A Portuguese architect, cosmographer and engineer who worked in the Viceroyalty of Peru, Vasconcelos is remembered for one commission above all. After the earthquake of 4 February 1655 brought down the Franciscan convent of Lima, the order's general commissary Francisco de Borja hired him to draw the plans for its replacement; the limeño master builder Manuel de Escobar ran the site. The first stone was laid on 8 May 1657 and the new church was inaugurated on 3 October 1672, four years after Vasconcelos died. His answer to Lima's seismicity was to keep masonry low and roof the church in bóvedas de quincha — light vaults of cane and plaster carried on a timber armature — a technique that let the building ride out the earthquakes of 1687 and 1746 which flattened stone vaults elsewhere in the city. Wikidata records his death in 1668; some Peruvian sources give 1680.
