Igreja de Nossa Senhora do Rosario (Velha Goa)
The Igreja de Nossa Senhora do Rosário , German Church of Our Lady of the Rosary , is a Roman Catholic church in the Indian city of Velha Goa . The complex, built in its current form around 1549, is part of the UNESCO World Heritage ensemble “ Churches and Monasteries of Goa ” (see World Heritage in India ).
history
Legend has it that a small chapel in honor of Our Lady of the Rosary was built on the instructions of Afonso de Albuquerque after receiving news that Goa had been taken by the Portuguese in 1510. According to Gaspar Correia, this small chapel is said to have been designed and built by the builder Antão Nogueira de Brito on Monte Santo (Holy Mountain) in Goa.
A good 30 years later, numerous people were already living on Monte Santo, so that the Portuguese rulers recognized the need to establish their own parish with their own church. There is little information about the construction of the church itself, but it is said to have started in 1543 - together with the Igreja de Nossa Senhora da Luz and the Capela de Santa Cantarina . Goa, the capital of the Portuguese colony, had three parishes with three churches. A letter from the community to the Portuguese King João III. from the year 1548 is supposed to prove that the church arose from the extension of the original chapel, another letter from the year 1549 again that the church was "completely rebuilt".
Due to its location - it is located relatively far outside the original city center of Velha Goa - the church has not in fact been changed since it was built. In the course of the relocation of the capital from (Old) Goa to (New) Goa (today Panaji) the church lost its importance. It is said to have been renovated in 1897/1899.
In 1986, UNESCO named the church a World Heritage Site as part of the “Monasteries and Churches of Goa” ensemble . In the Portuguese monument database Sistema de Informação para o Património Arquitectónico , which also includes monuments from former Portuguese colonies, the church is registered with the number 11444. It is entered in the database of the Archaeological Survey of India with the number N-GA-6.
architecture
outer appearance
The facade of the church has three floors with cylindrical buttresses and several cylindrical towers. The towers frame the entrance portal and give the church the character of a fortress. In addition, slight Manueline design elements can be seen on the facade, with large cords on the cornice and the individual towers. The southern tower has a spiral staircase to get to the rood screen.
For a very early Portuguese church, which was also far from the metropolis , the church has an exceptionally spacious design. Nevertheless, although it must have been built within a decade, it does not form a stylistic unit: both on the narthex and on the north facade there are door frames that already reveal aspects of the Renaissance , comparable to the Igreja de Nossa Senhora da Graça in Évora ( Portugal). The Manueline facade elements contrast this.
The Igreja de Nossa Senhora do Rosário is considered to be the oldest surviving building in Velha Goa. It is also considered to be the only building that still has (mainly) medieval construction and architectural elements. The church is thus a testimony to the earlier Christianization of Goa and is probably only preserved because it was (and is) far outside the actual city, so that it escaped the modernization measures of the Portuguese. Other buildings from a comparable period have, in part, been heavily built over and remodeled.
inner space
The church consists of only one nave with a main altar and two side chapels. The nave today has a partly open roof after parts of it are said to have collapsed in 1897. The side chapels and the altar are designed with leaf vein vaults in the shape of a star.
The main altar is dedicated to Our Lady of the Rosary. While the vault of the apse corresponds to the Gothic style, the main room of the church is largely designed in the Manueline style. In the apse there is also a grave tablet with the inscription Aqui jaz Dona Catarina, mulher de Garcia de Sá, a qual pede a quem isto ler que peça misericórida a Deus para sua alma (“Here rests Dona Catarina, wife of Garcia de Sá, for whom whoever reads this may pray to God for mercy for their souls ”). Garcia de Sá (died 1549), colonial governor of Portuguese India, is buried below the apse .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e f António Nunes Pereira: Igreja de Nossa Senhora do Rosário. In: Património de Influência Portuguesa (HPIP). Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, July 26, 2012, accessed November 25, 2017 (Portuguese).
- ↑ a b Sofia Diniz: Igreja de Nossa Senhora do Rosário / Igreja do Priorado Velho. In: Sistema de Informação para o Património Arquitectónico. 2002, accessed November 25, 2017 (Portuguese).
Coordinates: 15 ° 30 ′ 6.4 ″ N , 73 ° 54 ′ 17.6 ″ E