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Church and Monastery of Santa Catalina:
In Inkan times, one of the most important buildings over the great Qosqo's Main Plaza was the Aqllawasi (House of Chosen Women, or Virgins of the Sun). It was something like an Andean Monastery for noble women chosen among the prettiest and most virtuous in the whole Quechua territory. They were devoted to the cult of the Sun God; to the preparation of its ceremonies; to the weaving of clothing for the Inka and for different religious purposes.
To the preparation of the "Sanqhu" (a ceremonial bread equivalent of the host in Christianity); and to the manufacture of "Aqha" or sacred "chicha" (maize beer). Besides, those women who kept perpetual virginity, also had to keep inside their monastery for the whole year the Sacred Fire produced in the Inti Raymi. Those maidens living in the Aqllawasi had two categories: the daughters of noble blood Quechuas, considered as Sun's wives who had higher status and those daughters of privileged nobles that were considered as the Inka's wives. All of them were instructed by and under the care of the "Mamakuna" who were a sort of priestesses among the most skillful veterans in domestic and ceremonial affairs. No man could see them, not even the same Inka; just the "Qoya" (the Inka's main wife) and her daughters could visit them. According to the law, if any male had personal intimate relations with a chosen woman, himself, his family, his neighbors and his whole people were eliminated as well as their cattle, and his town was covered with salt for having nursed such a bad son. Garcilaso indicates about this rule that " This was the law, but it was never carried out, because it was never known that someone transgressed it... The Inkas never promulgated laws for frightening their vassals neither for transgressing them, but for executing and performing them with those who dared breaking them.". The Aqllawasi building covered a whole enormous block and was located where now is the Church and Monastery of Dominican Nuns of Santa Catalina and many other private buildings close to it.
The present-time structure was begun one year later being finished after 4 short years. The altarpieces that are found in the church and monastery were carved by diverse local craftsmen toward the second half of the XVII century. Besides, there are very important pictorial works of Cusquenian School made by anonymous artists. Inside the church there is a collection made by Juan Espinoza de los Monteros representing Saint Catherine of Siena's life and the Remedies Virgin in the Monastery Foundation. Lorenzo Sanchez Mefecit, another Cusquenian painter made the huge canvas of the Virgin's Assumption and another representing Saint Catherine of Siena's Glorification. The church has also a gilded cedar wood Major Altar with blended styles, on the high central part is the statue of the "The Holy Heart of Jesus Christ" and lower Saint Catherine and Saint Dominic Guzman. Besides, there is a pulpit carved in cedar wood and other four gilded minor altarpieces.
Nowadays, over here is a beautiful museum of colonial art which possibly is the most complete in the city. By its entrance, in the first room there are different canvases representing the "Lord of Earthquakes", and some other different paintings mostly anonymous. Further ahead in the passage, is another collection representing the life and miracles of Saint Rose of Lima.
Church and Convent of Merced
The first convent's cloister is the most beautiful and surprising in the complex; it has a square shape, two floors, and archways with thick and solid rectangular pillars that show nice carved Corinth columns in their front sides. It is in short, an elaborate and marvelous work made with andesites. The second cloister is relatively simple and earlier than 1650. In the first cloister are canvases representing the life of Saint Peter Nolasco painted by Ignacio Chacon towards 1763. Basilio Santa Cruz Pumacallo made the canvas representing "Saint Lawrence" decapitated. Besides, Basilio Pacheco painted the enormous canvas that represents the order's benefactors which is located by the stairway leading to the second floor; in the second story is also a collection of canvases representing the Saint Augustine's life that were moved after the destruction of the Saint Augustine church and convent. In this cloister is also the enclosure serving as museum for the convent's valuables; among which is the famous Monstrance of la Merced (a vessel in which the consecrated Host is exposed to receive the veneration of the faithful) that is 1.2 mts. (3'4") high and weights 22.2 kg. (49 lb.). The sun of the monstrance was made in gold with a baroque style by Luis Ayala de Olmos in the XVII century. Lower is the image of Our Lady of Mercy and even lower a pretty mermaid staying on her knees whose body is formed by a pearl that looks like a woman's breast and belly. Lower is the pedestal that was made by Manuel Piedra by the first years of the XIX century with a French neoclassical style in which the central part has an Easter Lamb and lower two pelicans representing Christianity. Alfonsina Barrionuevo wrote that " ... It has one thousand five hundred eighteen diamonds and fine gems, six hundred fifteen pearls, one amethyst, one topaz, three emeralds, many dozens of rubies and some other precious stones.". More over, in this enclosure there are different mainly anonymous canvases among which are the "Virgin's Coronation" painted by Bernardo Bitti; the "Holy Family" ascribed to Rubens and another "Virgin's Coronation" and a small "Holy Family" ascribed to Diego Quispe T'ito. Also over here are manuscripts on parchment, a small Christ carved in ivory, precious metal jewels such as crowns, incense burners, candelabra, etc. There are also Chinese jars and 8 chasubles embroidered with gold and silver threads among which is that belonging to Fray Vicente Valverde (Pizarro's partner). In this cloister is the Scriptures Room where there are many other canvases; in one side of its entrance is an interesting canvas made by Ignacio Chacon representing Virgin Mary nursing at the same time a baby Jesus Christ and Saint Peter Nolasco. Also in this first cloister is the famous Fray Francisco Salamanca's cell. He was native from Oruro in present-day Bolivia, whose portrait is found by the entrance and who became famous by the first decades of XVIII century as a great orator, poet, musician, painter and composer of Christmas carols in Quechua and Aymara. He passed his last 30 years in confinement in that dark, humid cell, keeping the small organ made by himself and the murals he painted.
Tradition tells that he used to go out just at midnight of Fridays carrying on his back the cross that today is in front of his cell; he died in 1737
Church and Convent of San Francisco
 The Franciscan Order was founded by Saint Francis native from Assisi in present-day Italy, toward the beginning of XIII century. The Franciscans arrived to Qosqo by the first years of the conquest and were located by the San Blas district, later in the Nazarenas Square, in the ancient Qasana palace belonging to Inka Pachakuteq in the Main Square and finally in their present-day location over the San Francisco Square toward 1549. It is not known who the architect was that designed the present-time building; however, it is known that Francisco Dominguez Chavez y Arellano, a Cusquenian architect who worked as the chief mason finished it. The structure of the church is relatively simple and has just one tower and two gates, but it is solid and made with andesites from pre-Hispanic buildings. Its original artworks were destroyed by a priest that "modernized" the church with coarse neoclassical plaster-made artworks. Its Major Altar is neoclassical and made in plaster having a Saint Francis of Assisi effigy in the central part and above it is the Virgin of the Immaculate Conception. There are also 11 other minor altarpieces, all of them made in plaster; it has an ancient cedar wood pulpit too.
Its convent cloister is the oldest in the city and has a renaissance style with diverse influences. It has an impressive ceiling decorated with painted panels. Over here is an enormous canvas that is possibly the biggest in the continent measuring about 12 mts. (39 ft.) high and 9 mts. (30 ft.) wide; it was painted by Juan Espinoza de los Monteros toward 1699. That painting represents 12 branches of the Franciscan order containing 683 personages, 224 coats of arms and 203 biography legends. What is also impressive is the church's high choir that was carved in local cedar wood by Franciscans Fray Luis Montes, Isidro Fernandez Inka and Antonio de Paz, by 1652. That choir contains images of 93 Saints of the Catholic Church; its lectern is also very nice, and has an imposing German organ. More over, there are many more canvases in the different rooms and cloisters; almost all of them anonymous from the Cusquenian School of painting.
Compañia de Jesús Church
The church is mainly made with andesites and has the most beautiful and well made facade among the churches in the city. Over its entrance gate is an Immaculate Conception Virgin carved in berenguela (marble looking material). It has two external side-chapels leaning to the main church; toward the north is the Virgin of Loreto chapel (since 1894 it is known as the Virgin of Lourdes chapel) which today still serves for cult and where almost always the Lord of Burgos (he was brought from the demolished Saint Augustine Church) is worshipped.
The main nave has also a transept communicating with the two lateral chapels, six altarpieces with divers styles and a completely gilded pulpit. On both sides of the High Altar there are 4 other cedar wood altars, three of them gilded and very rich. After the restoration works subsequent to the 1986 earthquake, a very interesting underground closed chapel was discovered under the High Altar. On the upper side, around the windows of alabaster (Huamanga Stone) there are canvases representing the life of Saint Ignatius of Loyola, painted by Marcos Zapata and his helper Cipriano Gutierrez. Inside the building, on both sides of the main gate there are two canvases representing Saint Ignatius of Loyola curing sick people in one of them and victorious over the heretics and schismatic people that caused the religious reform in the other. Around here are also two canvases that have a lot of historic value; that of the northern wall represents the wedding of Spanish Captain Martin Garcia Oñas de Loyola, who was nephew of Saint Ignatius of Loyola and captor of the last Inka Tupaq Amaru I; and Clara Beatriz Qoya, daughter of Sayri Tupaq and therefore Tupaq Amaru's niece. Clara Beatriz was the absolute heiress of the Oropesa Marquisate; from this marriage was born Lorenza Ñusta de Loyola who was married to Juan Borgia, son of Saint Francis Borgia; whose wedding is also represented on the other side of the same canvas. In one side of the painting are Tupaq Amaru and Sayri Tupaq Inkas, and the princess Clara Beatriz with native clothing; behind them is a native man holding the "achiwa" a parasol made of multicolored bird feathers and used just by the Inka. The canvas on the southern wall represents the weddings of Beltran Garcia de Loyola with Teresa Idiaquez and that of Juan Idiaquez with Magdalena de Loyola.
San Blas
 San Blas is today a downtown neighborhood in the city known as the "Artists District", with narrow and writhing streets, most of them steep. In Inkan times it was one of the most important districts of Qosqo and its name was "T'oqo-kachi" (T'oqo = hollow; kachi = salt). Like the other districts it was inhabited by the Quechua nobility.
It seems that the church was erected over an Inkan Sanctuary devoted to cult of the "Illapa" god (Thunder, Lightning and Thunderbolt). It was possibly opened for the first time in 1544 by the city's second Bishop Juan Solano. Although some other versions say that it was after 1559 as consequence of viceroy Andres Hurtado de Mendoza's order by which "Indians" had to built churches for their indoctrination in the districts where they lived. Its structure was simple with a rectangular floor plan and mud brick walls, but after the earthquakes in 1650 and 1950 it was partially reinforced with stone walls. It has just one nave and two gates before which there are big plazas; and a stone bell tower constructed after the 1950 earthquake instead of the original made with mud bricks.
Inside the church is one of the greatest jewels of colonial art in the continent: the Pulpit of Saint Blaise; which is a filigree made in cedar wood by expert hands managing a gouge. It is not known with certainty who was the artist or artists that made it, how long the work lasted, neither any other details about it. However, the pulpit is over there as a mute witness of a great Catholic devotion and devoted work.
Most authors suggest that it was made by the most famous Quechua woodcarver: Juan Tomas Tuyro Tupaq, that was contemporary and protected of Mollinedo y Angulo, who entrusted him the manufacture of several works. It also could have been work of some other artists contemporary with Mollinedo such as Martin de Torres, Diego Martinez de Oviedo who made the monumental High Altar of the Compañia de Jesus Church, or the Franciscan Luis Montes that made the San Francisco Church's choir. Oral tradition has its version gathered by Angel Carreño who in his "Cusquenian Traditions" manuscript had stated in writing the name Esteban Orcasitas as the pulpit's author; but, for the 1st. edition of his book the name was changed by that of Juan Tomas Tuyrutupa. Tuyrutupa was Quechua and Cusquenian, but according to that traditional version he was a leper woodcarver from Huamanga (Ayacucho). The story tells that once he had in his dreams a revelation of the "Holy Virgin of the Good Happening" who told him that if he wanted to get healed from his leprosy he had to look for her in the small plaza of Arrayanpata in Qosqo City.
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