The Basilica and Convent of Santo Domingo, a couple of blocks west of the Plaza Mayor, was the first Dominican house in the New World. Founded in 1535, it became the centre of a remarkable concentration of holiness: three Peruvian saints — Rosa of Lima (the first saint of the Americas), Martín de Porres, and Juan Macías — are buried under the basilica, and the convent has been a place of pilgrimage since the 17th century.
The pink-coloured exterior, with its tall belfry, hides a vast and tranquil cloister with mudejar wooden ceilings, a library of 25,000 colonial volumes, and a chapter house with painted scenes from the life of Saint Dominic. The University of San Marcos, the oldest in the Americas, was founded in the cloister in 1551.