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Santo Domingo Church and Museum

Going north from the Zocalo is the Andado Turistico - the touristic boulevard - where most of the fancy stores and handicraft shops are located. The boulevard ends up in the colorful plaza of the Santo Domingo Church, famous for its distinctive maguey, or agave, garden and pedestrian squares.

Santo Domingo Church

Erected by Dominican friars in the sixteenth century, the Santo Domingo Church sports a baroque green façade, similar to the cathedral's.

Upon entering the temple, one is struck by the lavishness of its interior. This church is actually widely regarded as the greatest example of indigenous architectural excesses characteristic of Oaxaca. It was dedicated to the patron founder of the Order most distinguished for his evangelical works in these lands.

The visitor first enters the antechamber, which displays on its ceiling the full genealogical tree of the Dominican order, from Mother Mary downward to Saint Dominic himself (pictured above, left side). On the other side of the church stands the monumental altarpiece. A gem among colonial gems, it is made of pure gold (pictured above, right side).

The elaborate chapel of St Rosario sports countless ornements (enlarge)

Chapel San Rosario

The Chapel of the Virgin Saint Rosario is the most striking example of baroque exuberance, with its walls and ceiling covered in countless ornaments of gold pleasantly illuminated by small windows, a riot of gold leaves and Biblestory paintings surrounding the virgin.

Santo Domingo Museum

Right next door to the temple is the Santo Domingo Art Museum. The museum is actually housed in the former convent of the church, which explains the austerity of the place, contrasting sharply with the lavishness of the church nearby. A vast and sprawling complex, the ex-convent constantly surprises the visitor, with hallways inside of hallways, some stark and shiny with centuries of thick white paint, others decorated by frescos and other ornamentation.

From a number of vantage points along the hallways one can look out to the stone and column-lined courtyards of the Convent, across to the domes and steeples of the Church or down onto the extensive botanical gardens replete with cacti and desert succulents, and best viewed from the top floor of the convent.

The museum is divided into a dozen rooms, each dedicated to a certain aspect of the life and culture of indigenous tribes in Mesoamerica, both before and after the arrival of the Spaniards and of the Catholic religion on the continent.

Many statutes of indigenous gods were found around Oaxaca.

Many rare artifacts are on display, like the desk and chair upon which Benito Juarez edited the proposed Constitution for a new democratic Mexico, and the artifacts taken from tomb seven at Monte Albán, which includes a hoard of beautifully-worked collection of jewellry, crystal, bone and clay artifacts, that the Mixtecs buried in the 14th century with one of their King. This large treasure trove was discovered in 1932.