Versão portuguesa aqui.

GPS 38.71211988991833, -9.140240973917829

Convento do Carmo de Lisboa is a former convent of the Order of Carmelites of the Ancient Observance located in Largo do Carmo and was built overlooking Rossio (Praça de D. Pedro IV), on the hill bordering that of Castelo de São Jorge, in the city and District of Lisbon, in Portugal.

The Church, which was once the main Gothic church in the capital, and which, due to its grandeur and monumentality, competed with the Lisbon Cathedral itself, was left in ruins due to the 1755 earthquake, not having been rebuilt, constituting one of the main testimonies of the catastrophe. still visible in the city. It is possible that the ruin of the Carmo Convent and the neighboring Trindade Convent, at the time of that earthquake, is at the origin of the popular expression: "Carmo and Trindade fall".

Currently, the ruins of the Church house the Archaeological Museum of Carmo and the General Command of the National Republican Guard is installed in the remaining building of the Convent.

The Convento do Carmo Church has been classified as a National Monument since 1907, while the remainder of the Convento do Carmo is included in the Lisbon Pombaline classification and partially included in the protection zone of the Águas Livres Aqueduct.

History

The Carmo Convent was founded by D. Nuno Álvares Pereira, the Constable of Portugal, in 1389. It was initially occupied by Carmelite friars from the Convent of Nossa Senhora do Carmo de Moura, in Alentejo, called by D. Nuno to join in the convent of Lisbon in 1392. In 1404, D. Nuno donated his own goods to the convent and, in 1423, he himself entered the convent as a religious, period in which his works would be concluded. The Constable of Portugal also chose the Church of the Convent as his tomb, although in 1953 it was moved to the Church of the Holy Constable, in Campo de Ourique, dedicated to him. D. Nuno Álvares Pereira was canonized as São Nuno de Santa Maria by Pope Benedict XVI on April 26, 2009.

On November 1, 1755, the great earthquake and the subsequent fire that killed the city of Lisbon, destroyed a good part of the church and convent, consuming its contents. In the reign of D. Maria I of Portugal, work began on the reconstruction of a wing of the convent, now in neo-Gothic style, but the work was interrupted in 1834 when the religious orders were abolished.

The pillars and arches of the naves bear witness to this first reconstructive period, a true testament to experimental neo-Gothic architecture of a scenographic nature.

In the middle of the 19th century, with the romantic taste for ruins and ancient medieval monuments prevailing, it was decided not to continue with the reconstruction of the complex, leaving the body of the church’s naves open to the sky and thus creating an idyllic scene of ruins, that so pleased 19th-century aesthetes and that still enchants visitors today.

The habitable part of the convent was converted into military installations in 1836. It was here, in the Carmo Barracks, headquarters of the General Command of the GNR, that the President of the Council of the Estado Novo, Marcelo Caetano, took refuge from the military rebels, during the Revolution of Carnations. The siege of this barracks was directed by Captain Salgueiro Maia.

In Largo do Carmo, opposite the convent, is the 18th-century Carmo Fountain, designed by Ângelo Belasco and decorated with four dolphins.

Characteristics

The set is rooted in Mendicant Gothic, with some influence from the shipyard of the Monastery of Santa Maria da Vitória da Batalha, which had been founded by King D. João I of Portugal and which was also under construction at the time. Over the centuries it received additions and alterations, adapting to new tastes and architectural styles.

The façade of the convent church has a portal with several smooth archivolts with decorated capitals. The rose window above the portal is destroyed. The south facade of the church is supported by five flying buttresses, added in 1399 after a collapse during the construction of the church. The interior has three naves and an apse with a chancel and four apses. The roof of the church's nave disappeared with the earthquake, and only the transverse ogival arches that supported it are visible today.

Carmo Archaeological Museum

The main body of the church and the choir, whose roof withstood the earthquake, were renovated and now house an Archaeological Museum with a small but interesting collection. From the Portuguese Paleolithic and Neolithic, the pieces from the excavations of a prehistoric fortification near Azambuja (3500 BC - 1500 BC) stand out.

The nucleus of Gothic tombs includes that of D. Fernando Sanches (early 14th century), decorated with wild boar hunting scenes, and the magnificent tomb of King D. Fernando I (1367-1383), transferred from a convent in Santarém to the museum. Also noteworthy is a statue of a king from the 13th century (perhaps D. Afonso Henriques), as well as Roman and Visigoth pieces and even two Peruvian mummies.