San Agustín cloister
The San Agustín Cloister is the oldest religious building
of Villa de Leyva. It was founded in 1590. Its construction started with the west wing
which was necessary to give a home to the monks in charge of evangelisation. The temple,
the lateral chapel and the sacristy followed later. Little by little the galleries and the
north wing were added and finally the east wing was built. By then, the building lots were
used as cultivating fields, vegetable gardens and areas for the rearing of animals which
were necessary to the subsistence of the augustinian community.In 1821, the minor convents were suppressed in Colombia with the law of Villa del Rosario of Cúcuta. Even so, the government allowed San Agustin to operate as monastery for some more years. However, towards 1837 the convent was abandoned for the first time until 1857 when the council donated it to the Dominican Province.
During 1861, president Tomás Cipriano de Mosquera decreed the extinction of all convents, monasteries and religious communities. However San Agustín, (then known as La Martinica Convent) was again the exception to the rule and carried on functioning underground until 1863 when it was abandoned once again.
From 1872 to 1876, during the civil war, the school Sagrado Corazón de Jesús functioned at the ruins of the San Agustin Cloister. Then in 1877, a group of women rented the building and founded the School of Nuestra Señora de Lourdes. In 1880 the same founders became nuns and constituted the first female community of Dominicas in Colombia, the order of Santa Catalina de Siena. At this time, the cloister carried on functioning as a primary and secondary school until 1884 when a revolutionary group took over the place and expelled nuns and students. Two years later the Dominicas returned with the mission of restoring the cloister, and remained there until 1944 when they retired subject to a government administration order. The Escuela Femenina Antonio Nariño was then established, and functioned at the cloister until 1976. From this date, the cloister was abandoned.
The process of restoration was initiated In 1992 with the contribution of the National Fund for Real Estate, now replaced by the Road Institute, and the permanent collaboration of the municipality. The objective was to rescue a building practically in ruins and adapt it to a specific use.
The restoration process permitted the recuperation of the façade and the original structure, the restitution of the original floor levels, rescued the ruins of the antique irrigation ditch, the sidewalks and galleries, and revived the original colors of the baseboard, doors and beams. The main relicts of the mural paintings were found at the church and it is estimated they were made during the XVIII century.
In 1996 the municipality of Villa de Leyva approved the occupation of the cloister by the Institute for Research on Biological Resources "Alexander von Humboldt" as its main office. Because of it, it was possible to include some modification to the initial project of restoration, such as intelligent communication systems, nets and infrastructure apt to make it in to an appropriate space for scientific research.
Website designed by Tradelink