09 February 2019

Two Carmelite churches in
Porto are separated by
a narrow ‘hidden house’

Igreja dos Carmelitas on the left and Igreja do Carmo on the right are separated by a narrow, hidden house (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

Patrick Comerford

At every turn, on every corner, and on every hill top in Porto this week, it seemed there was yet another beautiful baroque church, with walls covered in typical blue-and-white Portuguese azulejo tiles, and stories to tell about Portuguese architecture and church history.

The first church I visited this week was Porto’s Se or Cathedral. But in the days that followed, I visited many more churches in Portugal’s second city.

At the Carmelite site on the corner of Praça de Carlos Alberto and Rua do Carmo in the heart of the city, I found not one but two churches, with three separate buildings on the site, although at first glance they seem to form just one composition.

Although the Carmo Church and the Carmelite Church stand as two separate churches, they form what appears to be one single building.

The Igreja dos Carmelitas or Carmelite Church is the earlier of the two churches. It was built in the 17th century for the Carmelite order of nuns. The exterior was completed in 1628. However, the interior decoration was not completed until 1650.

The convent no longer exists and is now occupied by the Republican National Guard.

The façade of granite stonework has three arched entrances with arches, surmounted by three niches with images of Saint Joseph, Saint Teresa of Avila and Our Lady of Mount Carmel. Above are three windows and at the top of the façade a triangular pediment is surmounted by balusters.

The bell tower to the left is lined with blue and white azulejos tiles and topped with a dome.

Inside, the Church of the Carmelites is in the shape of a Latin cross, with a single nave, six ornately decorated side chapels and a narthex at the entrance. The main altar and the side chapels have excellent gilded carving in the baroque and rococo styles. The main altarpiece was designed by Joaquim Teixeira de Guimarães and executed by José Teixeira Guimarães.

The white ceiling and large windows add a lightness to the interior. The organ was restored recently thanks to contributions from the general public.

Inside the Igreja do Carmo or Carmo Church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

The Igreja do Carmo or Carmo Church was built beside the earlier church in the 18th century for the men of the Carmelite Third Order. Third orders extended to lay members the same spiritual privileges of the first and second male and female orders. The Third Order of Our Lady of Carmo in Porto was founded in 1736.

The Igreja do Carmo was built between 1756 and 1768 in the rococo or late baroque style by Jose de Figueiredo Seixas, a student of Nicolau Nasoni. The church is dedicated to Saint Anne (26 July), mother of the Virgin Mary, and opened on 24 July 1768.

Architecturally speaking, this is probably the more eye-catching building, built in the baroque style, with the exterior side walls decorated with azulejo ceramic tiles of white and blue.

The upper levels of the richly crafted façade of the Igreja do Carmo or Carmo Church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

The façade is richly crafted with a rectangular portal, flanked by sculptures of the prophets Elijah and Elisha carved in Italy. It was said that Saint Anne had appeared to the first group of Carmelites, while the prophets Elijah and Elisha are associated with Mount Carmel. In the upper part of the façade, there are figures of the four evangelists.

The side of the Igreja do Carmo is lined with a large panel of azulejos or blue and white tiles presenting scenes in the story of the foundation of the Carmelite Order and Mount Carmel.

The composition was designed by the artist Silvestre Silvestri and painted by Carlos Branco. The tiles were made locally in the factories of Senhor do Além and Torrinha, in Vila Nova de Gaia in 1912.

Inside, the church has a single nave with seven lavish gilt altars, the work of the sculptor Francisco Pereira Campanha, as well as many statues and several oil paintings, including a painting of the Resurrection on the vault.

The painting of the Resurrection on the vault of the Igreja do Carmo or Carmo Church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

Both churches are extravagant sights to behold, making it easy to completely miss the small, narrow house that separates them.

The house is no more than one meter in width and it is said to have been built here to make sure there were no communications between the nuns of the Carmelite Church and the men in the Carmo Church. Another explanation says there was an unwritten law stated that no two churches should share a common wall.

Yet another story claims two archbishops could not get along with each other, so one built a church next door to the other in the ultimate architectural spite move.

People actually lived within this narrow house and it was inhabited until the 1980s. It has been used for chaplains, artists and resident priests, but was also used for secret meetings during times of political upheaval, and more recently was the resident of the church sacristans.

The two churches and the tiny, narrow ‘hidden house’ were classified together as a National Monument in 2013.

The ‘hidden house’ was inhabited until the 1980s (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

Why are there few book
buyers in the best-known
bookshop in Porto?

Livraria Lello is said by many to be one of the most beautiful bookshops in the world (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

Patrick Comerford

I joined the queues in Porto early yesterday to visit Livraria Lello, said by many to be one of the most beautiful bookshops in the world. This is one of the oldest bookshops in Portugal and it is often rated as one of the best bookshops in the world in lists from the Lonely Planet and CNN to Time magazine and the Guardian.

The bookshop in the centre of Porto is visited by thousands of people every day, attracted more by its reputation than its contents. The shop was visited regularly by JK Rowling when she was living in Porto and teaching English, and it is said to have been the inspiration for many of the scenes in her Harry Potter series.

The shop first opened its doors in 1906, and ever since Livraria Lello has dazzled readers and the curious.

The building was refurbished in 2017, when the façade was restored in its original colours, along with its stained glass and its unique twisting, spiral stairs.

Livraria Lello’s shelves are stacked high with vast collections that include first editions, books signed by authors, rare books and recent editions of luxury books.

Livraria Lello is said have inspired JK Rowling while she was living in Porto (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

The origins of this bookshop date back to 1881, when the brothers José and António Lello opened their first shop in Porto. They soon moved their business to Rua do Almada, and in 1894 José Lello bought Chardron Bookshop and its extensive collection and stock, built up Ernesto Chardron from France, who had published the first editions of celebrated works, including books by Eça de Queirós and Camilo Castelo Branco.

The Lello brothers commissioned the engineer Francisco Xavier Esteves (1864-1944) to build a new bookshop on Rua das Carmelitas, and so the renamed Livraria Lello began a new life.

The new bookshop opened on Rua das Carmelitas on 13 January 1906 with the public endorsement of key figures in Portuguese cultural, political, commercial and social life, including the writers Guerra Junqueiro and Júlio Brandão, the director of O Comércio, Bento Carqueja, and Aurélio Paz dos Reis, the pioneer of cinema in Portugal.

The bookstore is flanked by shops and us close to the Porto University Faculty of Sciences building, the tower and Clérigos Church. It faces south towards the Rua das Carmelitas and the Praça de Lisboa.

The interior is best known for the forked crimson staircase (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

The colourful neo-gothic façade is decorated with paintings by Professor José Bielman symbolising Art, holding a sculpture, and Science, holding a symbol of anthropology, and has a mixture of architectural style, with neo-Gothic and Art Nouveau elements. Decorative elements complete the façade, with alternating geometric shapes that circuit and the firm’s name, ‘Lello & Brother’, over the bow, all painted in vivid colours that highlight the white paint on the facade.

Inside, throughout the shop, there are the busts of some of the most important Portuguese writers, including as Eça de Queirós, Camilo Castelo Branco or Teófilo Braga.

The rectangular plan covers two storeys, representing a simple mass, covered by a tiled roof. Inside, there are Art Deco elements throughout the building.

But the interior is best known for the forked crimson staircase and the majestic ceiling. This ceiling looks deceptively like carved wood but is in fact painted plaster, a technique also used in decorating the stairs.

The architectural details on the first floor include Art Déco details on the walls and the columns that rise from the lower floor.

The stained glass above is a glass structure measuring 8 meters by 3.5 meters. The words Decus in Labore (‘Dignity in Work’), a golden rule of the house that applies to everyone who enters.

The last few decades have seen a remarkable growth in tourism in Porto and the number of visitors to Livraria Lello. The bookshop had to face the challenge in 2016-2017 of refurbishing the building to accommodate the number of visitors while protecting its primary function as a bookshop yet renovating the interior and restoring the façade and stained glass.

The bookshop has adapted to a new business model, and today admittance comes with the purchase of €5 tickets – the cost of a ticket can be deducted from the price of a book if a visitor is a genuine book-buying customer.

Despite the house rules that discourage ‘selfies’ and try to ban ‘selfie-sticks,’ the forked crimson stairs quickly becomes blocked with tourists who are more interested in their own appearances than the books on the shelves.

But, while Livraria Lello is now a major tourist attraction, it remains true its original purpose: a bookshop for book lovers. And, yes, we spent our two €5 vouchers.

Why are visitors more interested in ‘selfies’ than the bookshelves? (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)