History of Portuguese romanesque architecture

The Romanesque style of architecture was introduced in Portugal between the end of the 11th and the beginning of the 12th century. In general, Portuguese cathedrals have a heavy, fortress-like appearance, with crenellations and few decorative elements apart from portals and windows. Portuguese Romanesque cathedrals were later extensively modified, among others the Old Cathedral of Coimbra, although it only had some minor changes.

Chronological and geographical distribution of Romanesque buildings in Portugal are intimately connected with the territorial organization emerging from the Reconquista, being the fundamental reason for the differences between a locally influenced artistical phenomenon in the North of the country and a more "international" kind in buildings like Coimbra and Lisbon Cathedrals. Romanesque architecture first developed in Minho and Douro regions (with Braga Cathedral being its reference) spreading later southwards to Coimbra. It is in the rural areas of the northwest and center regions that Romanesque buildings are more concentrated, being more dense in the margins of rivers Douro and Mondego.

Introduction
It was in areas that had been recently added to Portuguese territory, thus more open to foreign influence, places where royal and ecclesiastical sponsorship were stronger, where French monastical communities settled in and foreign artists produced their works (like Coimbra and Lisbon), that we find the most artistically complete forms of Romanesque. As it expanded it became more local, mixing with earlier regional construction techniques and solutions.

Romanesque building construction activity gained pace after 1095, when Count Henry took possession of the County of Portugal. Count Henry came with noblemen and Benedictine monks from the Abbey of Cluny, which was headed by Henry's brother, Hugh. The Benedictines and other religious orders ended up giving great impulse to Romanesque architecture in Portugal during the whole 12th century. Examples of those rural monastical and parish churches, most of them built in the 9th and 10th centuries with late High Middle Ages artistical features and before the expansion of Romanesque architecture, are the Monastery of Rates, one of the best iconographical buildings of this style in Portugal, the churches of Paço de Sousa Monastery, Santa Maria de Airães and the Monastery of São Pedro de Ferreira, among others.

Their communities first followed the Benedictine rule but were later deeply influenced by the monastical reforms in the 11th century, mainly the Cluniac, reflected in the adoption of newly Romanesque architectural features, creating some very regional and rich decorative and architectural solutions.

Pre-Romanesque architecture: The Mozarabic art

Mozarabic art refers not only to the artistic style of Mozarabs (from musta'rab meaning "Arabized"), Iberian Christians living in Al-Andalus who adopted some Arab customs without converting to Islam, preserving their religion and some ecclesiastical and judicial autonomy, but also to those same communities that migrated north to the Christian Kingdoms, bringing with them an architectural phenomenon in which Christian and Islamic artistic elements were fused together.

Although Mozarabic communities maintained for the practice of their religious rites some of the Visigothic churches predating the Islamic occupation, the extent of this Visigothic artistical heritage is hard to pinpoint, as most monuments from the previous period have been lost. Nevertheless, those buildings that did survive seem to hold on tenaciously to traditions of Visigothic architecture with few, if any, Islamic features. All this includes them in the ample concept of Pre-Romanesque architecture. Besides this possible Visigothic connection, Mozarabic architecture in Portugal also came in contact with Asturian art, identified with the artistic creations that were being produced during the 9th century specifically in the territories that comprised the Kingdom of Asturias. However this artistic activity, in general (and architecture specifically) was not limited to this area or this century, it encompassed the whole northern peninsula and continued during the next century.

The most exceptional example of Mozarabic architecture in Portugal is the Church of São Pedro de Lourosa, near Coimbra. There is no doubt that this rural church was founded sometime around 912 AD (950 by the Era of Caesar, corresponds to 912 by Christian Era) according to an authentic inscription found in one of the transept arms. Despite a number of Asturian references to the church's engravings, the influences of the architectural models favoured by the Mozarabs are clearly visible in the modulation of the masonry and mainly in the decorative elements of the cornices (use of the Alfiz) and the design of horseshoe arches, typical of Mozarabic style. Its basilican type structure comprises a small transept separating the chancel from the main body of the building (called a Narthex), and a row of three surmounted arches supported by columns separating the central nave from the side aisles. During restoration works carried out in the mid-20th century, various architectural features were found that would have belonged to an earlier Visigothic church.

Other examples of Mozarabic monuments in Portuguese territory are the Chapel of São Pedro de Balsemão in Lamego, the Cathedral of Idanha-a-Velha, with a more Visigothic influence but still used by the Mozarabic community of the region, the Church of São Gião, near Nazaré, and the unique apse of the old monastery of Castro de Avelãs (Bragança), that presents not only a Mozarabic flavour but also a deep fusion with Asturian-Leonese architectural features. Most scholars had identified its construction from the late 12th and early 13th centuries, although new archeological findings have challenged that date and put its origin back in the 11th century.

Rise and development of Romanesque in Portugal (11th to 13th century)
In Portugal, the Romanesque architecture comes in late 11th century within a wider phenomenon of European cultural and religious spreading to the Iberian Peninsula, influenced by the Cluniac monastical reforms and the arrival of the Orders of Cluny (after 1086), Cister (or Citeaux) (1144), St. Augustine (after 1131) and the Military-Religious Orders of the Knights Hospitaller (1121) and the Knights Templar (1126). The Romanesque architecture, through its prestige, relates with the rise and assertion of Portuguese independence.

Developing itself later than witnessed in the rest of Europe, in Portugal it only gained real significance after the second quarter of the 12th century, although previous buildings of the same style already existed. Various factors contribute to this aspect, mainly the unstable environment experienced in the Iberian Peninsula at the time due to the Reconquista and the consequent political reorganisation of peninsular geography. In fact, one of the most significant aspects of Romanesque architecture in the Peninsula, but particularly in Portugal, is the noticeable connotation that we find between its spreading and land organisation and occupation. The arrival in Portugal of the religious orders mentioned above must be understood in the general context of the Reconquista. In fact, those monastical institutions received immense privileges from the Portuguese monarchs and nobility, contributing to the security of the territory, but above all, to its social organization. This Reconquista took place from North to South, resulting in the same spread of Romanesque architecture with a decreasing density to the South. Almost no Romanesque artifacts survive in Southern Portugal.

The first Romanesque churches in the North were simple constructions, consisting of a nave with a timber roof and a rectangular apse. Examples can be found at the Igreja de São Cristóvão de Rio Mau, at the Igreja de Santa Eulália do Mosteiro de Arnoso and at the Church of Fontarcada (with already a semicircular apse at the east end).

Expansion of the Romanesque style coincided with the reign of D.Afonso Henriques (1139–1185), a monarch with Burgundian background being the son of Count Henry and great grandson of Robert II, King of France. During his reign Lisbon, Coimbra, Porto and Viseu Cathedrals were built and also the Augustinian Monastery of Santa Cruz, projected to be a royal pantheon. The construction began in 1131 and by 1150 the nave and its apses were already finished. Its structural shape and decorative features were a novelty in Portugal, showing that its architect was either probably French or came in contact with French Romanesque architecture from Burgundy like Tournus, Cluny, Paray-le-Monial or Romainmôtier.

Being a predominantly religious architecture, Portuguese Romanesque style was deeply related with ecclesiastical rural church parishes and monastic monasteries founded or rebuilt in the 12th and 13th centuries, with bishops, by royal mandate, their biggest sponsors.

Romanesque cathedrals (Braga, Porto, Viseu, Coimbra and Lisbon)

Braga Cathedral
The Cathedral of Braga was rebuilt in the 1070s by Bishop Pedro and consecrated in 1089, although only the apse was finished at the time. He wished to create a pilgrimage church, with a three aisled nave, an ambulatory and a large transept.

Works increased during the tenure of D.Paio Mendes as archbishop (1118–37), after King D.Afonso Henriques granted a foral chart to the city as well as generous donations for its construction. It was then resumed and lasted until the middle of the 13th century. The original 12th-century building was built in the Burgundian Romanesque style of the monastery church of Cluny and influenced many other churches and monasteries in Portugal in that period. In later times the cathedral was greatly modified, so that today it is a mix of Romanesque, Gothic, Manueline and Baroque styles.

The original Romanesque Western façade of the Cathedral has been totally suppressed, except for some archivolts and capitals of the main portal, heavily decorated with animal and human sculptured reliefs. The figures on one archivolt, with hens, foxes and a minstrel, may be telling a moralistic song like the ones from Roman de Renart, of French tradition.

Inside it has three aisles covered by a wooden roof, a transept and five Eastern chapels in the apse. On the north wall outside of the cathedral there is the small Chapel of São Geraldo, in memory of Geraldo of Moissac, Archbishop of Braga (1096–1108), of early Romanesque design, that may be a remnant of the late 11th-century building. This chapel was left outside of the final cathedral, perhaps due to a change of design in the 12th century. The nave is essentially Romanesque thanks to a "purifying" reform in the 20th century that suppressed most later additions, although some original capitals of the columns have been lost. D.Afonso, son of King D.João I, is buried in a 15th-century tomb made of bronze, which can be seen in the nave of the Cathedral.

Several chapels were built adjacent to the cathedral in the Middle Ages. The Chapel of Kings (Capela dos Reis) was built around 1374 in the place where Count Henrique and Countess Teresa were buried. Their tombs were replaced in the early 16th century by new ones, with recumbent figures.

Porto Cathedral
The Porto Cathedral, located in the historical centre of the city of Porto, is one of the city's oldest monuments and one of the most important Romanesque monuments in the country. There is evidence that the city has been a bishopric seat since the Suevi domination in the 5th-6th centuries. The current building was built according to tradition around 1110 under the patronage of Bishop Hugo (1112-1136), but apparently the church is likely to have been built in the mid-12th century, after 1147, because the "De Expugnatione Lyxbonensi" appears to describe a small church that appears to match the old pre-Romanesque cathedral built in the 9th-10th centuries. As such, the building was likely built later, as the artistic evidence, that links the Romanesque of this church to the area of La Rochelle, supports. The church was only completed in 1557, when the Manueline lantern tower was installed.

The cathedral is flanked by two square towers, each supported with two buttresses and crowned with a cupola. The façade lacks decoration and is rather architecturally heterogeneous. It shows a Baroque porch and a beautiful Gothic wheel window under a crenellated arch, giving the impression of a fortified church. The Romanesque nave is rather narrow and is covered by barrel vaulting. It is flanked by two aisles with a lower vault. The stone roof of the central aisle is supported by flying buttresses, making the building one of the first in Portugal to use this architectonic feature.

This original building has suffered some alterations (minored by the archaizing restorations of the Estado Novo between 1927 and 1945) but the general aspect of the building has remained a mix of Romanesque and Gothic.

Also to be referenced the elegant Gothic cloister, built between the 14th and the 15th centuries during the reign of King D.João I, who married English Princess Philippa of Lancaster in this cathedral in 1387.

Viseu Cathedral
Viseu Cathedral started being built in the 12th century and is the most important historical monument of the city. It is currently a mix of architectural styles, specially from the Manueline, Renaissance and Mannerist periods.

The current cathedral building started being erected in the mid-12th century, but little remains from this early Romanesque building except for some architectural details. The church was greatly enlarged in the following centuries of the Middle Ages, assuming its present configuration as a three-aisled building with three Eastern chapels. Some Gothic chapels in the cloisters also date from this period.

Built has a three-aisled nave, transept and three Eastern chapels. The main façade is flanked by two towers. The outer, lateral walls of the church have a heavy, menacing appearance, typical of Portuguese medieval cathedrals, being partially decorated with merlons. The South (clock) tower is still of medieval origin, while the North tower had to be rebuilt in the 17th century after a storm. The storm also destroyed the Manueline façade, which was rebuilt around 1635. The three-storey façade resembles a Mannerist altarpiece and is decorated with niches harbouring statues of the Four Evangelists, as well as the Holy Mary and Saint Theotonius.

Coimbra Cathedral
The Old Cathedral of Coimbra (Portuguese: Sé Velha de Coimbra) was built some time after the Battle of Ourique in 1139. The project of this Romanesque cathedral is attributed to Master Robert, a, possibly, French architect who was directing the building of Lisbon Cathedral at that time and visited Coimbra regularly. The works were supervised by Master Bernard, possibly also French, who was succeeded by Master Soeiro, an architect active in other churches around the Diocese of Porto.

From the outside, Coimbra's old cathedral looks like a fortress, with its high, crenellated walls harbouring few, narrow windows. This menacing appearance is explained by the belligerent times in which it was built. There is a tower-like structure in the middle of the western façade with a portal and a similar-looking upper window. Both portal and window are heavily decorated with Romanesque motifs of Mozarabic and Pre-Romanesque influences. The façade is reinforced by thick buttresses at the corners that compensate for the angle of the terrain (the cathedral was built on the slope of a hill). The interior of the cathedral has a nave with two aisles, a small transept, and an eastern apse with three chapels. The nave is covered by barrel vaulting and the lateral aisles by groin vaults. The nave has an upper storey, a spacious triforium (arched gallery), that could accommodate more mass attendants in the tribunes if needed. All columns of the interior have decorated capitals, mainly with vegetable motifs, but also with animals and geometric patterns. The windows of the lantern-tower and the big window in the west facade are the main sources of natural light of the cathedral.

The cloister, built during the reign of Afonso II (early 13th century), is a work of the transition between Romanesque and Gothic. Each of the Gothic pointed arches that face the courtyard encompass two twin round arches in Romanesque style.

Lisbon Cathedral
The Patriarchal Cathedral of St. Mary Major (Portuguese: Santa Maria Maior de Lisboa or Sé de Lisboa) or simply Lisbon Cathedral is the oldest church in the city and the see of Archdiocese of Lisbon.

This first building was completed between 1147 and the first decades of the 13th century in Late Romanesque style. At that time the relics of St. Vincent of Saragossa, patron saint of Lisbon, were brought to the cathedral from Southern Portugal. This cathedral follows a Latin cross plan with three aisles, a transept and a main chapel surrounded by a Gothic ambulatory. The church is connected with a cloister on the Eastern side. The main façade of the cathedral looks like a fortress, with two towers flanking the entrance and crenellations over the walls. This menacing appearance, also seen in other Portuguese cathedrals of the time, is a relic from the Reconquista period, when the cathedral could be used as a base to attack the enemy during a siege.

From its first building period from 1147 until the first decades of the 13th century, Lisbon cathedral has preserved the West façade with a rose window (rebuilt from fragments in the 20th century), the main portal, the North lateral portal and the nave of the cathedral. The portals have interesting sculptured capitals with Romanesque motifs. The nave is covered by barrel vaulting and has an upper, arched gallery (triforium). Light gets in through the rose windows of the West façade and transept, the narrow windows of the lateral aisles of the nave as well as the windows of the lantern tower of the transept. The general plan of the cathedral is very similar to that of the Cathedral of Coimbra, which dates from the same period. One of the chapels of the ambulatory has an interesting Romanesque iron gate.

Knights Templar round church (Charola/Rotunda) at Convent of Christ
Originally a 12th-century Templar stronghold, when the order was dissolved in the 14th century the Portuguese branch was turned into the Knights of the Order of Christ, that later supported Portugal's maritime discoveries of the 15th century. The Convent and Castle complex in Tomar is a historic and cultural monument which was listed in the list of UNESCO World Heritage list in 1983.

The convent was founded by the Order of Poor Knights of the Temple (or Templar Knights) in 1160. Its construction continued until the final part of the 12th century with the construction of the Charola (oratory), in one of the angles of the castle, completed by the Grand Master Gualdim Pais sometime around 1180.

Templar Church
The Romanesque round church (charola, rotunda) was built in the second half of the 12th century by the Knights Templar, as a 16-side polygonal structure, with strong buttresses, round windows and a bell-tower. Inside, the round church has a central, octagonal structure, connected by arches to a surrounding gallery (ambulatory). The general shape of the church is modelled after similar round structures in Jerusalem: the Mosque of Omar and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

The capitals of the columns are still Romanesque (end of the 12th century) and depict vegetal and animal motifs, as well as a Daniel in the Lions' Den scene. The style of the capitals shows the influence of artists working on the Cathedral of Coimbra, which was being built at the same time as the round church.

The interior of the round church is magnificently decorated with late Gothic/Manueline sculptures and paintings, added during a renovation sponsored by King Manuel I starting in 1499. The pillars of the central octagon and the walls of the ambulatory have polychrome statues of saints and angels under exuberant Gothic canopies, while the walls and ceilings of the ambulatory are painted with Gothic patterns and panels depicting the life of Christ. The paintings are attributed to the workshop of the court painter of Manuel I, the Portuguese Jorge Afonso, while the sculptured decoration is attributed to Flemish sculptor Olivier of Gand and the Spaniard Hernán Muñoz. A magnificent panel depicting the martyrdom of Saint Sebastian, by Portuguese painter Gregório Lopes, was painted for the Round Church and now hangs in the National Museum of Ancient Art in Lisbon.

Source From Wikipedia