Diogo Boitaca

Diogo Boitaca laid the foundations of the Church of the Mosteiro dos Jerónimos in Belém ( Lisbon ) as a hall church

Diogo Boitaca (approx. 1460-1528?) Was one of the most important architects of the Manueline style in Portugal .

biography

His name has been passed down in different variants: Diogo Boitaca, Diogo de Boitaca, Diogo Boytac and Diogo de Boytac. His origin and year of birth are unknown, but it is believed that he came from (southern) France and was born around 1460.

His family name appears for the first time in 1498 in a document in which King Manuel I granted him an annual fee for his work at the Convento de Jesus in Setúbal . Boitaca's signature appears on a document from 1514, and his name is mentioned in a number of documents dating from 1515 to 1521 that are in the Batalha Monastery . His first name is mentioned only once, in a list of members who took part in the unfortunate expedition to São João da Mamora (today: Mehdia in Morocco ) in 1515 , where the Portuguese lost 4,000 men.

1510 Diogo Boitaca Count Vasco Menezes Coutinho for his participation in the siege of Arzila (now Asilah , Morocco ) to the Knights defeated. While working at Batalha Monastery, he married Isabel Henriques in 1512, daughter of Mateus Fernandes , who also worked as an architect at the same monastery. Boitaca settled in Batalha in 1516, where he died in 1528. He was buried in the Batalha Monastery, near the tomb of Mateus Fernandes.

plant

Manueline style vault of the choir , Convento de Jesus , Setúbal

Boitaca's first known work is the Convento de Jesus in Setúbal, originally founded outside the city walls by Justa Rodrigues Pereira and sponsored by Dom João II . In 1490 the king commissioned Boitaca to build the monastery church, which is considered the first building in the Manueline style typical of Portugal - a mixture of late Gothic and Renaissance elements with symbols of seafaring.

Here he introduced the concept of a single-nave church, the roof of which is supported by high pillars in the form of gigantic twisted ropes ; the pillars also serve to accentuate the space and suggest a three-aisle structure. Ship ropes also appear in the decoration of the choir room .

A similar spatial concept can later be found in the Santa Maria church of the famous Mosteiro dos Jerónimos in Belém near Lisbon , Boitaca's next known work, one of the most important buildings in Portugal and a highlight of Manueline art. Boitaca worked on it from 1502 to 1516; the king gave him the title of "Master of Royal Buildings" ("Mestre das Obras do Reino"). He was also responsible for the first floor of the cloister with its Manueline decor. The church pillars and outer walls were finished when he was called to new projects. His successor in Belém was his colleague João de Castilho , who gradually changed from the Manueline style to a plateresque decoration.

At the same time as the Mosteiro dos Jerónimos , Boitaca also worked on the equally famous Torre de Belém , very close to the monastery, and as a royal architect he was also involved in several other projects, but his exact role is not always known exactly.

In 1507 he worked on the renovation of the Santa Cruz Monastery in Coimbra , where he was responsible for the layout of the church and the chapter house . He reduced the interior of the church to a single-nave space and made various other changes. In 1513 he came back to supervise the completion of the work.

In 1507 he also built the Jeronimos Monastery of Nossa Senhora da Pena on a hill in Sintra (today part of the Palácio da Pena ). Its influence can be seen in the concept of the vault.

From 1509 he is documented in Batalha, where he may have been the site manager of the monastery, but that is not exactly certain. He was responsible for erecting the pillars of the Capelas Imperfeitas (the unfinished chapels), with their Manueline decor. The decoration of the cloister and cloister, begun in Gothic style by Huguet, was probably continued by Boitaca in an assimilated Manueline style.

In 1511 he was in Coimbra, where he built the slaughterhouse together with Mateus Fernandes , made improvements to the bridge over the Mondego River (Ponte de Santa Clara), and channeled the course of the river. Sometimes other architects worked according to Boitaca's designs, for example Marcos Pires, who built the Great Hall (Sala Grande) of the Manueline royal palace. The apse of the São Miguel University Chapel in Coimbra was also extended and enlarged according to plans by Boitaca.

In 1514 he went to Morocco (for the second time), where he built the fortress of Mamora (today: Mehdia or Mâmora, near Rabat ), which, however, had to be ceded to the Moors as early as 1515 and became a capital of the dreaded barbarian corsairs .

literature

• J. Turner: Boitaca, Diogo. In: The Grove Dictionary of Art. Macmillan Publishers Ltd, 1996. ISBN 0-19-517068-7
• The Rough Guide to Portugal, 11th edition. March 2005. ISBN 1-84353-438-X
• Portugal - De Arbeiderspers. 9th edition, Amsterdam, August 1999. ISBN 90-295-3466-4 (Dutch translation of an original text by J. Rentes de Carvalho in: Portugal, um guia para amigos. )
• Margarida Valla: O papel dos arquitectos e englheiros militares na transmissão das formas urbanas portuguesas. Lecture at the IV Congresso Luso-Afro-Brasileiro, Rio de Janeiro, 1996, online .

Web links

Commons : Diogo Boitaca  - collection of images, videos and audio files