The
Igreja de São Julião (St. Julian's Church) is an 18th-century church located on the
Praça de Bocage in
SetúbalSetúbal is the main city in Setúbal Municipality in Portugal with a total area of 172.0 km² and a total population of 118,696 inhabitants in the municipality. The city proper has 89,303 inhabitants....
,
PortugalPortugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...
. It is the main church (
matriz) of the city.
History
The Church of São Julião was originally built in the second half of the 13th century. According to tradition, it was sponsored by the fishermen of Setúbal. It is known that, at the end of the 15th century, the church was connected to the Palace of Jorge de Lencastre, Master of the
Order of SantiagoThe Order of Santiago was founded in the 12th century, and owes its name to the national patron of Galicia and Spain, Santiago , under whose banner the Christians of Galicia and Asturias began in the 9th century to combat and drive back the Muslims of the Iberian Peninsula.-History:Santiago de...
and
Duke of AveiroThe Royal Dukedom of Aveiro was an aristocratic Portuguese title, granted in 1535 by King John III of Portugal to his 4th cousin, John of Lencastre, son of Infante George of Lencastre, a natural son of King John II of Portugal....
. The Duke used the Church of São Julião as his private chapel until around 1510.
Between 1513 and 1520 the mediaeval church was rebuilt by order of
King Manuel IManuel I , the Fortunate , 14th king of Portugal and the Algarves was the son of Infante Ferdinand, Duke of Viseu, , by his wife, Infanta Beatrice of Portugal...
. The rebuilding was sponsored by the King but also by the local population and the Master of Santiago. The style was the
ManuelineThe Manueline, or Portuguese late Gothic, is the sumptuous, composite Portuguese style of architectural ornamentation of the first decades of the 16th century, incorporating maritime elements and representations of the discoveries brought from the voyages of Vasco da Gama and Pedro Álvares Cabral...
, the Portuguese variation of late
GothicGothic architecture is a style of architecture that flourished during the high and late medieval period. It evolved from Romanesque architecture and was succeeded by Renaissance architecture....
, as attested by the main and lateral portals of the present church, the sole survivors of the Manueline building. In 1531 a strong earthquake stroke Setúbal and the Church of São Julião was damaged; the building was considerably modified in Mannerist style and reinaugurated in 1570.
The original church was almost completely destroyed by the
Great Earthquake of 1755The 1755 Lisbon earthquake, also known as the Great Lisbon Earthquake, was a megathrust earthquake that took place on Saturday 1 November 1755, at around 9:40 in the morning. The earthquake was followed by fires and a tsunami, which almost totally destroyed Lisbon in the Kingdom of Portugal, and...
and was greatly rebuilt and redecorated in the last third of the 18th century following the late
BaroqueThe Baroque is a period and the style that used exaggerated motion and clear, easily interpreted detail to produce drama, tension, exuberance, and grandeur in sculpture, painting, literature, dance, and music...
style. From this stage date the general appearance of the
façadeA facade or façade is generally one exterior side of a building, usually, but not always, the front. The word comes from the French language, literally meaning "frontage" or "face"....
, the inner wooden roof, the painted
tileA tile is a manufactured piece of hard-wearing material such as ceramic, stone, metal, or even glass. Tiles are generally used for covering roofs, floors, walls, showers, or other objects such as tabletops...
s, the main and lateral
altarpieceAn altarpiece is a picture or relief representing a religious subject and suspended in a frame behind the altar of a church. The altarpiece is often made up of two or more separate panels created using a technique known as panel painting. It is then called a diptych, triptych or polyptych for two,...
s and the main chapel.
Art and architecture
The windows and upper
gableA gable is the generally triangular portion of a wall between the edges of a sloping roof. The shape of the gable and how it is detailed depends on the structural system being used and aesthetic concerns. Thus the type of roof enclosing the volume dictates the shape of the gable...
of the main façade are derived from the 18th century reconstruction of the church, but the simple main portal is still Manueline. More notable is the decorated lateral portal, a nice Manueline work with twisted columns imitating ropes, vegetal motifs and trilobed arches.
The nave of the church is divided in three
aisleAn aisle is, in general, a space for walking with rows of seats on both sides or with rows of seats on one side and a wall on the other...
s by arches built during the Mannerist repair works following the 1531 earthquake. After the 1755 earthquake the interior of the church was re-decorated in
BaroqueThe Baroque is a period and the style that used exaggerated motion and clear, easily interpreted detail to produce drama, tension, exuberance, and grandeur in sculpture, painting, literature, dance, and music...
style, with gilded columns decorated in
talha dourada (a typical Portuguese technique to decorate woodwork with gold leaves) in the
choirA choir, chorale or chorus is a musical ensemble of singers. Choral music, in turn, is the music written specifically for such an ensemble to perform.A body of singers who perform together as a group is called a choir or chorus...
and a beautiful
altarpieceAn altarpiece is a picture or relief representing a religious subject and suspended in a frame behind the altar of a church. The altarpiece is often made up of two or more separate panels created using a technique known as panel painting. It is then called a diptych, triptych or polyptych for two,...
. The painting of the main altarpiece is a work by
Pedro Alexandrino.
The side walls are decorated with 18th century blue-and-white
azulejoAzulejo from the Arabic word Zellige زليج is a form of Portuguese or Spanish painted, tin-glazed, ceramic tilework. They have become a typical aspect of Portuguese culture, having been produced without interruption for five centuries...
s (ceramic tiles), depicting scenes from the life of
Julian and BasilissaSaints Julian and Basilissa were husband and wife. They were Christian martyrs who died at either Antioch or, more probably, at Antinoe, in the reign of Diocletian, early in the fourth century, on 9 January, according to the Roman Martyrology, or 8 January, according to the Greek Menaea.Their...
.