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The Jesuits’ placement of their Baroque church La Compañía de Jesús (right)
on Cusco’s Plaza de Armas, where it competes with the Cathedral of Santo Domingo,
is not the first power play witnessed by the city’s main square. Here in 1533, Spanish
conqueror Francisco Pizarro executed the last Inca emperor, Atahualpa. The word
“Inka” means “ruler” in Quechua, the native language; “Tawantinsuyu” refers to the
Inca Empire and its people.
The cathedral, designed by Spanish architect Juan Miguel de Veramendi,
was built from 1559 to 1654 on the foundations of the destroyed Inca temple of
Kiswarkancha. Tawantinsuyu laborers incorporated motifs of their indigenous
religion, such as jaguar heads carved on the main doors. La Compañía was built
on the foundations of Amarucancha, said to be the most beautiful of all the palaces
belonging to Inca lords. Started in 1576 but destroyed in Cusco’s earthquake of
1650, La Compañía’s rebuilding was overseen by architect Juan Bautista Gilles and
completed in 1671.