THE RELIGIOUS MONUMENTS OF OPORTO

Oporto CATHEDRAL dates exactly from the period when Portugal begins its existence as a separate and differentiated political unit in the body of mediaeval Spain at war with the Saracens, at a decisive moment in that long crusade of the reconquest of the territory.
It really seems that the foundation of the Cathedral is due to Infanta Dona Theresa, daughter of Alfonso VI. of Castille and married to a noble of Burgundy, Don Henrique, whom the conqueror of Totecto distinguished with the title 01 Count of Portugal.
But it seems still more certain that the work was not linished until about fifty years later, when the County of Portugal had become an independent Kingdom, under Affonso Henriques, soo of Theresa and of Don Henrique.
Tradition links this work with the name of Dona Mafalda, wife of the first King, and there is documentary evidence that she made gift of consi-derable revenues towards completing the church of the city which was to give its name to a new country. .
The episcopal see, entrusted by Dona Theresa to a clerk of Cluny named Hugo, saw both its political influence and its revenues grow together during the first reigns. The two towers of the Cathedral, with the Virgin between them, are in fact the arms of Oporto.
The town of Oporto, sei under the authority of the Bishop, goes on growing during the First Dy
nasty, and it is on record that, during the national crisis of 1383, the Chapter contributed 3,000 pounds of silver towards the defence of the country from the Castilian pretender.
In the Renaissance there were changes in the structure of the Cathedral: granite vaults replace the covering of the transept, which, according to a witness, had been hitherto c in wooden sunk panels in mosaic).
But it is in the eighteenth century that the Chapter (from 1717 to 1741) dedded to alter, in accordance with the taste of the period, the andent and
c old-fashioned) aspect of the twelfth century church. The Romanesque portal was thus replaced by the present one, the primitive pillars and capitais mutilated and hidden under neo-classical stuccos, the stone vaults masked with poorly decorated plasters - in fine, in the name of art several inartistic gins were committed. A restoration now running is striving to lessen as much as possible the barro dane (see p/ates 1 and 6).
In the northern cross aisle, a silver altar, the work of two Portuguese mid-seventeenth century artisans (see p/ate 3), is one of the treasures which escaped, though with difficulty, the invasions and civil wars of the nineteenth century.
The Gothic cloister (see p/ate 7), algo altered in the eigh teenth century, nevertheless retains, as a whole, the original designo
Another thing worth seeing is a fourteenth century sculptured tomb, with the Iying figure of a


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Knight of Rhodes (see p/ate 7), the Chapel of St. james.
The towers, topped at first by battlements which clearly showed what the building was then -ao epis-copal fortress as much as a Catholic temple-, were afterwards overtopped with domes flanked by four obeliscs in the eighteenth century balustrade style.
During the current restoration clear traces were found of the archivolts and the pillarets of the original doorway, under that enormous granite rosewindow which is one of the few things that escaped the reformers.
CEDOFEITA is a small Romanesque church, with a cradle vault, distinguished by its semicircular arches (see p/ates 8 and 9).
There is a legend that this church was built in consequence of a vow, by a Suevic or Visigothic king, whose ailing soo had owed bis cure to St. Martio of Tours.
Historically, nothing is known back of 1118 and 1120, but it can be affirmed that this little church was then in existence and belonged to the Benedictine monks.
Quite recently (in 1933) it was restored and freed from foreign accretions which masked its real features.
The CHURCH OF Sr. FRANCIS, begun towards the end of the fourteenth century, was probably finished in full fifteenth. Its style is a transition Doe, between the Romanesque and the Gothic, with unbuttressed naves (see p/ate 13). There is an admirable rose-window over the maio façade, where a baroque seventeenth century portal carne to hide the original one (see p/ate 10).
Some think that portraits of King john I. and bis queen, Philippa of Lancaster, figure in a fresco,
now much deeriorated and masked by awful repain-tings, known as the Virgin with lhe Rose (see p/ate 12).
SAINT CLAIRE, founded by that King john I. and bis soo, the (Holy Prince:. Don Fernando, who solemnly opened it in 1416, was the aparto convent of the Franciscan nuns or Poor Clares. Only a few details of its original structure now remain, such as a small doar, a gargoyle and the like.
The portal is a curious blend of Gothic and Re-naissance elements, the latter being already clearly foreshadowed (see p/ate 14).
The interior of the temple is almost wholly covered with carved and gilded wood, a kind of ornament widely used ali over the country in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The idea was to give an impression of richness, which in the case of this church was fairly well achieved (see p/ate 15).
Sr. PETER OF MIRAGAIA. It seems that some Armenian Christians, who were driven out of Cons-tantinople by the Turks in 1453, brought with them the relics of St. Pantaleon, laying them in this church, which was then founded.
The fact is that near by there is to this day a Rua da Armenia, as a witness to that. The body of the saint was afterwards transferred to the Cathedral and he even became the patron saint of aparto.
The high altar of this church is an excellent specimen of that gilded woodwork which is so often
exaggerated and tortured in style (see p/ate 16).
A primitive somewhat vaguely classed as Fle-mish, shows the Pentecost, with a donator on one of the compartments (see p/ate 17).
Sr. BENEDICT OF VICTORV, a church of the Benedictine convent built on the site of the old aparto


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Jewry - perhaps even on that of the Synagogue, whose proportions it seems to retain - was erected at the end of the sixteenth century by Diogo Marques, who drew bis inspiration from the Church of Jesus in Rome.
Uncommonly rich in its carved woodwork, in the choir stalls and their exhuberant fotiage and angel ornaments (see p/ate 20), in its thirty paintings in polychrome relief, representing scenes in the tife of St. Benedict, and its two great organs (see p/ate 19), this temple is really a sumptuous and typical example of retigious art.
The two CARMELlTE tem pIes , which rise side by side opposite the University (see p/ate 21), show the tine of evolution of the baroque towards the roo
coco. The first was built between 1619 and 1628. The second, florid to excess, dates from 1756.
"The church and tower DOS CrER/aos, i. e. of
the Clerks (see p/ate 22), were begun, one in 1732, and the other in 1748, the whole being complete in 1763. The tower, designed by the Italian Nazzo_i, is about 250 feet high and is very fine in proportions and silhouette.
Finally, the church of the confraternity of the M/SER/CORD/A (see p/ate 23), dating from 1750, is a replacement of a temple, under the same invocation, built in the sixteenth century.
The only survivals from the original church are some remarkable paintings, among which the famous panel Fons Vitce (see p/ate 24).