Famous Landmarks in Santo Domingo
Coral-limestone Gothic churches and Spanish fort walls raised here from 1502 onward.
Every landmark here stands inside the same walled quarter above the river mouth that Spanish colonists fortified from 1502, within a few streets of each other. The fortress came first, guarding the harbour entrance; a palace for the family of the colony's administrators followed within a decade; the cathedral, begun in the same years, took until mid-century to finish. All three are built of stone rather than the timber of later colonial towns, faced in places with a golden-tinted coral limestone, and mix Gothic forms with the Renaissance detailing then current in Spain. That combination of a fortress, a residence and a cathedral built almost simultaneously reflects a settlement establishing military, civil and religious authority at once, as the first permanent seat of Spanish rule in the New World.
Cathedral of Santo Domingo
1504–1550
Its façade is cut from golden-tinted coral limestone, and pointed Gothic arches with ribbed vaulting run through the interior, one of the few authentic examples of that style built outside Europe.
Begun in 1504 and completed in 1550, this is the oldest cathedral still standing in the Americas, the second built anywhere in the New World after Greenland's Garðar Cathedral. It serves as the seat of the Archbishop of Santo Domingo, who holds the honorary title Primate of the Indies. Built in a genuine Gothic style unusual outside Europe, it holds a treasury of woodcarvings, funerary monuments, silver and jewellery gathered over the centuries. It stands between Calle Arzobispo Merino and Isabel la Católica, beside Columbus Park, dedicated to St Mary of the Incarnation.
- It ranks as the second cathedral built anywhere in the New World, after Greenland's Garðar Cathedral.
Photo: Georg Karl Ell (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Alcázar de Colón
1511–1514
A stone palace whose Gothic structure carries Renaissance detailing, restored after two centuries of ruin and now hung inside with a rare collection of Flemish tapestries.
Built between 1511 and 1514, this stone palace mixing Gothic structure with Renaissance detailing was the first fortified European residence raised in the Americas. It was the home of Diego Columbus, son of Christopher Columbus, whose children were born within its walls; his widow, María Álvarez de Toledo, remained there until her death in 1549. Left empty after the family's three generations there, the palace fell into ruin by the mid-eighteenth century and stood abandoned until a 1957 restoration turned it into a museum, now the city's most visited, holding tapestries woven by the Flemish Van Den Hecke family.
- It is the only known residence of a member of Christopher Columbus's family anywhere in the New World.
- It stood abandoned for roughly two centuries before its 1957 restoration.
Photo: Martin Falbisoner (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Fortaleza Ozama
1502–1508
An 18-metre stone tower rising from thick fortress walls above the riverbank, its interior riddled with tunnels and dungeon cells cut into the stone.
Constructed between 1502 and 1508 under governor Nicolás Ovando, this stone fortress guards the entrance to the colonial quarter above the Ozama River, for which it is named. UNESCO recognises it as the oldest surviving military construction of European origin in the Americas. Its 18-metre tower was, in the sixteenth century, the tallest structure the Spanish had built anywhere in the New World. Tunnels and dungeons survive beneath it, among them a cell where Christopher Columbus himself was once held prisoner. A concrete addition was made along the riverside in 1938.
- Christopher Columbus was once imprisoned within its walls.
- For much of the sixteenth century, its tower was the tallest structure built by Europeans anywhere in the Americas.
Photo: Mariordo (Mario Roberto Durán Ortiz) (CC BY-SA 4.0)
History
Spanish colonists founded the settlement in 1496 and began building in stone within a few years, well ahead of most other European footholds in the Americas. A fortress at the harbour mouth went up between 1502 and 1508 under governor Nicolás Ovando, guarding the young town from the water. A stone palace followed between 1511 and 1514 as a residence for the family running the colony's affairs, while a cathedral begun in 1504 took until 1550 to complete. Construction slowed after this first burst, and later centuries saw decline rather than rebuilding: the palace stood in ruins by the mid-eighteenth century and was not restored until 1957. Because so little was rebuilt over the walled quarter, its early sixteenth-century stone core survives largely intact and is now protected as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.