The Plaza Mayor with 140 square meters that were and remain the heart of Lima, the precise place on which our citizenship was founded. Designed by Francisco Pizarro himself after the founding of the city, it contains what historian Raúl Porras Barrenechea described as the three protagonists of the Spanish drama of the Conquest: the government palace, the municipality and the cathedral. The sword, the city and the cross.
Due to the strong earthquakes suffered throughout its tumultuous history, the Plaza Mayor of Lima almost has no original building. The imposing bronze fountain built in 1650 is the oldest construction of Hispanic origin that remains. Built by Viceroy Garcia Sarmiento de Sotomayor, Count of Salvatierra, who replaced the first one built by the viceroy Francisco de Toledo in 1578.
During the Colony, the Plaza Mayor of Lima served as market, bullring and as site of execution of the Holy Office. In 1821, General Jose de San Martín proclaimed the independence of Peru there. Of it writes the croniclerCobo: "... which is the most capable and well formed that I have seen, nor in Spain. It occupies all the place of a block, with the width of the four streets that by all the four sides it surrounds, and thus it has to see because on the four sides it measures more than two thousand feet ... ".
Nowadays, in addition to the cathedral, the government palace and the municipal palace, the Plaza Mayor houses the Archbishop's Palace - one side of the cathedral -, the club of La Union and the House of the Oidor, which housed Emissary of the Spanish crown who advised the viceroy on duty. This house has beautiful lattice balconies from which ladies from Lima could observe the traffic of the square without being observed.
Today, the Plaza Mayor of Lima is a safe place for walking and the starting point for all Lima Historic Center walks.
