COMMUNITY OF SANTA CLARA

The story begins when Clara Clares Ofreducci, noble and wealthy young woman born in the town of Assisi in Umbria in Italy, in the year 1194. Since she is distinguished by an early spiritual quality. At the age of 18, on the night of Palm Sunday 1212, leaves his family and with his sister and some young women who follow them, is welcomed to the ideals of poverty, prayer, fasting and penitence that preaches San Francisco. Initially subjected to the rules and statutes of the Franciscan Order, then writes its own rules, the first of a woman for women, based on statues of the saint, issued in the year 1223. His deep spiritual life will be known from then through the rule of his testimony and his correspondence. It was his first home a rustic house on the outskirts of Assisi, near the Chapel of San Damiano. In 1215, San Francisco's own appointed superior of the Convent. Santa Clara pilgrim and stranger in the world, died in 1253 at age 58 and was canonized two years later, on August 15, 1255. Her incorrupt body is preserved in the church of San Damiano in Assisi. The Poor Clares have been called forth and ladies Diamianitas poor due to its link with the Convent of San Damiano, then Alcantarines and Planners and Recoletas. Today they are known in the world as Poor Clares. The Poor Clares habit consists of a brown robe tied at the waist with a white cord with three knots, black veil on her head and sandals for footwear. For special occasions using a wide layer of brown.

POOR CLARES IN THE NEW KINGDOM OF GRANADA.

The first convent of women in the New Kingdom of Granada just one of Clare in the city of Tunja founded in 1573 Juana Macias Figueroa, wife of Captain Francisco Salguero. It follows that of Pamplona in 1584, founded as it was so prevalent in the Colony, by a widow, Magdalena de Velasco. Then comes 33 years later, the convent of Cartagena in 1617, to whose foundation came nuns of St. Agnes in the city of Seville in Spain. The foundation was made with the legacy of Doña Catalina de Cabrera. The fourth in order is the convent of Santa Fe de Bogota, founded under the leadership of Archbishop Hernando Arias de Ugarte in the year 1629 the founding entering as a sister and a niece of the bishop, and finally, the city Merida, a member of the former Captaincy General of Venezuela but then part of the Audiencia of Santa Fé, in the year 1651. They were five convents across the country. Of those who currently form part of Colombia, none are still standing, with the exception of some walls of what was to Tunja and others, almost nothing, such as Cartagena, where now stands a luxury resort hotel. Of the churches attached to the colonial monasteries, subtract three, Tunja, forgotten little gem, the convent that now serves Pamplona restored cathedral church of the city, and the priceless treasure of the Santa Fe de Bogota, the richest and full investigations.

ARCHITECTURE

The architecture of Santa Clara is a unique architecture that emerges and is presented as an extension of the monastery, to meet precisely the needs of worship required by the religious life of the community, subject to rigid rules on closing Tridentine female isolation in which elements and confinement had been heavily reinforced. The sacrament of the Eucharist, the celebration of Mass, and above all the daily recitation of the Divine Office, required a special space that should be considered since the founding of the same convent in 1629, and the manufacture of the temple, such as is now known, has been completed only several years after 1647. The building of the monastery is not known document that would allow to determine with certainty the size and disposition. Was located between the streets of San Cristobal in the north (present cale ninth), the first of Santa Clara to the east (currently eighth race), taking the south, the land owned by the Augustinian friars and the Rue St. Pius V by the west, thus occupying the entire block. Can only be inferred dependencies of the provisions to enshrine the rules convents of the orders of women and of the terms taken from the instruction of San Carlos Borromeo (1538 1584) where several standards are clearly specified for the construction of the church and monastery of nuns.

HISTORY OF THE COLLECTION

The museum's collection Santa Clara has an origin in the nature of the monument and therefore different than they are generally collections of other museums. Having been born as a church of a convent of nuns, paintings and sculptures do not come as grants or art acquisitions, but as specific objects of devotion and worship and as a concrete symbol of the piety of the society of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Even those images that were incorporated into the temple at the beginning of this century, years after leaving the community, had a devotional purpose as objects of worship of different religious congregations and confraternities. The same can be said of the eight side altars, which would have been used for burial chapels and private patrons and donors, and as spaces in which to be holding the masses of the many chaplains. Santa Clara's collection consists of 112 easel paintings, paintings that is supported on canvas, wood, metal or paper, 24 sculptures in the round, nine numerous altarpieces and mural paintings. It is quite a homogeneous collection, which is reflected by the religious spirit of an era, with devotional preferences of its society and its artists the ability to meet that requirement.

WALK THROUGH THE INTERIOR OF THE MUSEUM

Following the guidelines Tridentine canon, the Church of the Monastery was built from a single vessel, arranged in east west direction with a vaulted ceiling. The dome of Santa Clara, painted in tempera on wood and dotted with stars, houses the nave and chancel, enveloping visitors in a beautiful intimate space and filling it with amazement. The contrast of the stark interior with medieval fortress-like exterior, is remarkable. The church is reached by one of the two doors on the east side of the wall, old street of Santa Clara, eighth race today. Crossing the threshold, the visitor is immediately on the ship, facing one of the oldest temple altars, St. Martin de Tours. Turning to the left and directing the light in the south, will face the splendid spectacle of the altarpiece, built in the second half of the seventeenth century. Does this, three bodies and five streets, is carved in wood and gold entirely in gold leaf. There stands a beautiful Baroque expository added to the set in the eighteenth century. Of the 13 images located in the niches of the reredos, the majority belong to the eighteenth century. To the right of the altar, on top of the west wall, overlooking a small platform decorated with rich Mudejar whose function was to allow religious elderly or sick, assistance to the liturgical evening. In that same side is the gateway to the sacristy, and next, the first of the side altars, the altarpiece of the pulpit, so named for its proximity to the ancient site of this element. Dividing the presbytery of the space ship, the light encounters the large transverse arch on whose surface there is an interesting mural of the seventeenth century Mannerist style. Keep in your order the altarpiece of Santa Margarita Maria de Alacoque rebuilt earlier this century by the Confraternity of the Sacred Heart. Somewhat later found that two small carved doors for the old convent confessionals communicated this through a narrow corridor. Continuing the tour of the west wall, they appear successively the altar of the Mass of St. Gregory, San Martín de Tours and San Francisco Solano. On these last two, lies the great tribune Mudejar served to contain the organ and other musical instruments used in the accompaniment of chanting of the Divine Office daily. After the tour of these altarpieces, you enter the convent of the choir space, space closure, once separated from the nave by a railing or lattice behind which was the community. Both low as in the choir at the top, there are many examples of what must be the original mural that covered the entire premises, including ceilings, beams, dogs, windows, niches and walls painted with the same meticulous precision with which he decorated in the Middle Ages kept sheets of Books of Hours. Starting now the tour of the east wall are the gateway back to the church, and beside the altar of the Lord of the Humility of which date back to the year 1647, year of the consecration of the temple. A little farther to the south, is a smaller door, the second, open only for special occasions (funerals, processions), and beside it, the altarpiece of San Antonio. Crossing again the transverse arch, once you enter the sanctuary on whose eastern side is the last of the side altars of the temple, dedicated to the Sacred Heart. It is worth noting that all of the vessel walls are covered with veneers of wood with gilded reliefs dating from the eighteenth century. Among these is displayed the great paintings of the Church developed in the workshops of the most outstanding painters of the time, Gregorio Vásquez de Arce y Ceballos, Gaspar de Figueroa, Baltasar de Vargas Figueroa, Agustin Garcia Useche Fox and others. Finally, at the start of the stairs that access the altar, the crypt is the burial place of the nuns, is sealed and has a stone slab with the inscription:

ESTA BOVEDA MANDARON HAZER A SU COSTA JU DE CAPIAIN Y DOÑA MARIA ARIAS DUGARTE SU MUGER PATRONOS DESTE CONBENTO PARA SU ENTIERRO.AÑO 1647.

The Church of Santa Clara was severely affected by an earthquake in 1785, to which was added the explosion of a nearby polvorería the temple in 1855. The reconstructions were made after these incidents, not always very lucky, just brought to the temple. Passing this to the wrong hands because of the secularization of 1863, lost forever many of the ornaments of the church. The restoration carried out between 1977 and 1983, while aimed to the stabilization of structural elements, was determined to rescue the remaining vestiges of the decorations Clare community had accumulated in the temple for more than three centuries occupation, thanks to which today we can enjoy one of the most exciting art we lay religious colonial New Granada.