Sao Roque, Lisbon

 

Memories from my first Lisbon visit left no ecclesiastical highlights. In the meantime I was dazzled by a special feature in the V&A Exhibition Catalogue "Baroque : style in the age of Magnificence" about a chapel in the Jesuit church of Sao Roque. This was so special because only the finest materials were used and it was designed and created in Rome, centre of the Baroque world and then re-assembled in Lisbon. It had to be seen.

View down the nave. The St John the Baptist chape
 is on the left nearest the altar

I have to be honest and say that there are 8 side chapels in Sao Roque of great magnificence and it takes the eye of an enthusiast or expert to pick out the famous one. It is only 17 x 12 feet  and as we shall see, although  the design was modified, its importance lies in its survival from the 1755 earthquake, complete with the documentation regarding its planning and creation, and the remarkable collection of liturgical furnishings, silverware, vestments of the highest quality. I must return to go in the attached museum to see this collection.

View back to entrance from St John Baptist chapel

Sao Roque dates from the 1550s and was the first Jesuit church in the  Portuguese world. It is a real preachers' auditorium church : wide, single nave, short apse, little transepts. There is a trompe l'oeil ceiling  painted by Francisco Venegas 1584-6, Philip II of Spain's painter. 

KIng Joao V (1706-50) is  fascinating. He is the Portuguese Sun King (trying to ape Louis XIV) and lucky to be able to draw on vast income from the Portuguese empire, especially Brazil. Although very religious he treated the national income for his own spectacular building  and artistic projects. He was a generous patron, a great reader and book collector. His almost megalomaniac Palace/Monastery at Mafra (the Portuguese Escorial) just has to be seen. The Jesuits convinced him he should  commission a special chapel at Sao Roque in Lisbon dedicated to  his patron St John the Baptist. Money no object it seems because it was to be ordered from Rome, and designed by Luigi Vanvitelli (1700-1773) using the best materials. Joao wanted to upgrade his status as a Catholic monarch. The chapel was part of the process.

The designs for the chapel by Vanvitelli did not meet the approval of the King's  architect Johann Friedrich Ludovice (1673-1752) .He was the son of a goldsmith from Hall in Swabia, studied in Rome under the Jesuit Pozzo and became Catholic in 1700. In Lisbon from 1701 he became very influential and Joao's architect. The design's were not Palladian enough. Therefore arguably the finished product we see today is not the masterpiece it could have been. However the work was consecrated by Pope Benedict  XIV, shipped to Lisbon in 1747. It took a year to install.  Columns of Lapis lazuli and gilded bronze, agate alabaster and Siena marble form the plinths and cornice. 

Joao could only have experienced it for few years. His health was never good and he died in 1750.