The Church of Nossa Senhora da Assunção is the

Mother Church Mother church or matrice is a term depicting the Christian Church as a mother in her functions of nourishing and protecting the believer. It may also refer to the primary church of a Christian denomination or diocese, i.e. a cathedral or a metro ...

of the city of

Cascais Cascais () is a town and municipality in the Lisbon District of Portugal, located on the Portuguese Riviera. The municipality has a total of 214,158 inhabitants in an area of 97.40 km2. Cascais is an important tourism in Portugal, tourist de ...

, in the

Lisbon district Lisbon District ( pt, Distrito de Lisboa, ) is a district located along the western coast of Portugal. The district capital is the city of Lisbon, which is also the national capital. From its creation until 1926, it included the area of the cur ...

, of

Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic ( pt, República Portuguesa, links=yes ), is a country whose mainland is located on the Iberian Peninsula of Southwestern Europe, and whose territory also includes the Atlantic archipelagos of ...

. Its date of construction is unknown but some internal decoration has been dated as being between 1520 and 1525 and the church is clearly visible in a 1572 engraving showing a view of Cascais from the sea.

History

Nossa Senhora da Assunção is believed to have been constructed on the site of a

Visigoth The Visigoths (; la, Visigothi, Wisigothi, Vesi, Visi, Wesi, Wisi) were an early Germanic people who, along with the Ostrogoths, constituted the two major political entities of the Goths within the Roman Empire in late antiquity, or what is kno ...

necropolis A necropolis (plural necropolises, necropoles, necropoleis, necropoli) is a large, designed cemetery with elaborate tomb monuments. The name stems from the Ancient Greek ''nekropolis'', literally meaning "city of the dead". The term usually im ...

in the early 16th century. The church still has four painted panels from the first quarter of the 16th century, attributed to the Master of Lourinhã, which were probably part of an altarpiece. A 1572 engraving by Georgius Branius in the work "Civitates Urbius Terrarum" (1593 edition), shows the village of Cascais surrounded by a wall with the church outside the walls and close to the sea. In 1671, it underwent reconstruction, which probably involved the execution of a new altarpiece. In 1673, a painting of the

Baby Jesus The Christ Child, also known as Divine Infant, Baby Jesus, Infant Jesus, the Divine Child, Child Jesus, the Holy Child, Santo Niño, and to some as Señor Noemi refers to Jesus Christ from his nativity to age 12. The four canonical gospels, a ...

was done by

Josefa de Óbidos Josefa de Óbidos (; – 22 July 1684) was a Spanish-born Portuguese painter. Her birth name was Josefa de Ayala Figueira, but she signed her work as "Josefa em Óbidos" or "Josefa de Ayalla". All of her work was executed in Portugal, her fathe ...

for the Capela das Almas (Chapel of the Souls). The restored church was formally inaugurated in 1681. In 1720 the tiles of the

sacristy A sacristy, also known as a vestry or preparation room, is a room in Christian churches for the keeping of vestments (such as the alb and chasuble) and other church furnishings, sacred vessels, and parish records. The sacristy is usually located ...

and the

nave The nave () is the central part of a church, stretching from the (normally western) main entrance or rear wall, to the transepts, or in a church without transepts, to the chancel. When a church contains side aisles, as in a basilica-type ...

were painted with scenes from the life of

Mary, mother of Jesus Mary; arc, ܡܪܝܡ, translit=Mariam; ar, مريم, translit=Maryam; grc, Μαρία, translit=María; la, Maria; cop, Ⲙⲁⲣⲓⲁ, translit=Maria was a first-century Jews, Jewish woman of Nazareth, the wife of Saint Joseph, Jose ...

and in 1723 a new ceiling was added. The church suffered significant damage as a result of the

1755 Lisbon earthquake The 1755 Lisbon earthquake, also known as the Great Lisbon earthquake, impacted Portugal, the Iberian Peninsula, and Northwest Africa on the morning of Saturday, 1 November, Feast of All Saints, at around 09:40 local time. In combination with ...

, particularly in the area of the façade and the upper choir, preventing its normal operation. Restoration included the integration of the 17th-century towers into the façade. Following the

dissolution of the monasteries in Portugal The dissolution of the monasteries in Portugal was a nationalization of the property of male monastic orders effected by a decree of 28 May 1834 enacted by Joaquim António de Aguiar at the conclusion of the Portuguese Civil War. Portugal thus termi ...

in 1834, further paintings by Josefa de Óbidos were moved from the nearby convent of Nossa Senhora da Piedade to the nave of the church. In 1898 the businessman, Jorge O'Neil donated an organ to the church and in 1900 the ceiling panel was painted by

José Malhoa José Vital Branco Malhoa, known simply as José Malhoa (28 April 1855 – 26 October 1933) was a Portuguese painter. Malhoa was, with Columbano Bordalo Pinheiro, the leading name in Portuguese naturalist painting in the second half of the ...

with the

Assumption of Our Lady The Assumption of Mary is one of the four Marian dogmas of the Catholic Church. Pope Pius XII defined it in 1950 in his apostolic constitution ''Munificentissimus Deus'' as follows: We proclaim and define it to be a dogma revealed by Go ...

, following a commission from Queen D. Amélia who, like other members of the royal family, stayed in Cascais for part of the summer every year.

References

Churches in Lisbon District Buildings and structures in Cascais {{Portal, Portugal