Catedral Metropolitana de Montevideo

The cathedral as seen from Plaza Matriz

The Catedral Metropolitana de Montevideo - interior view

The Roman Catholic Catedral Metropolitana de Montevideo is the main church of the Catholics and mother church ("Iglesia Matriz") of the archbishopric in the Uruguayan capital Montevideo .

The classicist building is located in the center of the old town of Montevideo at the Plaza de la Constitución (also known as Plaza Matriz ), opposite the Cabildo on the corner of Sarandí / Ituzaingó . It was built from 1790, when the foundation stone was laid on November 20, and was consecrated on October 21, 1804, although the work was not yet completed. It was created as the work of the Portuguese military engineers José Custodio de Sáa y Faría and José del Pozo y Marquys and the architect Tomás Toribio . In 1860 and again about a century later, renovation work took place on the facade. In 1870 the "Iglesia de la Inmaculada Concepción" (in German: Church of the Immaculate Conception) by Pope Pius IX. for minor Basilica explains, eight years after it was granted the status of a cathedral. With the establishment of the Archdiocese in Montevideo, it finally became the “Catedral Metropolitana y Primada”. In the interior of the church building with its high nave, which is furnished with plenty of marble and frescoes, there is a baptismal font from 1753 and also the final resting places of important personalities of Uruguayan history. These include the clergy Dámaso Antonio Larrañaga , Jacinto Vera y Durán , the first Archbishop of Montevideo Mariano Soler and Cardinal Antonio María Barbieri , but also the nationally important secular leaders Juan Antonio Lavalleja , Venancio Flores , José Fructuoso Rivera and Joaquín Suarez .

Until the first decades of the 20th century, the cathedral was the defining feature of the cityscape because it was the tallest building in the city. Changed building regulations made them lose this status. In 1975 the cathedral was declared a national historical monument ("Monumento Histórico Nacional").

Web links

Commons : Montevideo Cathedral  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Iglesia Matriz (Spanish)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ City Guide Montevideo ( Memento of the original from February 12, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 1.4 MB) 

Coordinates: 34 ° 54 ′ 25.2 ″  S , 56 ° 12 ′ 14.8 ″  W.