RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2001
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g
145

The Façade of São Paulo, Macao

These novel trends in Jesuit architecture in India occurring at about the turn of the century may have reached their apogee in the church of their new college in Macao, opened to the public on Christmas day, 1603 (Figs. 1, 13).

However, amongst other important differences with churches in India, here there is no Arch of Triumph as such; there is not even an entrance arch, but straightforward lintel-and-post doorways. Could the reason for its absence be that Portugal never did conquer Macao? This is an attractive conjecture, although a more likely explanation is that the architect or designer of the façade of St. Paul's was simply following St. Charles Borromeo's recommendations to architects concerning the façades of ecclesiastical buildings. In his influential Instructions of 1572, Charles Borromeo recommends the use of lintel and post for entrances of Christian churches instead of the arch, which he considered a pagan structure18. Be that as it may, the idea that the façade of Madre de Deus represents a symbolic arch of triumph of sorts, although one not based directly on an Arch of Triumph but on some other structure, should not be discarded altogether.

Apparently, seventeenth-century visitors, many of whom had seen the churches of the Jesuits in Goa, did not find the lack of arches too unusual. What they do imply in their chronicles is that this façade was something particularly surprising within the architecture of the Society of Jesus, not only in Asia but elsewhere. The way they reacted not only to the magnificent interior of the church but also to its façade is significant. In the case of the latter, were they looking at something not merely visually striking but also quite novel? As already surmised at the start of this paper, were they in fact looking at the first retable-façade in China?

This is not as improbable as it may seem. Today, once certain historical and art-historical associations are made, the surviving façade of the church recalls the outburst of altarpiece construction that took place in the Iberian Peninsula and its overseas colonies from the last decades of the sixteenth century.

Until the Portuguese revolt of 1640 and the restoration of the House
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RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2001
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g
163

- Mario T. Chico. "Algumas observações acerca da arquitectura da Companhia de Jesus no distrito de Goa: igrejas, fachada, planta e espaço interior", Garcia de Orta. Lisboa, número especial 1956, pp.257-72.

See Professor Giorgio Bonsanti's elucidating article dealing mainly with St. Francis Xavier's mausoleum in the Bom Jesus, published in Velha Goa, exhibition catalogue of A. Martinelli's photos. Fundação Oriente, Macao. September 15, 2000. (Unnumbered). However, vid. D.Kowal, op. cit., p. 488, who states the Jesuit Domingo Fernandes, aided by J. Simão were architects of Bom Jesus.

Also Documenta Indica,

**For Charles Borromeo's Instructions, see E.C. Voelker, “Charles Borromeo's Instructiones Fabricae et Supellectilis Ecclesiasticae, 1577. A Translation with Commentary and Analysis". Ph.D. dissertation, Syracuse University, 1977.

"L.E. McCall. "Early Jesuit Art in the Far East". Artibus Asiae, XI. Ancona, 1948. pp. 62-9. Y. Okamoto, The Namban Art of Japan, (translation by R.K. Jones of Namban Bijutsu. Tokyo, 1965), Weatherhill/Heibonsha, New York-Tokyo, 1972, pp. 99-103. See also more recently, Gauvin Bailey. "The Art of the Jesuit Missions in Japan in the Age of St. Francis Xavier and Alessandro Valignano”. lecture in the 450th Anniversary of St. Francis Xavier's Arrival in Japan. International Symposium '98, Sophia University 1998, pp.7-22.

"Guillen-Nuñez, C., "Retablo and Imafronte: A Study of the Influence of the Retable on the Church-façade in Mexico and Peru", (unpublished M.A. dissertation), University of Penn., 1973.

"H. Rodriguez-Camilloni. "The Retablo-Façade as Transparency: A Study of the Frontispiece of San Francisco, Lima", in Anales del Instituto de Investigaciones Esteticas, 62, Mexico, 1991, pp. 111-22.

Sylvie Deswarte, "Francisco de Hollanda et les Etudes Vitruviennes en Italie”, in A Introdução da Arte da Renascenca na Península Iberica, Coimbra, 1981, pp. 254-80.

* Hugo-Brunt, op. cit., p. 11.

Kubler and Soria, op. cit., p. 24.

See Hugo-Brunt, op. cit., p.13, note 24.
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