The Basilica and Priory of Nuestra Señora de la Merced is a Roman Catholic church located in Lima, Peru.

According to historic documents, the lands where the convent and the church were built belonged to the Order of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mercy.

In 1589, three years after an earthquake struck the growing city, Alonso de Morales added a square tower to the church, considered to have been the first high-rise structure in colonial Lima.

Three years later, the architect Cristóbal Gómez rebuilt the primitive cloister of the convent of Santo Domingo as a model.

The process involved replacing chapel walls with half domes and summit lanterns, thus creating arches.

The most important reconstruction work visible today are the following: In 1757, the founder Francisco de León carried the inscription "Be blessed and praised the Sacred Heart of Jesus".

Before the proclamation of Independence of Peru, Matías Maestro (who introduced neoclassicism in Lima), rebuilt the altarpiece that was gilded in 1810 by Felix Batlle.

In the early-20th century the façade of the basilica of La Merwced, including the entrance, was covered with a thick layer of plaster resembling a French architectural style.

On September 24, 1921, President Augusto Leguía, together with the Duchess of Goyeneche, bestowed upon her the honorable title of Gran Mariscala (Great Marshal Woman).

The Cloister of the Doctors is named for a series of reliefs that depict Mercedarians, who were professors of the University of San Marcos.

The library contains colonial religious books and the chair where the Friar Pedro Urraca sat, now considered a relic.

Legends report that the ship he traveled on to Peru was nearly shipwrecked because of a great storm that endangered the lives of the crew.

His remains are located in the floor of the church, in the nave of the epistle, where an inscription reads: "In this place and under the earth rests the body of the Servant of God Friar Pedro Urraca de the Holy Trinity".