San Francisco de Quito is the largest colonial religious complex in the Americas and the anchor of a historic centre inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List. Begun in the years that followed the Spanish founding of the city, it grew into an entire quarter: a wide stone atrium raised above the square, a church with a monumental facade and twin towers, several cloisters, chapels, workshops and gardens. The interior is one of the great statements of colonial art, with gilded altarpieces, a coffered ceiling in the mudejar manner and an accumulation of painting and polychrome sculpture produced by the Quito school, whose artists supplied churches across the continent. The episode gives equal weight to the building and to what it made possible, filming the architecture in the hard Andean light and examining, close up, the craftsmanship of gilding, carving and painting that defines the site.
