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brackets, enclose a window. Typical Late Renaissance ornaments and geometric designs of various kinds, such as spheres on pedestals, top the entablature and pediment.
Jesuit Churches in India
Perhaps the most ingenious exploitation of the motif in India was by the Jesuit Fathers, whose building schemes form such an important part of the history of art of Colonial Iberian architecture in Asia and the Americas. It can be seen not only on the façade of the now vanished collegiate church of São Paulo in Velha Goa, but also in the Church of their College of São Paulo in Baçaim.
The Arch of Triumph decoration of their Baçaim church is of great interest for my main argument because at least one art historian has noticed its structural similarities to that of retables. David M. Kowal's recent article implies that not only the façade of the Baçaim collegiate church, but also that of Velha Goa should be so considered and he describes them as "retable-like." Not all art historians would classify any of the church fronts in Portuguese India as retable-façades, including those of the Jesuits, although it is difficult to dismiss D. Kowal's claim for these two churches.13
The name of the church at Baçaim, built between 1561-1579, is actually Nome de Jesus (Name of Jesus). Its large Arch of Triumph indeed resembles those appearing in a number of Renaissance retable-façades in Southern Spain, such as that of the church of St. Elizabeth, in Seville.
As far as the Arch of Triumph motif itself is concerned, the most important sixteenth-century example in India may be seen in the Church of São Paulo in Velha Goa. Moreover, one could take 1560, the year when building of the new college and church of São Paulo were initiated, as signalling a more ambitious phase in the Society of Jesus' architectural projects in India.
When it was completed in 1572 São Paulo was not only the first major church built by the Jesuits in India, it was also one of the most masterful Portuguese churches in Asia, attesting to the importance that the Jesuit fathers attached to it.15 Its association with St. Francis Xavier