Bragança: up to the walled Cidadela: a self-guided walk

By Alleytale

From the lower town's chapels and churches up into the walled Cidadela

Bragança's life has always run uphill toward the walls: a governor's chapel, a Jesuit cross, a charitable brotherhood, a bishop's palace, a convent and a parish church below, and inside the Cidadela the church, the council hall, the pillory and the castle that governed the town.

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The stops

1. 1Capela de Santo António

   Governor António Figueiredo Sarmento, a knight of the Order of Christ, had this small square chapel built in 1708 on the old Toural field. He died in 1713 and was buried in the tomb in front of it. Over the door is the royal coat of arms under a closed crown, and inside the main altarpiece is gilded and painted carved wood in the late Baroque style.

   

2. 2Cruzeiro da Sé

   This twisted stone cross was put up in 1689 on the order of the Jesuits, in the square in front of their old college. In 1875 the mayor had it pulled down, to the anger of the townspeople, and for decades its pieces were kept in the public cemetery. It was rebuilt here and officially reopened in March 1931, paid for by public subscription and based on a drawing of 1925.

   

3. 3Igreja da Misericórdia de Bragança

   The Santa Casa da Misericórdia, a charitable brotherhood that also ran a hospital, was founded here in 1518 on the site of an earlier chapel of Mary Magdalene. Work on the front and walls of the church ran from 1678 to 1680, and the carver Manuel de Madureira made the high altar in 1681 and 1682. A tile panel on the façade bears the date 1875 and the Misericórdia's arms.

   

4. 4Museu do Abade de Baçal

   This museum fills Bragança's former episcopal palace. It is named for Father Francisco Manuel Alves, known as the Abade de Baçal, a scholar from Trás-os-Montes who directed it from 1925 and enriched its collections. Inside are Roman altars, milestones and funerary stones, sacred art, and a collection of masks from Trás-os-Montes.

   

5. 5Igreja de São Vicente

   Tradition says that the future King Pedro I and Inês de Castro were secretly married in this church. The building itself dates from the 16th to the 18th century, and the national heritage inventory concludes that its front was turned to face the town's main square after the old bell tower fell in the 17th century. The tile panel by the door recalls General Sepúlveda, who led Bragança's rising against the French in 1808.

   

6. 6Mosteiro de São Bento

   A Benedictine convent for women on the street that leads to São Francisco. A deed of 1520 describes its first core as the houses of Helena da Costa and her daughter Maria Teixeira, and in 1589 a papal brief allowed nuns from the Vairão monastery to move in. The mason Martinho da Veiga built the portal in 1690 and topped it with an image of Saint Benedict, and the chancel has a Mudejar ceiling from the late 16th or early 17th century.

   

7. 7Museu Ibérico da Máscara e do Traje

   This small museum in an old house inside the Cidadela opened in 2007. It is devoted to the winter and Carnival traditions of Trás-os-Montes and of the Spanish province of Zamora, and was created through cross-border cooperation between Bragança's municipality and the Diputación of Zamora. Look for the masks and costumes, which come from villages on both sides of the border.

   

8. 8Igreja de Santa Maria

   Look at the doorway first: its stone columns are twisted and wrapped in carved vine leaves. The national heritage inventory says the church was probably first built in the 12th century, and that the Duke of Bragança had it enlarged in the second half of the 16th century, which meant pulling down neighbouring houses. Inside are three naves, and the painted ceiling of the nave dates from the middle of the 18th century.

   

9. 9Domus Municipalis

   Domus Municipalis means "municipal house", a name probably given to it only in the 19th century. This granite building is an irregular pentagon with a cistern below that stored water and a council hall above, where a stone bench runs all the way around the inside. Historians still argue about its age: the national heritage inventory dates the hall to 1510, built over a medieval cistern, while older writers called it Romanesque.

   

10. 10Pelourinho de Bragança

    The shaft of this pillory passes through a rough granite boar, known as the "porca da vila", the town sow, which the national heritage inventory dates, probably, to about 500 BC. The carved capital has four arms, and holes in them probably held the rings used to chain prisoners. The pillory is usually dated to the 13th century, though the national heritage inventory thinks it was built in the 16th, and it was moved to this square near the keep in 1860.

    

11. 11Castelo de Bragança

    In 1187 King Sancho I gave the town its charter and ordered the castle built, and in 1409 King João I began some forty years of work on the walls and towers. The wall around the old town is reinforced by 15 towers. The keep has housed a military museum since 1936.

    

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