SAN MIGUEL PARROQUIA
This church built by the Jesuits, allows to admire a sumptuous ceiling with polychrome coffers red and gold
The church was originally built by the Jesuits in honor of St. John the Baptist, but after their expulsion from Sucre, it was dedicated to St. Michael. San Miguel, whose construction, according to the plan of a Latin cross, was completed in 1612, is one of the monuments of Mudejar style (art of Islamic influence). It has a sumptuous red and gold polychrome coffered ceiling. The ceilings of the presbytery, the transept and the church are octagonal coffered.
The interior decoration of the church of San Miguel was the richest example of Mudejar art in the viceroyalty of Peru. The entrance to the building is typical of Mannerist architecture. In addition to its magnificent eighteenth-century altarpieces, numerous paintings and sculptures, San Miguel's greatest artistic treasure is a series of canvases, painted at the end of the sixteenth century by the Mannerist painter Bernardo Bitti, which were part of an ancient altarpiece. Bitti was the greatest painter of colonial America and his most beautiful works can be admired in Chuquisaca.
Among the paintings in the church, the best is the well-preserved Annunciation. Among the sculptures, the one of San Juan Bautista, by the sculptor Gaspar de la Cueva, from Seville, is particularly noteworthy. An original detail is that the tower of the church (the highest in the city) houses a café, the Torre del Campanario, which offers a magnificent view of the city's rooftops and allows you to enjoy the church's enchanting architecture.