The Church of San Blas and Its Pulpit

Beneath the pulpit’s round bowl are carved people whom Catholic patrons regarded as enemies of their faith. Among them are the German monk Martin Luther and the Geneva preacher Jean Calvin, who sought to reform Western Christianity without submitting to the pope, as well as the English king Henry VIII, who separated the church of his kingdom from Rome. Their figures stand below and support the platform for the priest.

It was from here that Catholic teaching was explained to parishioners. The priest climbed a hidden staircase, stood behind the railing, and the carved canopy directed his voice into the church’s single nave. During every sermon, the same scene unfolded: the preacher spoke above those whom his church had declared heretics.

This scene was conceived at the end of the seventeenth century. After the earthquake of sixteen fifty, residents rebuilt the damaged church, and the bishop of Cusco, Manuel de Mollinedo y Angulo, took charge of its decoration. He wanted the images to help priests teach parishioners the faith. On June eighth, sixteen ninety-six, Mollinedo told King Charles II that he had commissioned a cedar pulpit for San Blas, with many sculptures. Above the relief of Saint Blaise, the carver placed the bishop’s coat of arms.

San Blas is the Spanish form of the name Blaise, bishop of the city of Sebaste and an early Christian martyr. The parish was dedicated to him, which is why he is depicted on the pulpit in episcopal vestments, and his name passed from the church to the square and the whole district.

The carver’s name is absent from Mollinedo’s letter. Today, the pulpit is often attributed to Juan Tomás Tuyru Túpac, a Cusco master of Indigenous descent who earned his living by carving, assembling, and gilding church altarpieces. He carried out other commissions for the bishop, and his documented pulpit in the Church of San Pedro is arranged in a similar way. That is enough for a serious attribution, but not enough for an indisputable signature: municipal researchers still call the author of the San Blas pulpit anonymous.

Oral tradition filled the gap. It tells of a carver from Huamanga who was ill with leprosy. After a miraculous healing before an image of Our Lady of the Good Event, he supposedly vowed to make the pulpit for free. For four years, the master carved cedar, but in the end he asked the priest for seventy pesos for refreshments. While fastening the upper figure, he fell, died from the fall, and his skull was later placed atop the pulpit. This is a tradition, not an established biography of the master. There really is a skull on the pulpit, but there is no evidence that it belonged to the carver.

The document preserved Mollinedo’s commission, and the carving preserved his design: the opponents of the Catholic Church still support the preacher’s platform. The patron’s coat of arms remains on the back of the pulpit; there is no signature from the master on the pulpit.