Igreja de Santa Maria de Marvila: A Manueline Collegiate Church in Santarém
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.6
- Popularity
- Low
- Country
- Portugal
- Primary era
- Early Modern
- Eras represented
- Medieval, Early Modern, Modern
- Civilizations
- Portuguese
- Site type
- Religious
- Remains
- Church
On this page16 sections
History
Igreja de Santa Maria de Marvila is a historic Christian church in Santarém, Portugal, probably refounded from a mosque during the Christian Reconquista, the centuries-long expansion of Christian rule over Muslim territories in Iberia. Its present appearance was shaped chiefly by a major Manueline rebuilding in the first half of the sixteenth century, although the church occupies a place within the medieval Islamic medina, or principal urban area, of Santarém.
Medieval Foundation and Collegiate Status
The church stands in Marvila, in the historic center of Santarém, beside the former Praça Nova, where the medieval town hall once stood. After its Christian foundation, it was placed under the Bishopric of Lisbon during the episcopate of Bishop D. Gilberto. In 1159, D. Afonso Henriques gave the church to the Knights Templar, a medieval military-religious order associated with the protection of Christian pilgrims and territories.
It was apparently first called Santa Maria de Santarém, a name that suggests its primacy among the town’s churches, particularly in relation to the Church of Santa Maria da Alcáçova. The parish was regarded as the town’s most important and became a collegiate church in 1244 under D. Aires Vasques, Bishop of Lisbon. A collegiate church was served by a college of clergy rather than functioning only as an ordinary parish church, and the building thereafter became known as the Collegiate Church of Santa Maria de Marvila.
The name Marvila probably developed from a now-lost image donated by Saint Bernard, a twelfth-century Cistercian abbot and theologian. The image was originally associated with Our Lady of Wonders, but popular alteration of that designation produced the later place-name. The church’s present patron is Our Lady of the Assumption.
Rebuilding and Sixteenth-Century Transformation
The church was completely rebuilt in the mid-thirteenth century after its Christianization. That campaign gave it a Gothic appearance, of which little now survives. Its large dimensions and generous interior space nevertheless retain characteristics associated with mendicant Gothic architecture.
During the first half of the sixteenth century, D. Francisco de Almeida, Viceroy of India, patronized a major enlargement and remodelling campaign. Apparently completed by 1530, it established the church’s present Manueline configuration, a Portuguese late-Gothic style noted here for elaborate naturalistic ornament and royal and maritime emblems. The work included the principal portal, the interior arches, the main chapel, and the original bell tower.
A later Renaissance campaign, possibly carried out after the earthquake of 1531 during the reign of D. João III, brought a general remodelling of the interior. In 1573, the church hosted the General Chapter of the Order of Christ, the Portuguese military-religious order that inherited much of the Templars’ institutional role and property. King D. Sebastião presided over the gathering.
Seventeenth-Century Decoration and Later Changes
During the first half of the seventeenth century, the masters Francisco Coelho and Sebastião Domingues introduced Mannerist work. Tile panels were installed in the chancel chapels and main chapel between 1617 and 1620, followed by work in the side aisles between 1635 and 1639. The richly tiled interior gave the church its traditional nickname, the “cathedral of tiles.”
The same broad period saw the creation of a painted altarpiece by Simão Rodrigues. Only the canvas above the triumphal arch survives. The sacristy ceiling was painted in 1690, and a gilded wood altarpiece was made for the high altar in 1700. That high altarpiece was later lost during the French Invasions.
In 1876, the original Manueline bell tower was demolished and replaced by the present tower, which is incorporated into the facade. An organ made in 1817 by António Xavier Machado e Cerveira was transferred to the church from the Church of Santa Clara in 1902. Mid-twentieth-century work, undertaken on the initiative of the Directorate-General for Buildings and National Monuments, sought to recover the church’s earlier appearance. The Baroque altars in the nave and side chapels were removed, and the surrounding urban area was reorganized. Igreja de Santa Maria de Marvila has been classified as a National Monument since 1917.
Remains
The church has a rectangular nave body and a rectangular, stepped, tripartite east end. Its present structure combines the spacious proportions associated with mendicant Gothic buildings and the carved ornament of the sixteenth-century Manueline campaigns. Three aisles, a high choir, a main chapel, side chapels, and a sacristy organize the interior, while the facade incorporates the present bell tower.
Facade and Exterior Openings
Manueline Principal Portal
The principal facade is dominated by a richly carved Manueline portal from the first quarter of the sixteenth century. Its naturalistic decoration surrounds a trilobed, multi-centered curtained arch that terminates in crockets. Two segmented pillars, also finished with crockets, continue the portal’s strong vertical composition.
Lateral Doorways and Windows
The lateral doorways belong to the campaign associated with the reign of João III and are topped by triangular pediments. Small pointed-arch windows pierce the walls of the side chapels and the main chapel, providing openings within the otherwise substantial masonry elevations.
Interior Structure and Decoration
Nave and Choir
The interior is divided into three aisles by semicircular Manueline arches resting on twelve columns with Ionic capitals from the Joanine building campaign. The profiles above the capitals carry carved masks and faces. A very high choir occupies part of the first bay of the aisles. The principal light enters through nine lancet openings with double-splayed reveals, four on the Gospel side and five on the Epistle side.
The nave walls are faced with seventeenth-century tile panels in standard-pattern designs of blue, yellow, and white, together with blue-and-white checkerboard patterns. More than 65,000 tiles cover the interior, whose successive artistic phases range from Gothic and Manueline work through Renaissance, Mannerist, and Baroque traditions. Small polychrome ceramic panels set into the tilework on the gables of the side aisles depict subjects from the Litany of the Virgin.
Main Chapel and Side Chapels
The main chapel opens to the nave through a polylobed triumphal arch and is covered by a ribbed vault. Armillary spheres, astronomical instruments that became Portuguese royal emblems, and Crosses of Christ decorate the vault elements, while the royal coat of arms occupies the keystone. The small apses have vaults of the same type. Particularly notable tile panels cover the main chapel and the outer face of the principal arch.
The oculus in the principal arch is blocked by a seventeenth-century circular canvas depicting the Calvary. A canvas of the Assumption of the Virgin fills the opening of the tribune. Arcanjo Fuschini, a painter associated with Ajuda, executed it in 1829, and it replaced the lost Mannerist high-altarpiece. The two side chapels have ribbed vaults and open onto the transept, the cross-arm of the church, through Gothic arches.
Entrances, Pulpit, and Tombs
Two simplified Gothic doorways survive inside, one leading to the baptistery and the other to the choir. Two Manueline holy-water stoups stand at the entrance. The late eighteenth-century marble pulpit rests on a fluted baluster, while its central node is decorated with eleven fluted Corinthian columns.
Several inscribed tomb slabs remain in the church. Among them is the heraldic tombstone of Paulo de Pedrosa Meireles in the Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament. A judge of the Archbishopric of Lisbon and vicar of Marvila and Santarém, he founded the chapel and died on 27 November 1663.
Sacristy and Bell Tower
Sacristy
The sacristy is entered through a Manueline doorway with a diamond-pattern design. Its wooden barrel-vaulted ceiling carries broad ornamental paintings dated to 1690. The room also retains a seventeenth-century tile panel and a small Indo-Portuguese ivory image of Christ crucified.
Bell Tower
The present bell tower is integrated into the facade. The demolished Manueline tower had a circular plan and a pyramidal finial with gargoyles. Its lower section contained two Gothic arcosolia, arched recesses used for tombs, framing the burials of Gonçalo Gil Barbosa and Francisco Barbosa.
Organ
The organ transferred to the church in 1902 was made in 1817 by António Xavier Machado e Cerveira. It remains associated with the building’s later history of adaptation and interior change.
