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it, following social precedents with roots in the great cathedrals of the Middle Ages in Europe.
The testimony of the English merchant, Peter Mundy, today well known to historians of Macao, is a good example of the effect that this novel façade produced. He had actually arrived as one of the English factors in the fleet of Captain John Weddel, which first entered Macao waters on the fifth of July 1637. In fact, Peter Mundy formed part of a party that was allowed by the Portuguese to disembark in Macao on the twenty-eighth of the month, with a missive from Charles I of England to the Captain-General of the city.
On the very day of landing he and the others went to visit the College of St. Paul's and its church at the invitation of the Jesuit fathers. Mundy waxes lyrical about the splendours of the façade and the church claiming that, 'there is a New Faire Frontispiece to the said Church with a spacious ascent to it by many steppes; the 2 last things mentioned of hewen stone.'5
One cannot help wondering if Peter Mundy's admiration of the frontispiece was not equally due to the fact that he had before his eyes an impressive retable-façade, something that in all likelihood he has never seen before.
Retable-Façades
Before continuing, it may be necessary to briefly make clear some basic facts about retable-façades. What are they? When did they acquire this rather peculiar name? As already briefly mentioned a retable is a kind of Iberian wooden altarpiece, one that was often elaborately carved. One could argue that altarpiece-façade is just as accurate a term as the invented phrase retable-façade; but for a number of sensible reasons on which it is not necessary to comment here contemporary art historians have opted for the latter. In certain formal and functional aspects they are not unlike medieval English reredos, although there are important differences.
The history of what one could call their discovery as types is quite recent. It was mainly during the last century that specialists began noticing groups of unusual church façades in Spain and Latin America