It is a set of rectangular shape that develops around a cloister of two floors, the ground floor of Gothic-Manueline style and the later already with Renaissance features.

The church, Manueline, a ship has five rectangular spans and is covered by a ribbed vault. The walls are lined with tile panels of the eighteenth century.

The chancel of polygonal plan, is covered by a dome of complicated design with crossed warheads, and its walls are covered with tiles of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

The chapter house, attributed to Diogo de Arruda, is preceded by a Moorish portal of the early sixteenth century.

After restoration work and recovery that took some years was inaugurated on its premises to Pousada dos Lóios integrated in Pousadas de Portugal.

Located in the parish of the Cathedral and St. Peter, at Largo Conde Vila Flor, is surrounded by the Cathedral of Évora, the Tribunal of the Inquisition, the Church and Convent Lóios the Évora Public Library and the Museum.

Although the Evora Roman temple is often called the Temple of Diana, it is known that the association with the Roman goddess of the hunt originated from a legend created in XVII century. Indeed, the temple was probably built in honor of the emperor Augustus, who was venerated as a god during and after his reign. The temple was built in the first century AD in the main square (forum) of Évora – then called Liberatias Iulia – and modified in the second and third centuries. Évora was invaded by Germanic peoples in the fifth century, and it was at this time when the temple was destroyed; Today, its ruins are the only traces of the Roman Forum in the city.

The ruins of the temple were incorporated into a tower of Évora Castle during the Middle Ages. The base, columns and architraves continued embedded in the walls of the medieval building.

Its walls and the eight pillars are “decorated” with bones and skulls connected by brown cement. The vaults are of brick plastered in white, painted with allegorical motifs to death. It is a monument of a penitential architectural arches decorated with skulls queues, cornices and white ships. Was constructed with around 5000 skeletons, from the cemeteries, located in churches and convents of the city. The chapel was dedicated to the Senhor dos Passos, Lord of the Steps, known in the city image as Senhor Jesus da Casa dos Ossos, Lord Jesus House of Bones, impressing with the expression that represents the suffering of Christ, in their walk with the cross up to Calvary.

Exhibits in the cathedral museum include:

• the sceptre of Cardinal-King Henrique, a 16th-century goldsmith work in Manueline style
• a puzzle-like, 12-inch-high Gothic ivory statue of Mary, whose midriff opens up into a triptych with nine scenes of her life. It’s a French work of art from the 13th century. The head of the statue is a replica from the 16th century.
• the 17th-century reliquary of Santo Lenho (holy wood), supposedly containing pieces of Christ’s Cross, of gilded silver and polychromed enamel, encrusted with 1426 true gems (840 diamonds, 402 rubies, 180 emeralds, two sapphires, one hyacinth and one cameo).
• a collection of canonicals from the 17th and the 18th centuries.

Some paintings in the collection are worthwhile, especially those by Gregório Lopes, Cristóvão de Figueiredo and Garcia Fernandes.

Open: 09h00 -17h00 (Summer), 09h00 – 12h30 | 14h00 – 17h00 (Winter)

Phone: +351 266 759 330

Largo Marquês de Marialva 
7000-809 ÉVORA - Évora

]]> http://www.evoraandestremoz.theperfecttourist.com/?feed=rss2&p=3308 0 http://www.evoraandestremoz.theperfecttourist.com/?p=3302 http://www.evoraandestremoz.theperfecttourist.com/?p=3302#comments Mon, 27 Apr 2015 18:49:26 +0000 http://evoraandestremoz.theperfecttourist.com/?p=3302 The Cathedral Exterior

The main façade of Évora Cathedral, built with rose granite, resembles that of Lisbon Cathedral. Its two massive towers, completed in the 16th century, flank a narthex (entrance gallery), which encloses the main portal. Over the narthex there is a huge window with Gothic tracery that illuminates the interior. Each tower has a different conical spire, one of them covered with mediaeval coloured tiles. Like other Portuguese churches of the time, the outer walls of Évora Cathedral are decorated with crenellations, as well as decorative arcaded corbels. The lantern-tower over the crossing is very picturesque. It has a row of windows that bathe the transept area with light. Its spire, as well as spire of the tower above the crossing of the transept, is surrounded by six turrets, and each turret is a miniature copy of the tower itself. The design of the tower resembles that of the cathedral of Zamora and the Torre del Gallo of the Old cathedral of Salamanca. The Gothic Apostles in the main portal of Évora Cathedral The ogival main portal is a masterpiece of Portuguese Gothic sculpture. The marble columns are occupied by huge statues of the Apostles executed in the 1330s, perhaps by sculptors Master Pero (Mestre Pero) and Telo Garcia. It is the best of its kind in Portugal. Such free-standing Gothic sculptures are rather rare in Portugal. They are usually associated with memorial graves.

The Cathedral Exterior

The Cathedral of Évora, built mainly between 1280 and 1340, was designed following closely the floor plan of Lisbon Cathedral, which had been built in the second half of the 12th century in Romanesque style. Like that church, the builders of Évora Cathedral designed aLatin cross church with a transept, a nave higher than its two aisles, a triforium (arched gallery over the central aisle) and an apse with three chapels. The crossing of the transept is topped by a dome, supported by pendentives, and an octagonal lantern. The transepts are lighted by two Gothic rose windows, one with the morning star and the other with the mystical rose.

The large nave has a pointed barrel vault. The interior space is accentuated by the use of white mortar on the bare high walls, pillars and vaults.

In the entrance, in the first two bays, there is a Manueline high choir by architect Diogo de Arruda (early 16th century), with fine Gothic vaulting. The high choir has Mannerist-style choir stalls carved on oak in 1562 by sculptors from Antwerp. They are decorated with mythological sculptural reliefs and scenes from courtly life, hunting parties and life at the farm. Near the entrance there is also an ancient organ, the oldest still in activity in Portugal, dated from circa 1544 and executed by Heitor Lobo. On the left side of the entrance stands the small baptistery with a fresco depicting the Baptism of Christ, 18th century azulejos and 16th century Manueline wrought-iron railings.

In the middle of the central nave there is a large Baroque altar with a polychrome Gothic statue of a pregnant Virgin Mary (Nossa Senhora do O) (15th century); facing the Virgin there is a polychrome Renaissance statue of the Archangel Gabriel, attributed to Olivier of Ghent (16th century).

The main chapel was totally rebuilt between 1718 and 1746, a work sponsored by King John V. The architect in charge was João Frederico Ludovice, a German who was royal architect and who had previously designed the Monastery of Mafra. The style favoured by the King and his architect was Roman baroque, with polychrome marble decoration (green marble from Italy, white marble from Montes Claros, red and black marble from Sintra) and painted altars. Although its style does not really fit into the mediaeval interior of the cathedral, the main chapel is nevertheless an elegant baroque masterpiece. The main altar has sculptural decoration by the ItalianAntonio Bellini. Portuguese sculptor Manuel Dias is the author of the crucified Jesus over the altar, based on a drawing by Portuguese painter Vieira Lusitano. The painting of the main altar was executed by the Italian Agostino Masucci.

The 13 panels of the original painted Flemish retable of the main chapel can be seen in the Évora Museum. The retable was commissioned around 1500 to a workshop in Bruges by bishop Afonso de Portugal.

The chapel (Capela do Esporão) in the left transept was rebuilt in the 1520s in Manueline style. It now has a beautiful Renaissance marble portal with a marble sculpture by Nicolau Chanterene, Gothic vaulting and a Mannerist altar with the painting “Descent from the Cross” by Francisco Nunes (c.1620). The chapel in the right transept houses the tomb of the humanist André de Resende (16th century). In these chapels are also buried João Mendes de Vasconcelos, Governor ofLuanda during the reign of Manuel I, and of Álvaro da Costa, ambassador and armorer of King Manuel.

The cloisters

The cloisters of the cathedral were built between 1317 and 1340 in Gothic style, and again shows the influence of the cloisters of Lisbon Cathedral. Despite the use of Late-Gothic tracery, the use of granite in its construction gives it a heavy-looking overall impression.

Each corner of the cloister gallery has a marble Gothic statue of one of the Four Evangelists. The Capela do Fundador, the funerary chapel of bishop D. Pedro, builder of the cloisters, features his tomb with recumbent figure, a statue of the Archangel Gabriel and a polychromed statue of Mary. The upper storey of the cloisters, reachable via a spiral staircase, offers a grand view of the cathedral and the surrounding landscape.

It is common belief that flags of the fleet of Vasco da Gama on his first expedition to the Orient, were blessed in the first presbytery of the cathedral in 1497.

The most important historical figure associated with the cathedral was Cardinal-King Henrique (1512–1580), who was archbishop and cardinal of Évora. Cardinal Henrique, who was brother of King John III, had to succeed D. Sebastião as King of Portugal after his death in the Battle of Alcácer-Quibir. The Cardinal-King ruled only between 1578 and 1580.

In the 16th and 17th centuries, the Cathedral of Évora was the setting of the so-called School of Évora of polyphony, which played an important role on the music history of Portugal. Composers related to the Cathedral include Mateus de Aranda and Manuel Mendesand his pupils, Duarte Lobo and Filipe de Magalhães.

After the reconquest, its city space is precisely the same whether the Roman city or Muslim. This will from this original core, which initially will be your vital center that Evora will grow, pouring out of the primitive wall, with the consequent creation of suburbs, which later will become an integral part of it.

However, it is the area of the ancient Roman Forum and the Muslim fortress that will arise some of the most striking buildings in the city – the Cathedral, the original building of the County Hall and the Butcher installed on Roman temple, retrofitted for this purpose, as well as some of the oldest palaces of the local nobility.

But, with the expansion of the city at this stage of the Middle Ages largely overflowed its primitive limits – which is proven by the construction of a new circuit of walls in the XIV century, Evora will grow from about the early doors.

We may also add the construction of the Jewish quarter, occupying the urban framework a privileged position thanks to its leading role from an economic point of view, and the Moorish quarter, which stood in a peripheral inequivocante position, which was inconsistent with the economic and social exclusion, imposed on Moorish communities.

Demonstrating the vitality of this new area of ​​the city, the Royal Palace of St. Francisco, the real function symbol of Évora, will not be in the oldest area of ​​the city, but in the Franciscan convent area.

At the turn of the century. XV to XVI, the most characteristic feature in urban terms is the contrast between the temporal and spiritual power, in terms of spatial location. Faced with a distinctly religious center, marked by the buildings of the Cathedral and Bishop’s Palace, which will be reinforced in the second half of the XVI century, through the Palace of the Inquisition and the Inquisitor-Mor, located in the old city center of Évora. In parallel, a temporal power center, marked by the buildings of the Town Hall, Chain, Pousada Real dos Estáus-Real Inn Estaus, including even the new butcher shops located in the great square, in new town space.

on site, was implemented one of the oldest prehistoric villages.

The Educational Project of Alto de São Bento (St. Benedict Hill), which includes the Museum Centre of Granite and the Museum Centre of Floristic.

The Castle of Giraldo is one of the few villages in the Alentejo known that confirmed an almost continuous occupation since the third by the end of the first millennium BC, with sporadic reoccupation in medieval times.

This is an interesting natural fortress, reinforced with defensive walls, where visually covers a large expanse of Évora plain.

This is a “castro”, proto-historic walled structure originating in the Bronze Age or the Chalcolithic, but with traces of subsequent occupations.

Presents subcircular plant and an outer perimeter of 114 meters. The wall survived to the present day have belonged to a medieval occupation period.

The fifteenth century sources refer to fortification, associating it with the presence of Giraldo Sem Pavor “Giraldo Fearless” warrior who conquered Evora to the Muslims in 1165.