The altar
at the head of the nave is beautifully inlaid with wrought silver and
is surmounted by the coat of arms of Spain placed there by order of
Charles V, a relic of Spanish days which was hidden away while the
Haitians were in possession of the city. On the altar platform a
marble slab indicates the place where the bones of Columbus were found
in 1877, another slab the former location of the remains taken to Cuba
in 1795 as the remains of Columbus, and still another the resting
place of Louis Columbus, the grandson of the Discoverer. At the end of
the nave, near the entrance door, is the airy marble monument beneath
which is guarded the casket that contains the remains of the
Discoverer of America.
The cathedral like the other churches is made more interesting by the
ancient epitaphs on slabs in the pavement and walls, marking the
burial places of persons famous in the history of the island. In one
of the lateral chapels, which belonged to the Bastidas family, the
resting place of Bishop Bastidas, who in the early days was bishop in
Venezuela, Porto Rico and Santo Domingo, is marked by a large marble
recumbant figure of a bishop and the chapel is therefore known as "the
chapel of the stone bishop.
Pages:
376
377
378
379
380
381
382
383
384
385
386
387
388
389
390
391
392
393
394
395
396
397
398
399
400