León Cathedral (Nicaragua)

This article is about the Leon Cathedral in Nicaragua, for the Cathedral in Spain that goes by the same name, see: León Cathedral.

The Cathedral of León, also known as the Real e Insigne Basilica Catedral de León Nicaragua,(Real and renowned Basilica Cathedral of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary) is a significantly important and historic landmark in Nicaragua. The Cathedral was awarded World Heritage Site status with the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). The site's nomination is Nicaragua's third cultural landmark, following the ruins of León Viejo and El Güegüense .

Construction

The Cathedral's construction lasted between 1747 and 1814 and was consecrated by Pope Pius IX in 1860. Since then, the cathedral of León has maintained the status of being the largest cathedral in Central America and one of the most known in the Americas due to its Baroque style of architecture.

Architecture

The architectural design was carried out by the Guatemalan architect Diego José of Porres and Esquivel. The cathedral is distinguished to have a rectangular plant, of a type generalized in those centuries and similar to those of the cathedrals of Lima and the Cuzco, Peru. The towers and the facade belong to style neoclassicist. She/he has five ships, ten arched tracts, two towers in their facade and a parish. The sacrarium is located almost parallel to the biggest altar whose salient it breaks the rectangular symmetry. Their interior is roomy and its columns cruciformes, its central ship is staked for on the lateral ships and it is finished off in the cruise by a great dome. In the terrace she/he keeps the biggest Baroque show that combines with the neoclassical style. The windows are arched and the two steeples have a Chinese dome. Due to robustness of their walls it has supported tremors, volcanic eruptions of the volcano Black Hill and wars. In 1824 several canyons were placed in their roof during the place of the city for forces conservatives and in the insurrection of June and July 1979, against dictator Anastasio Somoza Debayle, the guerilla fighters of the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) they also used it with warlike ends.

Historical value

he has historical value to be, from 1531, the Episcopal headquarters of first o'clock diocese of the Catholic Church in Nicaragua, for what is one of the oldest dioceses in America. It is the headquarters of the Diócesis of León.

Under their arcades, in their crypts designed to support those earthquakes, the mortal remains of 27 people rest, among them 10 bishops, 5 priests, an eminent person of the independence, three poets, a musician, six notables and a slave.

Some illustrious characters of the Nicaraguan nation, buried in her are: the eminent person Miguel Larreynaga; the poets Rubén Darío, Salomón de la Selva and Alfonso Cortés; the musician José de la Cruz Mena; the wise doctor Luis H. Debayle; the professor Edgardo Buitrago; the first bishop from León and last of Nicaragua monsignor Simeón Pereira and Castellón and the priest Marcelino areas.

The tomb of Darío, father of the modernism and considered Príncipe of the letters castellanas, it is to the foot of the statue of San Pablo.

At the beginning of the 20th century monsignor Simón Pereira y Castellón (the same one that presided over the funeral of Darío the February 13 of 1916) she/he took charge to the sculptor granadino Jorge Navas Cordonero to make the statue of the Virgin María above the frontis of the facade, those atlass that are between the frontis and the steeples. Dales also sculpted the statues of the Twelve Apostles, next to the columns of the central ship, the same as the león of this poet's tomb, very similar to the Lion of Lucerna, Switzerland (made by the sculptor danés Bertel Thorvaldsen, 1770 - 1844), the Christ of monsignor's Pereira tomb and several decorations inside the temple and its Chapel of the Sacrarium.