Page 108 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide - Portugal

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MOSTEIRO DOS

JERÓNIMOS

EXPERIENCE Belém  C9 ⌂ Praça do Império (combined ticket for monastery and Torre de Belém

available) @ 714, 727, 728, 729, 751 v 15 £ Belém # 10am–5:30pm Tue–Sun
(to 6:30pm May–Sep) ¢ Public hols ∑ mosteirojeronimos.gov.pt
Belém’s most popular tourist attraction, this highly ornate monastery is a
National Monument and was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1983.
A monument to the wealth of the Age of Discovery (p44),
the monastery was commissioned by Manuel I around
1501, and was financed largely by “pepper money” – a tax
levied on spices, precious stones and gold. The monas tery
was cared for by the Order of St Jerome (Hieronymites)
until 1834, when all religious orders were disbanded. The walls of the
Great figures from Portugal’s history are entombed here refectory are tiled with
– but one tomb stands empty: that of the “longed for” 18th-century azulejos.
Dom Sebastião, the young king who never returned
from battle in 1578.

The monastery’s exterior,
designed to emphasize the
Portuguese empire’s wealth

T
The decorated exterior he decorated exterior
and interior of the nd interior of the
a
Mosteiro dos Jerónimososteiro dos Jerónimos
M
The west portal,
The modern wing, designed by the
built in 1850 in Neo- French sculptor
Manueline style, houses Nicolau Chanterène
the Museu Nacional de
Arqueologia (p113).
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