After yesterday's visit to Nasoni's Clerigos Church and Tower, and since I'm on my own today (Donna has meetings), I'm thinking I should see what else this Baroque master built in Porto.
From the gift store in the Tower, I have a little book (Nasoni's Oporto) that is like a walk through the city with Nasoni. What a fun idea - my students know that I enjoy little architecture books that you can read for ten minutes or read strait through. And I love little books full of pictures and diagrams - so this one seems like a gem.
So I decide to take a bit of that walk, starting from the Tower.
From the tower square, we dive into the ancient city. Wow, these are tiny, windy streets. I thought we had covered tiny and windy, but this is a new level; some "streets" clearly pre-date the automobile.
We first arrive at Iregja da Misericordia (Church of Mercy and Charity). This is an older church that Nasoni completed; the original idea was to have the church fronting on a small square, but that was not possible, so the design is a tall, wavy, high-relief facade that stands out from the adjoining blocks. Every view of the facade is on-angle, plus all the trucks and decoration in preparation for Sao Joao make it really hard to take in.
Inside, the church blends traditional Portuguese tilework (azulejo) and Italian baroque stonework to create a captivating hybrid. It holds a simple, barrel-vaulted space of comfortable scale, with splashes of bright ornament and high-relief stone carving between the tiled walls; instead of polychrome stone, the different patterns and finishes define the parts and the rhythms of the space.
In the adjoining museum, the collection tells the story of this "mercy and charity" community. As I am taking in the details, a large tour group enters, so I depart for a while, and find my way to the balcony, and then to a side door to the choir and the apse. I return to find the attendant polishing the banisters. I find everything in this museum is well kept, clean, and the guards are extremely attentive, providing suggestions for how to proceed through the rooms.
The first few rooms are filled with oddball objects that explain the medical, educational, and religious mission of the brotherhood that established this church: a toothpick dispenser, an electric shock machine, a cabinet full of blocks that teach the metric system, and some strange reliquaries (the bones for the body parts appear in the windows built in the forms). There is also a triptych of large paintings that had been the altar piece, accompanied by a tiny, 3D-ish presentation showing how the panels were displayed - really nicely done.
In the last rooms and cases are some of the drawings that Nasoni executed for the facade, along with log books for the construction.
Next stop is the Cathedral (Se); back into the maze. Siri has me going all over, and I have to double-back and make a lot of tight hairpin turns. What's cool is that once you get to a little plaza, then up the stairs, then on the switch-back road, then turn, and you can look back down on the plaza where you started.
Then you literally pop out of the maze, up a long ramp, and into the Cathedral square; you can see the whole city all around, and three large buildings: church, cloister, and palace.
The square is anchored, of course, by the Church, but to the south is the immense presence of the Bishop's Palace, also by Nasoni. And on the cathedral itself, Nasoni added parts of the facade, and the logia on the north side of the church, facing the city. One imagines the architect, presented with a set of problems to solve, finds a way to integrate the "new, baroque" elements with the old, gothic structure and stonework: rose window above a split pediment held by doric columns, and flying buttresses that join with paired-column piers and wide-and-narrow arches - and lots of fiddly stuff poking out the top of everything.
Inside, it's almost all gothic, clean and simple, except for the apse and altar where things get lively again. I like that the hybrid parts are legible, but still seem to be working together.
The Bishop's Palace issues much, much bigger than the church itself, especially as it steps down the hill. Plain and white, with vertical sets of sculpted stone windows marching along all sides. But again, the interior is simple and clean, with flourishes of stone ornament; easy enough on the eyes and very well proportioned.
We end the night at Flow. I start with some really flavorful (but probably not good for me) sliders made with alheira - fatty, Portuguese game sausages. And follow with another big portion of prehistoric shrimp atop a mound of potato straws - tasty, but split and grilled, they are a tad dry. Perhaps, so far, the worst meal of the trip, but still a pretty good meal.
Almost have to apologize of the number of pictures; I really do try to edit these down.
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