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WORLD HERITAGE SITES - Alcobaça Monastery
THE MOSTEIRO DE SANTA MARIA DE ALCOBAÇA (sounds like: Alcobahssah)
This imposing monument dominates Alcobaça, a small town situated roughly 100 km to the North of Lisbon in a fertile agricultural region dotted here and there with gentle hills. Two rivers, the Alcoa and the Baça, (a tributary of the Alcoa runs through the monastery's kitchen) gave the town its name of Alcobaça.
This imposing monument dominates Alcobaça, a small town situated roughly 100 km to the North of Lisbon in a fertile agricultural region dotted here and there with gentle hills. Two rivers, the Alcoa and the Baça, (a tributary of the Alcoa runs through the monastery's kitchen) gave the town its name of Alcobaça.
Is one of the few European monuments that has managed to preserve
intact an entire group of mediaeval buildings and its church is the
largest early Gothic construction in Portugal. The history of its
foundation in 1153 recounted in the eighteenth century azulejo panels
that line the walls of the Sala dos Reis (Kings' Hall). As we ''read''
the story of these panels, we learn that D. Afonso Henriques, the first
king of Portugal, promised St. Bernard his lands in Alcobaca if he
managed to capture Santarem from the Moors, which did in fact happen in
1147. The statues of the Kings of Portugal - from D. Afonso Henriques to
D. Jose I (in the eighteenth century) - stand on baroque consoles
around the walls of the room. In the centre is a cauldron that is said,
according to legend, to have been taken from the Castilians at the
Battle of Aljubarrota.
The building of the monastery began in
1178, as did the building of the abbey of Clairvaux, the headquarters of
the Cistercian Order in France. Alcobaca is thus connected to the great
civilising project that the white- habited monks began there: the
public school, which was begun in 1269, and the use of the land for
farming purposes, providing a genuine agricultural training ground, the
fruits of which are still visible today.
The monastery's sturdy looking facade is an eighteenth century reconstruction in the Baroque style. All that remains from the original Gothic front is the main doorway. Above this is a narrow Renaissance balcony added in the sixteenth century, which supports the statues of the four cardinal virtues - Fortitude, Justice, Prudence and Temperance.
On each side of the doorway are two statues, one of St. Benedict and the other of St. Bernard, standing on consoles and covered with profusely carved canopies. These lend a certain lightness to the building, contrasting with the heaviness of the baroque decoration of the facade and bell towers. The feeling that the visitor gains from looking at the monastery's exterior is one of an imposing grandeur that has been gradually added on by time and other ideals and contradicts the profound simplicity that marked the rules of the Cistercian Order.
This is quite different from the emotions that you will feel on entering the church. Here, the huge space, devoid of any ornamentation, will envelop you in a feeling of spirituality. Notice how the columns and pilasters have been cut away at a certain height, a feature which is typical of Cistercian churches, allowing the three choirs - the monks, the sick and the lay brethren - to occupy the nave more comfortably. In the spacious north transept is the extremely beautiful and profusely carved tomb of Ines de Castro, on which lies the reclining figure of the dead Queen.
This is matched in the south transept by the tomb of her beloved, D. Pedro I. The rose at the head of the tomb tells the story of the love that this king bore for Ines de Castro, a young and beautiful lady-in-waiting to his wife. D. Pedro and D. Ines had several children and these represented a threat to the independence of the Portuguese crown, since the only son of Pedro and Constanza, who was the legitimate heir to the throne, was of frail health. D. Pedro's king and father, Afonso IV, therefore ordered Ines to be killed and his son would later wreak the cruelest of vengeance upon her murderers.
To the right of the tomb is a chapel-altar which houses a beautiful terra-cotta tableau, made in the seventeenth century by the monks of Alcobaca and depicting the death of St. Bernard. On the opposite side is the royal pantheon, built in the eighteenth century and housing the tombs of a number of queens and princes from the first dynasty.
The chancel is surrounded by an elegant ambulatory with nine chapels. The tenth of these is now the entrance to the sacristy, which is reached through a beautiful door framed with Manueline-Renaissance motifs carved into the stone and attributed to the sculptor Joao de Castilho. Rebuilt after the 1755 earthquake, the sacristy ends in an octagonal chapel-reliquary, containing numerous relics from the baroque period in Alcobaca.
Returning to the nave, there is a door on the left, which the monks used to enter the cloister that is named D. Dinis. The beautiful garden of the cloister is surrounded by four galleries supported by Romanesque-Gothic arches surmounted by tracery circles, each one with a different pattern. The second storey was built in the reign of D. Manuel I in the sixteenth century.
The first gallery in the Cloister of D. Dinis contains the door to the Chapter House. After this comes the parlour, one of the few rooms in the monastery where the monks could talk, which led to the large medieval dormitory and the cells of the Abbot and Prior. The next room, also known as the Monk's Room, was used in the last few centuries as the monastic storeroom and wine cellar. This space provided access to the huge eighteenth century kitchen, into which the river had been diverted.
Returning once more to the cloister, you will find the Renaissance Lavabo that served the spacious Refectory, itself a magnificent example of architectural planning, whose most distinctive feature is the staircase leading to the pulpit.
From the square in front of the monastery, off which lead three staircases decorated with original baroque pinnacles, there is a view of the old castle, that vigilant and watchful sentry that stood guard over the immense estates of the monastery of Alcobaca.
Text provided by the Portuguese Tourist Office
http://www.manorhouses.com/unesco/whalco.html
The monastery's sturdy looking facade is an eighteenth century reconstruction in the Baroque style. All that remains from the original Gothic front is the main doorway. Above this is a narrow Renaissance balcony added in the sixteenth century, which supports the statues of the four cardinal virtues - Fortitude, Justice, Prudence and Temperance.
On each side of the doorway are two statues, one of St. Benedict and the other of St. Bernard, standing on consoles and covered with profusely carved canopies. These lend a certain lightness to the building, contrasting with the heaviness of the baroque decoration of the facade and bell towers. The feeling that the visitor gains from looking at the monastery's exterior is one of an imposing grandeur that has been gradually added on by time and other ideals and contradicts the profound simplicity that marked the rules of the Cistercian Order.
This is quite different from the emotions that you will feel on entering the church. Here, the huge space, devoid of any ornamentation, will envelop you in a feeling of spirituality. Notice how the columns and pilasters have been cut away at a certain height, a feature which is typical of Cistercian churches, allowing the three choirs - the monks, the sick and the lay brethren - to occupy the nave more comfortably. In the spacious north transept is the extremely beautiful and profusely carved tomb of Ines de Castro, on which lies the reclining figure of the dead Queen.
This is matched in the south transept by the tomb of her beloved, D. Pedro I. The rose at the head of the tomb tells the story of the love that this king bore for Ines de Castro, a young and beautiful lady-in-waiting to his wife. D. Pedro and D. Ines had several children and these represented a threat to the independence of the Portuguese crown, since the only son of Pedro and Constanza, who was the legitimate heir to the throne, was of frail health. D. Pedro's king and father, Afonso IV, therefore ordered Ines to be killed and his son would later wreak the cruelest of vengeance upon her murderers.
To the right of the tomb is a chapel-altar which houses a beautiful terra-cotta tableau, made in the seventeenth century by the monks of Alcobaca and depicting the death of St. Bernard. On the opposite side is the royal pantheon, built in the eighteenth century and housing the tombs of a number of queens and princes from the first dynasty.
The chancel is surrounded by an elegant ambulatory with nine chapels. The tenth of these is now the entrance to the sacristy, which is reached through a beautiful door framed with Manueline-Renaissance motifs carved into the stone and attributed to the sculptor Joao de Castilho. Rebuilt after the 1755 earthquake, the sacristy ends in an octagonal chapel-reliquary, containing numerous relics from the baroque period in Alcobaca.
Returning to the nave, there is a door on the left, which the monks used to enter the cloister that is named D. Dinis. The beautiful garden of the cloister is surrounded by four galleries supported by Romanesque-Gothic arches surmounted by tracery circles, each one with a different pattern. The second storey was built in the reign of D. Manuel I in the sixteenth century.
The first gallery in the Cloister of D. Dinis contains the door to the Chapter House. After this comes the parlour, one of the few rooms in the monastery where the monks could talk, which led to the large medieval dormitory and the cells of the Abbot and Prior. The next room, also known as the Monk's Room, was used in the last few centuries as the monastic storeroom and wine cellar. This space provided access to the huge eighteenth century kitchen, into which the river had been diverted.
Returning once more to the cloister, you will find the Renaissance Lavabo that served the spacious Refectory, itself a magnificent example of architectural planning, whose most distinctive feature is the staircase leading to the pulpit.
From the square in front of the monastery, off which lead three staircases decorated with original baroque pinnacles, there is a view of the old castle, that vigilant and watchful sentry that stood guard over the immense estates of the monastery of Alcobaca.
Text provided by the Portuguese Tourist Office
http://www.manorhouses.com/unesco/whalco.html
Portuguese Monuments - Palmela Castle
Today we bring you a video made a year ago about the Palmela Castle a nice place to visit if you have the chance!
Enjoy the tour!
Portuguese Monuments\Curiosities - The Church of Santa Clara
Not all in Portugal is fun and games... we
have bad things too, like any other country, sometimes even worse... and
others things that have no explanation at all... but that will be a
issue for a special post in a future time. A few weeks ago the world as
completely in shock with the "work of art" that the 80-year old Cecilia
Giménez made on her local church... she tried to "recovered" a painting
of Jesus Christ dating from the nineteenth century, the famous "Ecce
Homo" in what was considered the "worst
restoration of sacred art of all time." Destroying, who knows for ever, a
special piece of art! Today was surprising to see that Cecilia is not
alone in her restoration saga, and maybe call her "thing" the worse
restoration can be some what subjective... in the Portuguese newspaper
"Expresso" they show a far worse (in my humble opinion) restoration is
not just a small painting in the wall, is an entire mural!!!
Representing six episodes from the life of St. Clare of Louredo,
completely destroyed!
In the mid 80s, Father António Moreira decided
to improve the look of the church interior. "I called an old man who
said he was a painter and he was here at the Retirement Home," says the
priest now, him already close to 80 years old. "I commissioned him to
retouch the walls. Wanted to improve that, and I did. I don't understand
nothing about heritage," explains the priest.
Is the Church of Santa Clara, in Boavista district of Beja, Portugal...
See the image bellow the before and after...
Is the Church of Santa Clara, in Boavista district of Beja, Portugal...
See the image bellow the before and after...
Portuguese Monuments - Belem Tower
Here it is the Belém Tower (Torre de Belém) or
the Tower of St. Vincent is a fortified tower located in Belém, Lisbon,
Portugal. It is an UNESCO World Heritage Site (along with the nearby
Jerónimos Monastery) because of the significant role it played in the
Portuguese maritime discoveries of the era of the Age of Discoveries.
The tower was commissioned by King John II to be part of a defense
system at the mouth of the Tagus River and a ceremonial gatewa
y to Lisbon.
The tower was built in the early 16th century and is a prominent example of the Portuguese Manueline style, but it also incorporates hints of other architectural styles. The structure was built from lioz limestone and is composed of a bastion and the 30 meter (100 foot), four story tower. It has incorrectly been stated that the tower was built in the middle of the Tagus and now sits near the shore because the river was redirected after the 1755 Lisbon earthquake. In fact, the tower was built on a small island in the Tagus River near the Lisbon shore.
The tower was built in the early 16th century and is a prominent example of the Portuguese Manueline style, but it also incorporates hints of other architectural styles. The structure was built from lioz limestone and is composed of a bastion and the 30 meter (100 foot), four story tower. It has incorrectly been stated that the tower was built in the middle of the Tagus and now sits near the shore because the river was redirected after the 1755 Lisbon earthquake. In fact, the tower was built on a small island in the Tagus River near the Lisbon shore.
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