San Ignacio Miní

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**Jesuit Missions of the Guaranis: San Ignacio Mini, Santa Ana, Nuestra Señora de Loreto and Santa Maria la Mayor (Argentina), Ruins of Sao Miguel das Missoes (Brazil)**¹
**UNESCO World Heritage Site**

State Party	Argentina and Brazil
Type	Cultural
Criteria	iv
Identification	#275-291
Region²	Latin America and the Caribbean
Inscription History
Formal Inscription:	1983 7th WH Committee Session
Extension/s	1984
WH link:	http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/275
1 Name as officially inscribed on the WH List 2 As classified officially by UNESCO

San Ignacio Miní was one of the many missions founded in 1632 by the Jesuits in the Americas during the Spanish colonial period.

In terms of preservation, including the architectural and sculptural details that typify the style known as "Guaraní baroque", San Ignacio Miní may be the most outstanding surviving example of the 30 missions built by the Jesuits in a territory that now comprises parts of Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay. It is also a tourist favorite for its accessibility, surrounded as it is by the present-day village of San Ignacio in the province of Misiones, Argentina.

Rediscovered in 1897, San Ignacio gained some notoriety after poet Leopoldo Lugones led an expedition to the area in 1903, but restoration work had to wait until the 1940s. Parts of the ruins are still precarious, supported by sore-thumb scaffolding that obscures the essential harmony of the complex but does not affect individual features.

San Ignacio's centerpiece was Italian architect Juan Brasanelli's monumental church, 74 meters long and 24 meters wide, with red sandstone walls two meters wide and ceramic-tile floors. Overlooking the settlement's plaza, decorated by Guaraní artisans, it is arguably the finest remaining structure of its kind; the adjacent compound included a kitchen, dining room, classrooms, and workshops. The priests' quarters and the cemetery were also here, while more than 200 Guaraní residences — whose numbers reached 4,000 at the mission's zenith in 1733 — surrounded the plaza.

The complex of the ruins currently holds the Museo Jesuítico de San Ignacio Miní museum. Since 1984 it has been listed as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO.