New Cathedral of Coimbra

Overview

The Sé Nova is the former church of the Jesuit college of Coimbra, founded in the city in 1543, which became the cathedral in 1772 after Pombal had expelled the order and the bishop needed a larger and more modern church than the Romanesque Sé Velha down the hill. It stands by the university in the Alta, a Mannerist front with a Baroque top and four Jesuit saints in its niches, and it is co-cathedral of the diocese with the old one.

It is a ten-minute stop on the way to the university: a single barrel-vaulted nave, huge gilt altarpieces in the transepts and apse, and the choir stalls and the Manueline font carried up from the old cathedral when the see moved.

Visiting

The facade is in two registers, a rigid Mannerist ground floor and a Baroque crown, with two bell towers behind and a dome over the crossing. The nave has side chapels with Mannerist and Baroque altarpieces and a transept with a cupola; both transept arms and the main chapel carry enormous gilt-wood altarpieces of the 17th and 18th centuries in the “national” style. In the main chapel are the 17th-century choir stalls from the Sé Velha, and in the church the intricate stone baptismal font carved by Pero and Filipe Henriques in late Gothic-Manueline style at the start of the 16th century, also from the old cathedral.

History

The Jesuits arrived in Coimbra in 1543 and built their college church over the following century, a Mannerist design whose facade was influential enough to be copied at the Jesuit church of Salvador in Brazil, now that city’s cathedral; the Baroque decoration of the upper facade was finished in the early 18th century. In 1759 Pombal banned the order from Portugal and in 1772 the bishop moved his seat here from the old cathedral, which had been the see since the 12th century.

Tips

• It is on the Largo Marquês de Pombal beside the university’s Science Museum, so do the three together.
• The old cathedral is the one to spend time in; this is the quick one.
• The font is the thing to find; it is the original Manueline font of the Sé Velha.

Nearby

• University of Coimbra: two minutes.
• Science Museum of the university: next door.
• Old Cathedral: five minutes downhill.
• Machado de Castro museum: three minutes.