September 26• Church of Bom Jesus of Mount, Braga

21h30 • Concert Portuguese Polyphony

 

To top the ascending, purifying itinerary of the Braga sacro monte, which, like the first of its kind – in Varallo, Italy – combines a naturalistic reconstruction of Heavenly Jerusalem with the medieval concept of hortus conclusus, Carlos Amarante designed the Bom Jesus Church (1784 - 1811) for archbishop Dom Gaspar de Bragança. It replaced another temple, built on a central plan by Dom Rodrigo de Moura Teles. Actually, three other churches had previously stood on that same location: one from the 14th century, consecrated to Christ the Saviour; the second was erected in 1494 by Braga archbishop Dom Jorge da Costa; as to the third, which dates from 1522, its construction is attributed to Braga See dean João da Guarda, and there are still traces of one of its entrances, in a late Gothic style.

Precisely one century later, in 1622, the Bom Jesus do Monte Confraternity was founded, right after Friar Agostinho de Jesus had built, on the grounds of the Nossa Senhora do Pópulo Convent (which belonged to his order, the Augustinian Eremites), one of Portugal's oldest via crucis. The members of the Confraternity built a chapel with the effigy of Christ on the Cross, as well as facilities to shelter pilgrims. Also from that time is a series of niches depicting some of the Stations of the Cross: the Descent from the Cross, the Deposition in the Tomb, the Resurrection and the Ascension.  Around 1722, enterprising archbishop Dom Rodrigo de Moura Teles began the construction, using a project attributed to engineer Manuel Pinto de Vila Lobos, of the present sanctuary, whose stairway would be topped, as previously mentioned, by a central-plan church.

Carlos Amarante (1784-1815), the son of a musician who played at the Braga archiepiscopal court, was a self-taught architect, who drew his learning essentially from the library in the palace of archbishop Dom Gaspar. His first projects were mainly houses for Braga families. The fact that these were followed by a commission to design the Bom Jesus Church – as well as its gardens, chapels, 'Virtues' stairway and other elements in the sanctuary – meant a gigantic advancement in his career.  

Amarante's version of the Neoclassical style, of which he was one of the first Portuguese proponents, owes much to traditional Minho architecture. That is most visible in the bulbous, dynamic spires of the church's towers, but also in the façade, where the architect reprises compositional devices with local precedents. Inside, the planimetry is equally traditional: a Latin cross-shaped ground plan with side chapels in the nave, the transept and by the crossing arch, and a rectangular main chapel. More innovative, in terms of Northern Portuguese architecture, is the cupola and pendentives with an inner balcony that dominates the crossing. In the elevations, the traditional Portuguese concept of a thick, self-supporting stone wall remains unchanged and the Corinthian order is adopted, with heavy capitals on the pilasters that mark the spans containing the side chapels. The walls' panels are filled with ornamental paintings that mimic the breccia or marble from the Arrábida Hills. The paintings and stuccoes with vegetable motifs have relinquished the delicateness of Rococo, without forgetting its forms, and took on a heavy self-consciousness.

Self-consciousness is, indeed, one of the rules of Neoclassicism; it is present in the solemn immobility of the retables, of which the ones in the side chapels display polychrome and marble-like painted surfaces, with only a few gilded elements, while the rest combine beige, polychrome and gilded sections. It also extends to the building's overall ornamentation and architecture, being especially clear in the overwhelming firmitas and earthly presence of the three-dimensional baldachin in the main chapel, which has replaced the Heaven's gates of the Baroque and Rococo retables. (JFA)