Maps and battlefields

Piribebuy

The martyr capital of 1869.

Piribebuy
The church of Piribebuy, facing the square where the fighting took place in 1869.
Capital
From 8 December 1868 to 12 August 1869
Church
Santuario Dulce Nombre de Jesús, “Ñandejára Guasu”
Battle
12 August 1869
Museum
Museo Histórico Comandante Pedro Pablo Caballero

By López’s decree, Piribebuy was the third capital of the war, after Asunción and Luque. On 12 August 1869 its defenders fought in the trench and in the church square, in what is considered the only urban battle of the war. The church, of Franciscan origin, still bears the mark of a cannonball on one of its wooden pillars; its present façade, with tower and clock, dates from 1948. In August 2025 a restoration funded by Itaipú was launched.

‡ Disputed.Date of the church: chapel from 1640 to 1650, parish from 1740 and building from 1744 or 1753, depending on the source. The town is known as the “Heroic City” (“Ciudad Heroica”), but the official act granting that title was not found.

Sources: La Nación (Paraguay), plan to restore the Ñandejára Guasu (2024); ABC Color, restoration of the Santuario Nacional Dulce Nombre de Jesús (August 2025); Última Hora, Itaipú and the sanctuary (2025); Mário Maestri, Estudos Ibero-Americanos (2013).

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