The Church of Santo Domingo carries the name of the preaching order that accompanied the Spanish presence throughout colonial America and that built, in almost every city of the viceroyalties, a church and a convent at the centre of urban life. This one keeps the character of that architecture: massive walls, a plain stone facade, a bell tower rising above the surrounding roofs, and inside a single broad nave running towards a carved and gilded high altarpiece. Sculpture, painting, wooden ceilings and side chapels complete an ensemble assembled over long periods rather than in a single campaign. The episode films the church as both fabric and practice: the materials and the light in the empty nave, then the same space during worship, when candles, music and the movement of the congregation restore its intended atmosphere. A dependable title for strands on colonial religious heritage.
