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 Toledo distinguished with the title of Count of Portugal.

But it seems still more certain that the work was not finished until about fifty years later, when the County of Portugal had become an independent Kingdom, under Alfonse Henriques, son 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 considerable 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, set under the authority of the Bishop, goes on growing during the First Dynasty, and it is on record that, during the national crisis of 1383, the Chapter contributed 3,000 pounds of silver towards the defense 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 «in wooden sunk panels in mosaic».

But it is in the eighteenth century that the Chapter (from 1717 to 1741) decided to alter, in accordance with the taste of the period, the ancient and
 «old-fashioned» aspect of the twelfth century church. The Romanesque portal was thus replaced by the present one, the primitive pillars and capitals 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 harm done (see plates 1 and 6).

In the Northern Cross aisle, a silver altar, the work of two Portuguese mid-seventeenth century artisans (see plate 3), is one of the treasures which escaped, though with difficulty, the invasions and civil wars of the nineteenth century.
The Gothic cloister (see plate 7), also altered in the eighteenth century, nevertheless retains, as a whole, the original design.

Another thing worth seeing is a fourteenth century sculptured tomb, with the lying figure of a / 22 / Knight of Rhodes (see plate 7), the Chapel of St. James.

The towers, topped at first by battlements which clearly showed what the building was then – an episcopal fortress as much as a Catholic temple –, were afterwards overtopped with domes flanked by four obelisks 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 rose window 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 plates 8 and 9).

There is a legend that this church was built in consequence of a vow, by a Suevic or Visigoth king, whose ailing son had owed his cure to St. Martin 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 one, between the Romanesque and the Gothic, with unbuttressed naves (see plate 13). There is an admirable rose-window over the main façade, where a baroque seventeenth century portal came to hide the original one (see plate 10).

Some think that portraits of King john I, and his queen, Philippa of Lancaster, figure in a fresco,
 now much deteriorated and masked by awful repaintings, known as the Virgin with the Rose (see plate 12).

SAINT CLAIRE, founded by that King John I, and his son, the «Holy Prince» Don Fernando, who solemnly opened it in 1416, was the Oporto convent of the Franciscan nuns or Poor Clares. Only a few details of its original structure now remain, such as a small door, a gargoyle and the like.

The portal is a curious blend of Gothic and Renaissance elements, the latter being already clearly foreshadowed (see plate 14).

The interior of the temple is almost wholly covered with carved and gilded wood, a kind of ornament widely used all 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 plate 15).

 St. PETER OF MIRAGAIA. It seems that some Armenian Christians, who were driven out of Constantinople 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 nearby 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 Oporto.

The high altar of this church is an excellent specimen of that gilded woodwork which is so often
 exaggerated and tortured in style (see plate 16).

A primitive somewhat vaguely classed as Flemish, shows the Pentecost, with a donator on one of the compartments (see plate 17).

 St. BENEDICT OF VICTORY, a church of the Benedictine convent built on the site of the old Oporto / 23 / 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 his inspiration from the Church of Jesus in Rome.

Uncommonly rich in its carved woodwork, in the choir stalls and their exuberant foliage and angel ornaments (see plate 20), in its thirty paintings in polychrome relief, representing scenes in the life of St. Benedict, and its two great organs (see plate 19), this temple is really a sumptuous and typical example of religious art.

The two CARMELlTE temples, which rise side by side opposite the University (see plate 21), show the line of evolution of the baroque towards the rococo. The first was built between 1619 and 1628. The second, florid to excess, dates from 1756.

The church and tower DOS CLERIGOS, i. e. of
 the Clerks (see plate 22), were begun, one in 1732, and the other in 1748, the whole being complete in 1763. The tower, designed by the Italian Nazzoni, is about 250 feet high and is very fine in proportions and silhouette.

Finally, the church of the confraternity of the MISERICORDIA (see plate 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 Vitae (see plate 24).