Sao Miguel das Missoes

I will not just be covering Europe or places that I have visited! Sao Miguel is also known as San Miguel, when it was in Spanish territory. It is possibly the most well-known of the Jesuit Reduction churches in the southern part of South America. These "Reductions" were areas run as communities for the Guarani Indians by the Jesuits in parts of present Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Bolivia. The Jesuits decided to keep these areas separate from the growing Spanish and Portuguese colonies, in order to protect the Indians from enslavement by local slave  traders. The settlements coped with the material and spiritual needs of the Indians. Some have seen this as a Utopia. Certainly the achievement of only a few hundred Jesuits to create over 30 towns with over 80,000 Indians by 1772 was quite remarkable. 

 I have been reading about it in Lost Cities of Paraguay by C.J.Naspy and J.M.Blanch. It is a good read and the illustrations of the Guarani art are wonderful. I would love to visit this place and other Reduction churches. The plight of the Reductions was graphically told in the 1986 epic film "The Mission" with Jeremy Irons and Robert de Niro, and music by Ennio Morricone.

The church in question is fortunate to have survived in such scale and the west front is like a Hispanic cathedral. Apparently some of the other Reductions were greater but have largely disappeared. This Reduction was founded in 1632 by Cristobel de Mendoza and Pablo Benavides. It  had to move in order to escape slave raiders, be rebuilt after a huge storm and finally across shift across the Paraguay river to its present site in 1687, in present day Brazil. The present church was started in 1700. The architect could have been Brother Primoli with the assistance of  Francisco Ribera, parish priest 1714-47. Originally there were two towers. The left one has been carefully reconstructed. It may have been intended to have a stone vault and central dome. Lack of lime locally would have made this impossible and a wooden ceiling would have been used. It is a large church with 40 ft. wide nave plus two aisles 20 ft. wide.

The church by Agusto dos Santos on Flickr.

The Jesuits had  formidable musicians amongst them and the Indians proved receptive. CDs have appeared recently trying to recreate the kind of music that might have been used in the churches. I am giving an example and hope to come back to this in later posts.

 I could not resist giving you Gabriel's Oboe from "The Mission" too.