Venezuela through the lens of Gasparini

Graziano Gasparini is a Venezuela architect and architectural historian who has dedicated most of his life to studying and surveying the built environment. His first monograph Templos coloniales de Venezuela, published in 1959, was the first comprehensive study about the colonial religious architecture of Venezuela.[1] Gasparini surveyed around one hundred and fifty temples and settlements across the country using documentary information and architectural analysis from his visits to the sites. Gasparini used, for example, the visits from Mariano Martí, who was the Bishop of Venezuela between the years 1771 and 1784.[2] reconstructing Martí impressions from his own visits to the locations documented in his account.

Cover of Templos coloniales de Venezuela by Graziano Gasparini

This book was crucial in the development of our visual project, since it covers approximately two hundred places across the region established during the colonial period, starting with the island of Cubagua, where the city of Nueva Cádiz was founded circa 1500, when Spanish officers and settlers came from the Island of Santo Domingo. Gasparini also reconstructs the European conquest and expansion into the mainland from three major centers Cumaná in the north-east, Coro in the north-west, and Caracas in the north-central region.

[Map centers of European expansion]

Gasparini divides the book into three sections: Central, Western, and Eastern to document the different methods of expansion (e.g. encomiendas, missions, cities, towns). This format, rather than following a chronological approach, helps the reader to learn about representative architectural and aesthetic styles produced in said area.[3] Each region begins with an assessment of the first temple built and the earliest settlement to give the reader a sense of how the European expansion unfolded. Gasparini documents, for example, the frequency of missionary towns founded from Cumaná to southern areas by Franciscans order since the later sixteenth century. Likewise, the Western region begins with a thorough description of the Cathedral Santa Ana de Coro, the first Spanish settlement created in the north-west and he first Bishopric of Venezuela, ordered by Royal Decree in the year1531.

Expanding upon Gasparini’s Work

The dataset for this project maintained Gasparini’s regional approach while also adding further information that would complete the data. Even though Gasparini list is very comprehensive, is also missing several places and information that needed cross-referencing with other sources.

Among the limitations of using Templos coloniales was that Gasparini did not cover all the temples or settlements created during the early-modern period, only those he deemed as the most significant to exemplify regional trends. This required cross-referencing the information from the book with other sources, and adding new entries. This is a still a work in process as there are many places to register into the database.

Another challenge was finding the names of the temples since Gasparini usually records the name of the location. While the toponymic of the place sometimes coincided with the name of the church, other temples were dedicated to a Catholic advocation. It was important to provide this data since it can be useful for further analysis about the devotees and their religious affiliations. Again, cross-referencing the information with other sources was key.

While I was unable to visit archives and libraries in Venezuela, online sources proved very useful, especially the Institutional Assets and Monuments of Venezuela. IAM is an organization that works in the documentation, assessment and protection of Venezuela’s cultural heritage. IAM has created a database of tangible assets that include most of the churches listed by Gasparini and additional locations I have been incorporating into my interactive map. The IAM database includes descriptive information about the current state of the place, historical backgrounds that spans to the colonial period, and location of the site.

Using these and other resources, my own dataset records a total of one hundred and sixteen entries, which included chapels, parish churches, cathedrals, convents, and hospitals. The list is still growing and I hope to expand across other regions, e.g. the Provinces of Maracaibo and Merida. I also hope to expand this entries to incorporate associated regions, like the Dioceses of Santa Fe and Santo Domingo. With this, I strive for this project to reflect the networks that connected colonial Venezuela with the Caribbean and the rest of northern-South America.

[1] J.A. de Armas Chitty, “dos letras para el libro de graziano,” in Graziano Gasparini, Templos coloniales de Venezuela (Caracas: Ediciones “A,” 1959), ix.

[2] Mariano Martí; Lino Gómez Canedo, and Juan Joseph Guzmán, Obispo Mariano Martí: documentos relativos a su visita pastoral de la Diócesis de Caracas, 1771-1784. (Caracas: Academia Nacional de la Historia.1969)

[3] Graziano Gasparini, Templos coloniales de Venezuela (Caracas: Ediciones “A,” 1959), xviii.