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CARMO'S CONVENT
The Convento do Carmo was founded by D. Nuno Álvares Pereira, the Constable of Portugal, in 1389, having joined the Convent as a religious in 1423. The Constable of Portugal also chose the Church of the Convent as his tomb, although in 1953 he had was transferred to the Church of Santo Condestável, in Campo de Ourique, dedicated to him. D. Nuno Álvares Pereira was canonized as Saint Nuno de Santa Maria.
It was built in the Gothic Mendicant style (visibly influenced by the Monastery of Santa Maria da Vitória da Batalha), with a Latin cross plan. It was once the main Gothic church in the capital, and due to its grandeur and monumentality it competed with the Cathedral of Lisbon itself. Over the centuries it has been targeted and added and altered that reflect the architectural tastes and styles of those times.
It has been classified as a National Monument since 1910.
The great earthquake of November 1, 1755 and the destructive fire that followed, destroyed much of the church and convent, consuming its contents.
During the reign of D. Maria I of Portugal, the reconstruction of a wing of the convent, already in neo-Gothic style, began, but the work was interrupted in 1834 when the religious orders disappeared.
In the mid 19th century, the romantic taste for ruins and ancient medieval monuments dominated, it was decided not to continue the reconstruction of the set, leaving the body of the church naves open to the sky and thus creating an idyllic ruin scenario, which so pleased the nineteenth-century aesthetes and which still enchants visitors today, and which also makes the terrible day of November 1, 1755, last in the collective memory.
The habitable part of the convent was converted into military installations in 1836. It was at 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 revolting military during the Carnation Revolution , 25 April 1974. The siege of this barracks was directed by Captain Salgueiro Maia.
GPS coordinates: 38º 42' 44'' N 9th 8' 24'' W
Location: Largo do Carmo | Lisbon
Telephone: (+351) 213 460 473 / 478 629
Email: secretaria@arqueologos.pt