Igreja de São Roque, Jesuit church in Santa Maria Maior, Portugal.
Igreja de São Roque is a Jesuit church with a plain outer facade that conceals an ornate interior filled with multiple chapels. Gilded wood, paintings, and tiles from the 16th century decorate these spaces throughout.
The Jesuits took over the Shrine of St. Roch in 1553, and the first stone of the new church was laid in 1555. The present design dates from 1565, with Afonso Álvares supervising until 1575 and Filipe Térzi later modifying the façade, ceiling and roof. The church survived the 1755 earthquake largely intact and was transferred to the Lisbon Holy House of Mercy in 1768.
The Chapel of Saint John the Baptist was constructed in Rome and transported piece by piece to Lisbon, reflecting the great wealth of Portugal at that time. This extraordinary journey shows how much this sacred space mattered to people then.
The church stands on Largo Trindade Coelho in Bairro Alto, and the Museu de São Roque, entered beside it, occupies part of the former Jesuit residence. The interior is a single wide nave, so the side chapels line both walls in sequence and the Chapel of St. John the Baptist is the one to seek out. The facade faces the square, with the main door under its triangular pediment.
The painted wooden ceiling over the nave is divided into compartments of brown, gold and blue, with a central oval of figures in clouds and a rectangular panel behind it showing an architectural interior. The Chapel of St. John the Baptist was ordered in Italy by King John V in 1742, arrived in Lisbon in 1747 and was only installed in 1749.
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