This imposing complex stands out, first of all, for its enormous dimensions.
Begun at the end of the 16th century, it preserves the character of a military fortification typical of the religious architecture of that century; The last Spanish bishop of Oaxaca, Antonio Bergosa, was aware of this when he quartered there to resist the advance of José María Morelos's troops during the War of Independence. The English religious Thomas Gage, one of the most valuable chroniclers of the colonial period, was able to see the completion of the work in the 1620s, noting that the thickness of its walls allowed a cart drawn by oxen to circulate through them, and highlighted the enormous economic power of the Dominicans of Oaxaca. Already in our days, an acute observer, the Anglo-American author Oliver Sacks, when collecting in a recently published newspaper his impressions of his trip to Oaxaca in 2000, mentions something similar: “It is a huge, dazzling temple… without an inch that is not golden. This church produces a certain sense of power and wealth, those of the occupant ”. He then asks himself, as a modern man, on the other side of the coin: "I wonder how much of all that gold was obtained in the mines by slaves." Finally, Sacks stops at what is perhaps the most peculiar colonial work of art in all of Oaxaca: the famous polychrome family tree, sculpted in stucco in the lower part of the vault that supports the choir of this church. Sacks says: "On the ceiling is painted a gigantic golden tree, from whose branches hang nobles both of the court and ecclesiastical: the Church and the State mixed, as a single power."
The interior of the temple has a single nave, almost seventy meters long, with side chapels on both sides, and there is an attached chapel, that of the Rosary. The golden altarpiece of the latter and that of the main nave are colonial in appearance, but were executed in the middle of the 20th century following the restoration ideas proposed by the French Viollet-le-Duc in the 19th century. As for the former convent, the most outstanding thing is the museum housed there, which treasures the great works of the Zapotec and Mixtec cultures of Oaxaca. Mainly surprising is the valuable find made by Alfonso Caso in 1932 in Tomb 7 of the archaeological city known today as Monte Albán (formerly Teutlitepec), which consists of an imposing set of exquisitely worked gold pieces, as well as rock crystal ornaments and finely carved alabaster and delicate carved bone reliefs, plus jade and turquoise beads. Remarkable is the museum's collection of clay sculptures, such as that of the Escrib de Cuilapan, of a naturalistic nature, and in a very special way the anthropomorphic urns and braziers (sometimes profusely ornamented), all without forgetting the polychrome ceramics.
The former convent, although dating from the seventeenth century, seems to be from an earlier time due to its archaic solutions, as can be seen in the corridors of the courtyard, with medieval reminiscences, which are perhaps the most imposing of the former residence of the friars. that they retain almost their original appearance. Notable is also the staircase that connects the two levels of the cloister.
The rest of the building was intervened in the nineties following the ideas of the aforementioned architect Leduc, within what was thought to be the most suitable colonial style to replace the missing parts of the building. To conclude, we cannot fail to mention the great open space that precedes the complex –convent and temple– of Santo Domingo, and which today remains practically empty.
