an Italian colony.
It was an old Jesuit mission – a lovely seventeenth century building with a grassy courtyard and large church. I’d learned already that the Camino Real - an old Inca highway which ran from Buenos Aires to the silver empire of Potosi in the high Andes of Bolivia – ran through Jesus Maria. I learned also that the Jesuits ‘evangelized the aborigines, built big buildings and churches, set up workshops, factories, bodegas and mills, worked the fields and cultivated vines and orchards, built canals, worked with stone and bronze, introduced a printing press, founded libraries, colleges and universities, published books and taught music, art, science and religious studies’. In Jesus Maria they funded all this by making decent wine, Lagrimillas de Oro (Little tears of Gold/Will be Sold/So while men sin/Our work can begin) the first to be served at the table of the King of Spain. There’s something very romantic about the Jesuits – principally they seem to have chosen the most beautiful places to build their missions – hills and rivers and lush green pastures. But also, because they were so successful in their endeavours and refused to give their income to the kingdom of Spain and kept it instead for their churches and their cause, they were eventually cast out by the jealous Spaniards, their valuable patronage cut off and the communities abandoned to the creeping vines and the jungle.
I went to another, more spectacular Jesuit mission. The gorgeous church – simple and white on the outside, a gold Baroque altarpiece within - had been restored and has several interesting features – an underground tunnel (the story goes that there were underground tunnels stretching all the way to Cordoba for clandestine movements) and an articulated wooden Christ on the Cross – arms stretched out when he was being crucified, by his sides when he wasn’t. These crude sculptures were used to teach the indigenous population Christianity. There was another rustic Jesus figure with strange swollen legs - because his form had been made by a native, modelled on another with a swollen leg problem. The paintings on the church walls depicted biblical scenes with seventeenth century colonial Spanish details and were made by masters in Cusco, the seat of the kingdom of the Incas in Peru. Interesting but I was more fascinated with the tiny modern-day town around the mission which had its own miniscule post office, police station and toothless ragged hag in situ. But no houses and scarcely a man or woman in sight.
It was an old Jesuit mission – a lovely seventeenth century building with a grassy courtyard and large church. I’d learned already that the Camino Real - an old Inca highway which ran from Buenos Aires to the silver empire of Potosi in the high Andes of Bolivia – ran through Jesus Maria. I learned also that the Jesuits ‘evangelized the aborigines, built big buildings and churches, set up workshops, factories, bodegas and mills, worked the fields and cultivated vines and orchards, built canals, worked with stone and bronze, introduced a printing press, founded libraries, colleges and universities, published books and taught music, art, science and religious studies’. In Jesus Maria they funded all this by making decent wine, Lagrimillas de Oro (Little tears of Gold/Will be Sold/So while men sin/Our work can begin) the first to be served at the table of the King of Spain. There’s something very romantic about the Jesuits – principally they seem to have chosen the most beautiful places to build their missions – hills and rivers and lush green pastures. But also, because they were so successful in their endeavours and refused to give their income to the kingdom of Spain and kept it instead for their churches and their cause, they were eventually cast out by the jealous Spaniards, their valuable patronage cut off and the communities abandoned to the creeping vines and the jungle.
I went to another, more spectacular Jesuit mission. The gorgeous church – simple and white on the outside, a gold Baroque altarpiece within - had been restored and has several interesting features – an underground tunnel (the story goes that there were underground tunnels stretching all the way to Cordoba for clandestine movements) and an articulated wooden Christ on the Cross – arms stretched out when he was being crucified, by his sides when he wasn’t. These crude sculptures were used to teach the indigenous population Christianity. There was another rustic Jesus figure with strange swollen legs - because his form had been made by a native, modelled on another with a swollen leg problem. The paintings on the church walls depicted biblical scenes with seventeenth century colonial Spanish details and were made by masters in Cusco, the seat of the kingdom of the Incas in Peru. Interesting but I was more fascinated with the tiny modern-day town around the mission which had its own miniscule post office, police station and toothless ragged hag in situ. But no houses and scarcely a man or woman in sight.
No comments:
Post a Comment