Santa Cruz de Coimbra

SANTA CRUZ DE COIMBRA

The Santa Cruz Monastery (in English, Holy Cross Monastery), Coimbra, was founded in 1131 by Archdeacon D. Telo, D. Juan Peculiar and St. Theotonius, among others. They followed the rule of the Augustinian Canons Regular. In its early days, the monastery obtained many papal privileges and donations from the first Portuguese kings, and it soon became the most important monastic house of the kingdom.

The original building of the monastery and church was raised between 1132 and 1223, on a project of Master Roberto, an acknowledged Romanesque artist.

Its school was one of the best educational institutions in medieval Portugal, known for its library (the collection is now lodged in the Municipal Public Library of Porto) and its busy scriptorium. In the reign of Afonso Henriques, this scriptorium acted as an instrument of royal power.

Santa Cruz’s most famous student was Fernando Martins de Bulhões, the future Saint Anthony of Lisbon (Saint Anthony of Padua). In 1220, after witnessing the arrival of the remains of five Franciscan friars who had been martyred in Morocco (the Moroccan Martyrs), he decided to become a missionary and leave the country.

In 1507, a major reform is initiated by order of King Manuel I, with the overall reconstruction and redecoration of the monastery and its church. The remains of Kings Afonso Henriques and Sancho I were moved from their original location to the new Manueline decorated tombs.

Between 1530 and 1577 a printing press was in operation in the cloister. The poet Luis de Camões may possibly have studied in Santa Cruz, given that a relative of his, D. Bento de Camões, was the monastery’s prior at the time, and that there are indications, in his poetry, that he may have stayed in Coimbra. The triumphal arch dates from the 19th century.

Though almost nothing remains of the Romanesque building, the façade of the church was similar to that of the Old Cathedral (Sé Velha de Coimbra), with a protruding central tower and a portal surmounted by a large window. This can still be perceived, under later decorative work.

Between 1507-13 two towers with pinnacles, one on each side, and a decorative roof balustrade were added to the façade. The Manueline portal, a work by Diogo de Castilho and the Frenchman Nicolau de Chanterenne, was added between 1522 and 1526. Unfortunately it has suffered badly from erosion.

Diogo Boitaca and the Coimbra-born Marcos Pires oversaw the construction of the impressive Manueline dome over the whole ensemble of the single nave and chancel. Around 1530 a choir loft was added over the entrance, the work of Diogo de Castilho and of the sculptor João de Ruão. Its superb wooden gilded choir stalls are among the few remaining examples of Manueline choir stalls in the country. These were initially made in 1513, for the chancel, by the Flemish woodcarver Machim. In 1518, João Alemão took on the work on the stalls, followed, in 1531, by the French sculptor Francisco Lorete, who enlarged and moved them to the choir-loft. The beautiful Renaissance pulpit in the nave, by Nicolau de Chanterenne, dates from 1521.

In the 18th century a new Baroque pipe organ was installed. The musical instrument was made by the Spaniard Manuel Gómez Herrera, and Francisco Lorete built the carved wooden organ case. The nave walls were covered with blue and white Lisbon azulejos depicting biblical passages.

From 1507 onwards, Manuel I commissioned works of funerary art. Chanterenne made the recumbent effigies of the kings, and the other sculptures and decorative elements are usually attributed to a Master of the Royals Tombs (whose existence is conjectural) and a few other unconfirmed assistants (Diogo Francisco, Pêro Anes, Diogo Fernandes and João Fernandes, among others). Both tombs are profusely decorated with statues and Gothic and Renaissance elements, apart from the Manueline symbols, the armillary sphere and the cross of the Order of Christ.

The chancel houses the tombs of the first two kings of Portugal. The original tombs were in the church’s nartex, close to the central tower of the Romanesque façade, but founding them unbefitting the dignity of the kings, Manuel I comissioned new tombs. Finished in 1520, they are among the most beautiful in the country. The sacristy, built between 1622 and 1624, was designed by Pedro Nunes Tinoco in typical Mannerist style. It is decorated with seventeenth-century tiles and with some remarkable paintings by two of the best sixteenth-century Portuguese painters: Grão Vasco and Cristovão de Figueiredo. The Manueline chapter house was designed by Diogo Boitaca and built between 1507 and 1513. It has a Mannerist chapel designed by Tomé Velho, dating from 1588 – St. Theotonius chapel – where the remains of the founder of the monastery, canonised in the 12th century, are kept. Next to the chapter house is the “Claustro do Silêncio”, the cloister built by Marcos Pires between 1517 and 1522, profusely adorned in the Manueline style. The central fountain was added in the 17th century.

The refectory, commissioned by Friar Brás de Braga, was designed by Diogo de Castilho. Nowadays entrance is made from the Olímpio Nicolau Rui Fernandes street, there is no entrance from the cloister; Hoddard’s sculpture “The Last Supper” used to be kept here, but is now housed in the Machado de Castro National Museum. The Claustro da Manga, formerly part of the monastery complex, is nowadays behind the building. The Renaissance fountain in the centre is the only remaining original element of the cloister. It consists of a small central temple with a lantern supported by eight columns connecting it with four very small bartizan-like chapels, interspersed with water basins. Built in the 1530s by the Frenchman João de Ruão, this architectonic ensemble – the first of its kind built entirely in the Renaissance style in Portugal – has great symbolic and artistic value.

UNIVERSITY OF COIMBRA

700TH ANNIVERSARY

On November 12 1288, the abbot of the Monastery of Alcobaça met with the priors of the Monastery of Santa Cruz, Coimbra, S. Vicente de Fora, Lisbon, Santa Maria de Oliveira de Guimarães, and twenty other major clerics representing the country’s most important sanctuaries – from Mogadouro, in the North, to Loulé, in the South – to request the Pope to confirm the status of the Estudo Geral which founded in Lisbon, ex privilegio, by King Dinis. Possibly owing to the constrained diplomatic relations between the king and the Roman Curia, the papal answer was not forthcoming, and King Dinis did not hesitate to solemnly announce the foundation of the University, with a decree dated Leiria, March 1, 1290. Pope Nicholas IV confirmed the University status with the Papal bull De Statu Regni Portugalliae, sent from Orvieto on August 9 of that year.

Because of serious conflicts between students and Lisbon residents, King Dinis decided to move the University to Coimbra as soon as 1308. Such decisions were not unusual in the history of European medieval universities. Thirty years later, Afonso IV ordered its return to Lisbon but a few years later, in 1377, it was once again moved to Coimbra. King Fernando decided to have it installed in the capital, where it was to remain until the great reform of 1537, under John III, when it was definitively established in Coimbra.

With this reform, based on a forward-looking cultural vision that led to the foundation of the College of the Arts in 1548, the University of Coimbra put an end to a period of stagnation and could henceforth compete with other European centres of higher education, inspired by the powerful humanist and Renaissance movements. Initially the overhaul of university teaching according to the principles of a renewed scholasticism had a significant initial impact on the University (including the College of the Arts), greatly increasing their visibility and vitality, but with time it became a serious obstacle to modernization. On the other hand, the major political upheavals the country had been through, first under Spanish rule, and then with the Restoration war and its consequences, did nothing for the stability of the institution, or for the renovation that such stability usually heralds. This steady decline only came to an end in 1772, when the marquis of Pombal initiates an in-depth reform of the institution, as laid down in the Statutes that he himself handed over to the rector, D. Francisco de Lemos. And even if this reforming Rector was unable to carry out this reform to the full, he managed, at least, to implement modern teaching methods and to promote scientific research, according to the principles of Enlightenment. The full extent of this can be witnessed in the reduced weight of juridical sciences (the Faculties of Canon and Laws were merged into a single Law Faculty), in the foundation of the Faculty of Philosophy (the equivalent to the modern Faculty of Science), in the in-depth reform of the teaching of Mathematics, and in the foundation of modern Laboratories, Museums and the Botanical Garden.

In 1911, following the implantation of the Republic, the University was again under reform. The Faculty of Theology, with a long, rich tradition, was extinguished and replaced by the Faculty of Letters. The new faculty was founded on a radical rejection of the past. It adopted a completely new system of university organization which, with adjustments to the passage of time and to new pedagogic and scientific developments, was to last, in the main, until the late twentieth century. The Faculty of Economics and the Faculty of Psychology and Education Sciences are more recent, while the Faculty of Science and Technology (formerly the Faculty of Philosophy) represents the more technological branches of knowledge.

With highs and lows, the University of Coimbra, born under the patronage of the Church, was able to progressively disengage itself from its power and to form its own identity. Throughout the centuries, it kept an important place in Portuguese society and extended its influence to other latitudes (in its strengths but also in its defects), especially Brazil and Africa, where several universities were created with a similar organization and with a teaching staff from Coimbra.

The University has been able to articulate its institutional conservatism with a constant awareness to the signs of scientific, ideological, aesthetic and even political modernity – to a great extent owing to its students, with their specific ways of life and associations. In its centuries-old existence, the University has, thus, contributed to national stability and at the same time it has been a dynamic force in the country’s history.

To commemorate the 700th anniversary of its foundation is, therefore, a commemoration of the very history of Portugal.

Aníbal Pinto de Castro

Professor da Faculdade de Letras

Former Director of the General Library of the University of Coimbra

Sculptures by Master Cabral Antunes

Bronze medal (90 mm)