Stone Corridor in the San Francisco el Grande Ruins, Antigua

Vaulted stone corridor in the San Francisco el Grande convent ruins in Antigua Guatemala, a 16th-century Franciscan complex damaged by earthquakes.
Vaulted stone corridor in the San Francisco el Grande convent ruins in Antigua Guatemala, a 16th-century Franciscan complex damaged by earthquakes.

San Francisco el Grande was founded by Franciscan friars in 1579 as one of colonial Antigua's largest church and convent complexes. The 1773 Santa Marta earthquake collapsed much of the convent, contributing to the Spanish crown's decision to relocate the capital to present-day Guatemala City. Hermano Pedro de Betancourt, later canonized as Guatemala's first saint, ran a hospital and hospice from this site before his death in 1667. The barrel-vaulted corridors that remain were once service passages and storage rooms connecting the convent's cloisters, left roofless and exposed after the colonial-era collapse.

Taken February 2020

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Antigua
Historic center of Antigua Guatemala: Santa Catalina Arch, markets, ruins and surrounding volcanoes
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