The first complete, reliable map of Lima was published in 1688 by Verdussen in Antwerp in a volume entitled “La estrella de Lima convertida en sol” [The star of Lima converted into a sun] by Francisco de Echave y Assu. This work was indebted to a lesser known map of the city created shortly before by Pedro Nolasco Meré, a French Mercedarian who used Juan Ramón Koninick’s 1685 drafts for a set of fortifications around the city as the basis for his map. Interestingly enough, the sophisticated map published by Echave y Assu is presented in a volume that boasts the status of the city of Lima and its ambitions as a religious and political center in the Catholic world (“Descripción sacro-política de la grandeza de la ciudad de Lima”). It is not by chance, in fact, that the book’s very title promises to discuss the celebrations in honor of Toribio de Mogrovejo, second Archbishop of Lima, who was beatified in 1679. Blessed Toribio is represented in a specially framed oculus in the top center of the map, accompanied, in the corners, by local outstanding figures Rose of Lima (canonized in 1671) and Francisco Solano (beatified in 1675), together with Saint John the Evangelist, the first patron saint of the city. Mogrovejo is given this central position in the newly designed map, as he was the highest-ranking member of the local church and therefore perfectly embodied the status of Lima as the holiest city of the Americas. This paper explores the success of the church of Lima and the canonizations and beatifications of local Limeña/os that took place in the 1670s as a crucial engine for the production of the first published map of the city. Mapping a city on the verge of becoming a center for regional, possibly continental, pilgrimage emerges as a new necessity for the local church and authorities. The labels record the most relevant religious buildings in Lima, including the places that pilgrims were supposed to visit, such as the “beatorio de Santa Rosa.” Thus, this map of Lima conveys the pride and the ambitions of an urban center that strongly believes itself to be the first holy city of the New World. This paper is the result of research conducted for the Max-Planck Partner Group 2022–2027 “Empires, Environments, Objects” in collaboration with the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz and the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, Lima.