Monastery of Santa Cruz

The Santa Cruz Monastery, best known as Igreja de Santa Cruz, is a National Monument in Coimbra, Portugal. Since the initial two lords of Portugal are covered in the congregation it was allowed the status of National Pantheon. St. Theotonius established this network of Canons Regular of the Holy Cross of Coimbra and filled in as their first earlier. The cloister was conceded ious ecclesiastical benefits and imperial gifts, which permitted the collection of extensive riches, in the meantime as it solidified its situation on the politico-institutional and social scene.

Nothing stays of the early Romanesque cloister. It is realized that it had just a single nave and a high pinnacle in the exterior, as commonplace of the Augustinian-Romanesque developments, yet none of those components subsisted. In the principal half of the sixteenth century, the Monastery was totally redesigned by King Manuel's request, this ruler having accepted the Monastery tutelage.

The entire religious complex, the congregation and the tombs of King Afonso Henriques and of his successor, King Sancho I, were modified and exchanged to the principle house of prayer in 1530, where regardless they lie in a sculptural work by Nicolau Chanterene. The engineer Diogo de Boitaca was in charge of the design of the Manueline church and the part house with its crate took care of and ribbed roofs. Marco Pires offered coherence to the work, with the finishing of the congregation, the Capela de Sao Miguel and the Claustro do Silencio.