Monastery of Jerónimos
The Portuguese jewel
The monastery of Jerónimos is a Manueline style monastery used by the Catholic Church for the holding of religious services. The monument is located to the west of Lisbon in the Belem district. Belem was once a suburb but it is now a borough of Lisbon.
History
Its origin comes from a chapel founded by the infante D. Henrique located in front of the main door but it is unrecognizable because of structural modifications. Before Vasco de Gama's departure for his historical travel in the Orient, King Manuel I obtained from pope Alexandre VI the authorization to build the monastery of the Jeronimos monks. Its construction lasted for nearly 100 years.
From 1502 to 1516, The first master architect who defined the general plan was Diogo Boytac. As a result of queen D. Maria's death in 1517 (who had shown a significant interest in the monastery), there were a few changes in the architectural style, now headed by Joao de Castilho and assisted by the sculptor Nicolau de Chanterene.
In 1521 King D. Manuel I was buried under the Infant chapel's slabs because of a delay in the monastery's construction. This delay was caused by the current mobilisation of a great number of workers for the construction of the Sao Vicente tower at the same time. It is only from 1572 that the dead bodies of Manuel I, João III, Sébastiao I and Henrique I were gradually moved into the alcove mausoleum, in the choir in the church.
Around 1625, Teodosio de Frias was seeking to change the area between the choir in the church and the monks' dormitory. It resulted in the construction of another gate and a colossal access staircase.
Architecture
Building
The monastery has a rare aesthetic quality. Indeed, the church and the cloister are the symbol of the architectural beauty of the Manueline style. The limestone’s luminous whiteness from the Alcantara quarries covers the outer ornament of the church in a similar way to the Taj Mahal in India.
The well fenestrated church opens with two portals : the south gate and the west gate.
The south gate is from Boytac and Castilho. It is composed of statues that rise along the buttress and pinnacles, in a composition that narrows to the canopy with the cross of the knights of Christ crowning the cornice.
The west portal is partly hidden by the huge building built in the XIXth century. On each side of an ogive arch are the statues of D. Manuel and his wife, in the middle of a profusion of gothic details.
Rooms
The inside presents three naves of equal height (conception of the “Hallenkirche”), separated by six octagonal pillars abundantly decorated with Renaissance themes. The arch of the transept (built by Castilho) is 29 meters long, 19 meters large and 25 meters high and is supported by two pillars. Under the huge heart in the entrance lie graves of Vasco de Gama and Camoes.
The cloister is certainly the highest point of the monastery's art. It is square-shaped, each side measuring 55 meters. Two galeries are superposed there. The ratio between the interior space of the courtyard and the one of the two galeries is a prodigy of creativity. The same applies for the coordination of the galeries' bays, creating a symphony of spaces, structures and roofs of the galleries combined with the manueline decoration.
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