the congregation and the “bohio-like “ (hut-like) structure that passed for a cathedral. He tried to resurrect the project by symbolically laying another foundation stone on March 25, 1521. The effort to jump-start the project took two years. For 17 years, time crept in its very petty pace while barely any progress was made. Eventually the project was completed. However, the unfinished belfry, that stands to this day, is a reminder of the trials and tribulations of this house of worship.
treaties recognized diplomatic immunities, extradition agreements, or asylum or refugee status, it was the perpetual beacon of hope for the renegade. Given the turmoil of our world today, we could probably use many such portals of clemency.
The cathedral combines late Gothic and Renaissance elements, and even though is predominant features belong to the classical features predominate.
The Columbus Mausoleum
In l546, Pope Paul III elevated it to the status of Catedral Metropolitana y Primada de las Indias (First Metropolitan Cathedral of the Indies), thereby according it an ecclesiastically superior rank over other churches in the New World, and transforming it into the hemisphere’s Christian heart. Its floor plan has, in addition to the main altar, fourteen chapels where urns containing the ashes of many renowned individuals are kept forever alive in the collective memory. Three doors lead into the interior: the north door faces Columbus Park; the one to the south faces Plazoleta de los Curas (Small Plaza of the Priests), also known as the Puerta del Perdón (Portal of Clemency). For many political dissidents, reaching the threshold of this portal meant being in a safe haven. Well before international
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The plateresque-style main door leads to an atrium that, in the 19th century, was converted into a market during the Haitian military occupation.
Christopher Columbus died in Valladolid on May 20, 1506. King Ferdinand ordered that an epitaph be placed over his grave with the inscription: “To Castilla and León, Colon gave a New World.” Columbus’ mortal remains were laid to rest in Seville until Doña María de Toledo brought them, together with those of her own husband, Don Diego Colón, to the place where they had asked to be buried. The mortal remains were buried in a crypt in the cathedral’s main altar. In 1586, England’s notorious pirate, Sir Francis Drake, plundered Santo Domingo. Given the record of havoc and destruction that had always been left in the wake of his