Designed by the Flemish Padre Philippe Lemaire, this church dates from 1645 but was not completed until 1671, with the successful execution of Lemaire’s plan for a cedar roof in the form of an inverted ship’s hull. (Lemaire, unsurprisingly, was once a boatbuilder.) Inside, the church’s baroque altarpiece is made from carved Paraguayan cedar from Misiones province.
The Capilla Doméstica, completed in 1644, sits on Caseros, directly behind the church. Its ornate ceiling was made with cowhide stretched over a skeleton of thick taguaro cane and painted with pigments composed partially of boiled bones.
