San José of Nazca church, Jesuit church in El Ingenio District, Peru.
San José of Nazca church is an abandoned Jesuit church in the village of San Javier, El Ingenio District. It has a single longitudinal nave with a barrel-vaulted presbytery and high choir, all built of brick. The baroque facade features a round-arched doorway flanked by paired salomonic columns with acanthus leaves, and two square, two-story towers topped by cupolas with oval windows and lanterns.
Jesuit missionaries who had reached Peru in 1568 built the church on land donated by Francisco Cabezas, and it was inaugurated on 19 March 1744. The hacienda still marks its anniversary on that date. Earthquakes in 1756, 1786, 1942 and 1949 damaged it, and the 1942 tremor brought down part of the vault. In 2010 it was listed by the World Monuments Fund among monuments at risk.
The facade carries 25 mascarones, carved faces of African warriors, a motif linked to Jesuit missions in India and a sign of the ornament's syncretism. Local artisans left a marked imprint on the decoration, and the same hand may have designed the nearby church of San Javier de Nasca, four kilometres away.
The church stands in the village of San Javier, El Ingenio District, a few kilometres from the Nazca pampa; the site is abandoned and its structure severely damaged, with part of the vault collapsed after the 1942 earthquake. It is reached by road from Nazca, and the two Jesuit churches of San José and San Javier lie only four kilometres apart. Entry is not organised, so visits are limited to viewing the exterior.
The church is abandoned and severely damaged, not an active place of worship. Earthquakes in 1756, 1786, 1949 and 1942 struck it, and the 1942 quake collapsed part of the vault. In 2010 it was added to the World Monuments Fund's list of endangered monuments.
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