Basilica de la Merced

This guide to Basílica de la Merced in Santiago opens in 1218 Barcelona, where merchant Pedro Nolasco founded a Catholic order sworn to ransom captives, trading a friar's own freedom for a stranger's if the money ran out. It follows that order to Chile with conquistador Pedro de Valdivia, the first Marian image they carried, and the church's third rebuild after earthquakes destroyed it twice, in 1647 and 1730. Inside lie Inés de Suárez, the only woman on Valdivia's expedition, and governor Rodrigo de Quiroga. Listen for the twin brick towers, added decades apart in the nineteenth century.