Events Calendar
Guided walk by Isabel Macieira
Meet at the Art Gallery Espaço A, Rua Almirante Cândido dos Reis 157A Tavira.The charge for the walk is €5.
With the conquest of Ceuta in the early years of the fifteenth century, Portugal began a series of military campaigns in North Africa. Tavira became the port of departure for these campaigns, and the town thus assumed enormous strategic importance in the late fifteenth century and particularly during the first half of the sixteenth century. During that period, the town developed at pace, and the opening of new streets and construction of major buildings underlined this importance, and the surviving built environment of that period serves to emphasise Tavira´s important role. During the first half of the sixteenth century there were in Tavira two contemporary building styles: Manueline gothic, named at the time (in building contracts) as "the modern buildings" and the Renaissance style, dubbed "the Roman buildings." The second style was developed in Tavira by the architect André Pilarte in particular. Pilarte had worked at the stonemason´s yards for the construction of the Jerónimos Monastery in Belém near Lisbon, and he returned to his home town to plan and direct the construction of the Misericórdia Church, the building of which began in 1541. As a consequence of the construction of the Misericórdia there arose in Tavira a school of Renaissance builders, which had great influence in the wider Algarve, and which also had influence at a national level. This "school" was responsible for the widespread adoption of the Renaissance style in various churches and civil buildings throughout the region and even further afield, for example over the border in Ayamonte and Huelva.
On this guided walk, we will see examples of these two architectural styles in different civil and religious buildings in the town.
Misericórdia Church, Tavira
For more information or to book for the guided walk, please contact: