Church of La Veracruz

In front of you is one of Bogotá's oldest churches and perhaps the one most bound up with death. Not because of ghost stories, but because of a very real task: walking condemned prisoners to the scaffold and burying them.

1The brotherhood of the executed

The first chapel went up in the 16th century, shortly after the city was founded. A plaque on the north front gives the year 1546, although other sources say 1575. Between 1631 and 1664 the Brotherhood of the Holy Cross enlarged it. That confraternity had a grim mission: to comfort the condemned in their final hours and bury them in the church's pit.

2The year of terror

In 1816, Pablo Morillo's army reconquered New Granada for Ferdinand VII. Courts martial, confiscations and the executions of the leaders of the first republic followed, among them Camilo Torres and the naturalist Francisco José de Caldas. Between June and November of that year, some 80 executed patriots were buried here.

In November 1817, the body of Policarpa Salavarrieta also ended up in the common grave of La Veracruz, before her brothers moved it to San Agustín.

Because of that memory, the church was declared a national pantheon in the early 20th century. The remains of the founder, Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada, also passed through here temporarily in 1597, on their way to the cathedral. You will meet him again later on this route.

The earthquake of 1827 badly damaged the building. The 1910 works, designed by Julián Lombana, gave it much of its present appearance.

3What to look for

• The niche with Saint Helena, credited by Christian tradition with finding the True Cross.
• The plaque on the north front, with the date 1546.
• The Franciscan ensemble: San Francisco on one side and the church of La Tercera on the other.