LISBON: MONASTERY OF JERÓNIMO-by Catalina Peláez

PROM TRIP BLOG

TOPIC: Lisbon. Jerónimos Monastery.

Jerónimos Monastery (in Portuguese, ‘Mosteiro dos Jerónimos’) is a monastery of the Order of Saint Jerome, located in Lisbon, Portugal. It's one of the most important examples of the Portuguese Gothic Manueline style, and because of this, it was cataloged as a UNESCO World Heritage Site (with the Tower of Belém) in 1983. 

This monastery was populated by monks of the Order of Saint Jerome, whose spiritual job was to pray for the salvation of the king’s soul and to give guidance to sailors. It replaced the church existing in the same place, the Hermitage of Restelo (‘Ermida do Restelo’), the hermitage in which Vasco de Gama (whose tomb is in the main entrance of the monastery) and his men spent the night before the departing of their expedition to the Orient (1497) praying. The construction started 1501 and was completed a century later. As a curiosity, the funds to do the project were obtained from the ‘Vintena da Pimenta’, a commercial 5% tax from Africa and the Orient related to the species.

Church of Santa Maria

Diogo Boitac was the one to lead the construction of this three-aisled church. It has five bays under a vault, a transept and a raised choir. The design of the hall church is formed by an equal-high nave and aisles. Botaic built the walls of the church as far as the cornices, and then, started the construction of the monastery. 

 

In 1571, a Spanish sculptor and architect, Juan de Castilho, began again with the construction. He completed the walls and also decorated it with typical elements of the Renaissance the 25-metre-high octagonal columns. In this church, on both sides of the choir and at the end of the side aisles are altars dating from the 16^th and 17^th century, also built by Juan de Castilho.

The tombs of several kings, as for example, Manuel I, Juan III, Catalina de Austria, Sebastián I and Enrique I, are inside this church. Also, the tombs of Vasco da Gama and of the poet and chronicler of the Age of Discoveries, Luís de Camoes, both sculpted in the 19^th century by Costa Mota, are situated within the church, in the lower choir. The mortal remains of both were conveyed to this church in 1880. 

Monastery

Boitac began the construction of this monastery on a big square cloister. He built the groin vaults with wide arches and windows with tracery. The monastery, like the church, was finished by Juan de Castilho, who changed the original columns of Boitac into rectangular ones, and embellished them with Platereque-style ornamentation.

The monastery was decorated with nautical, European, Moorish and Eastern motifs in line with the Renaissance style, and also related to Spanish architecture. 

This cloister had both religious and representative function because of his dynastic symbolic motives, such as the cross from the Order of Christ. It showed this way the growing power of Portugal.

The tombs of the poet Fernando Pessoa, the also poet and playwright Almeida Garret, the writer-historian Alexandre Herculano and presidents like Teófilo Braga and Óscar Carmona.