Old Cathedral of Coimbra

The Old Cathedral of Coimbra is a Romanesque Roman Catholic working in Portugal. Development of the Se Velha started some time after the Battle of Ourique, when Prince Afonso Henriques pronounced himself King of Portugal and picked Coimbra as capital. The first Count of Coimbra, the Mozarab Sisnando Davides, is covered in the house of prayer. Coimbra Cathedral is the just a single of the Portuguese Romanesque houses of God from the Reconquista times to have survived generally unblemished up to the present. The churches of Porto, Braga, Lisbon and others have been widely redesigned later.

The most momentous part of the Romanesque improvement of the Old Coimbra Cathedral is the extensive number of formed capitals, which transforms it into a standout amongst the most vital troupes of Romanesque model in Portugal. The fundamental themes are vegetal and geometric and uncover Arab and pre-romanesque impacts, yet there are additionally matches of quadrupeds or winged animals confronting each other. There are essentially no human portrayals, and no Biblical scenes. The nonappearance of designed human figures might be on account of a large number of the craftsmen that worked in the Cathedral were mozarabic, i.e. Christians who lived in Arab domains and that had settled in Coimbra in the twelfth century. These craftsmen were maybe not used to human portrayals, which are illegal in Islam.