Today we visited the Monasterio Santa Catalina, a cloistered convent which is like a city inside the city. It consists of various buildings, courtyards and alleys and you can spend hours and hours walking around, contemplating the various murals and paintings or just sitting down and enjoying the silence in one of the renovated cells or little backyards. It was build only 40 years after the Spaniards arrived, in 1580 and was enlarged in the 17th century - now measuring over 20,000 square meters.
The founder of the monastery was a rich widow, Maria de Guzman. The tradition of the time indicated that the second son or daughter of a family would enter religious service, and the convent accepted only women from high-class Spanish families. Each nun at Santa Catalina had between one and four servants or slaves, and the nuns invited musicians to perform in the convent, gave parties and generally lived a lavish lifestyle. Each family paid a dowry at their daughter's entrance to the convent, and the dowry owed to gain the highest status, indicated by wearing a black veil, was 2,400 silver coins, equivalent to US$50,000 today. The nuns were also required to bring 25 listed items, including a statue, a painting, a lamp and clothes. The wealthiest nuns may have brought fine English china and silk curtains and rugs. Although it was possible for poorer nuns to enter the convent without paying a dowry, it can be seen from the cells that most of the nuns were very wealthy.
In 1871 Sister Josefa Cadena, a strict Dominican nun, was sent by Pope Pius IX to reform the monastery. She sent the rich dowries back to Europe, and freed all the servants and slaves, giving them the choice of remaining as nuns or leaving. In addition to the stories of outrageous wealth, there are tales of nuns becoming pregnant, and amazingly of the skeleton of a baby being discovered encased in a wall. This, in fact, did not happen in Santa Catalina, and there are rumours of the same story in the nearby Santa Rosa convent, as well.
The convent once housed approximately 450 people (about a third of them nuns and the rest servants) in a cloistered community. It was opened to the public in 1970, when the nuns opened their doors to tourism to pay for the installation of electricity and running water, as required by law. The restoration has been done very well - just enought to preserve the beauty of the place without being too touristy or "Disneylandish".
We were lucky as the sun was shining all the time and the convent became a "kingdom of light" as Alberto put it - perfect for taking pictures and enjoying the colours, paintings and shadows of the various alleys and courtyards. We also enjoyed a "real" espresso at the little cafe of the monastery - which has a great menu of cold and hot "sins" and "temptations" ;-)
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