Founded in 1542, the Old College of Arts, precursor of the Royal College of Arts, was established in this place, in 1548, in the premises belonging to Colégio de São Miguel and Colégio de Todos-os-Santos, both belonging to the Monastery of Santa Cruz.
It was an initiative of King D. João III who intended to renew education in Portugal, focusing on secular institutions of a humanist nature.
However, due to the different ideas that opposed the masters from Bordeaux and Paris, in the year 1555, the College ended up being under the tutelage of the Society of Jesus.
The following year, the Jesuits handed over the building to the Tribunal do Santo Oficio, which operated here until 1821, the year in which it was extinguished.
In order to adapt to the new functions, the buildings underwent numerous works, with the old cells still visible.
It is ironic, to say the least, that in the same space where a college operated with a view to disseminating Renaissance and humanist ideas, the headquarters of a repressive institution that aimed to judge, repress and condemn these same ideas came to operate.
In fact, this place is still known today as the Pátio da Inquisition. after works of remodeling and adaptation, works in part of the old collegiate buildings, since 2003, the Visual Arts Center.
In Coimbra, the Pátio da Inquisition owes its name to the group of buildings of historical and architectural value, where, from 1548, the Court of the Holy Office operated.
The cells can now be seen through the thick glass that has been placed in them and that serves as a roof.
The restoration of the building, led by the architects João Mendes Ribeiro and Teresa Alfaiate, favored transparency between the past and the present as the essence of the intervention program.
COURT OF THE HOLY OFFICE
ADMINISTRATIVE/BIOGRAPHIC/FAMILY HISTORY
In 1541, D. João III ordered that "the Inquisition" be carried out in the bishoprics of Porto, Lamego and Coimbra.
The establishment of the Inquisition in Coimbra was entrusted to D. Bernardo da Cruz, bishop of São Tomé, and to Gomes Afonso, prior of the Collegiate of Guimarães.
Cardinal D. Henrique sent them the first instructions for its operation, dated from Évora, on the 5th of September. These were the first Portuguese norms, since until then the Portuguese Court had been governed by the Spanish ones.
The regulations (1552 and 1570), respectively of the Inquisition and the General Council, stipulated that each court periodically visit the areas that were assigned to it, the so-called district of the Inquisition, which in the case of Coimbra corresponded to the northern part of the country. After the general pardon granted in 1547, the Coimbra court was closed, only reopening in 1565.
GENERAL HISTORY
D. João III negotiated for several years the establishment of the Tribunal do Santo Oficio in Portugal.
In 1532 he saw his intentions satisfied by Pope Clement VII who granted him by the bull Cum ad nihil magis , of 17 December, in which he appointed inquisitor D. Fr. Diego da Silva.
The reaction and protests of the new Christians led the same pontiff to revoke that bull by the Sempiterno Regi, of 7 April 1533.
Faced with the defeat, the sovereign did not give up and moved influences. Paul III, who had succeeded Clement VII, responded with the brief Intel' coetera ad nostrum , of March 17, 1535, advising the monarch to follow the rules of piety and not those of revenge, and ordered the pardon granted by his predecessor to be executed.
D. João III fought an expensive fight in Rome, not unrelated to intrigues and bribes, getting the same Pope Paul III to establish in Portugal the Tribunal of the Holy Office by the bull Cum ad nihil magis , of 23 May 1536.
Addressed to the bishops of Ceuta, Coimbra and Lamego, it appointed them their commissioners and inquisitors in Portugal to proceed against the new Christians and against all those guilty of the crime of heresy.
In 1539, D. Diogo da Silva resigned as inquisitor-major and D. João III appointed his brother, Infante D. Henrique, archbishop of Braga and future cardinal.
This appointment was not well accepted by Paul III, who, however, ended up granting him the powers previously given to the inquisitors. The Inquisition was definitively instituted in Portugal along the lines desired by King Piedoso.
A court that was both royal and ecclesiastical, was part of the policy of centralization of power.
Its creation and its members were linked to the Church, but the entire operation was controlled by the king, from the appointment of the inquisitors-general, who dispatched directly with the monarch, to the execution of the death sentences, for which the condemned were handed over to the secular arm.
The Tribunal do Santo Oficio extended its action to the entire country and to almost all the territories subject to the Portuguese Crown in the long period of its existence (1536-1821).
For the purposes of exercising inquisitorial power, the different regions of the Kingdom were subject to the courts of Lisbon, Coimbra and Évora (those of Tomar, Porto and Lamego were ephemeral).
The Atlantic islands, Brazil and the Portuguese territories on the west coast of Africa depended on the Lisbon court and those on the east African coast depended on the Goa court, created in 1560.
In the early days, the Portuguese Court was governed by the rules of the Spanish Inquisition.
The first Portuguese instructions for its operation date from 1541, when the court was established in Coimbra, and the first regiment was only given in 1552. The Inquisition had a second regiment in 1613, a third in 1640 and the last one in 1774.
The Pombaline laws, which declared the distinction between new and old Christians to be abolished and the one which equated the Holy Office with other royal courts, removing censorship from its purview, made the Holy Office lose its former vitality.
The liberal regime dealt the final blow to the Portuguese Inquisition: in 1821 the Constituent General Courts decreed its extinction.
Commentaires