A Igreja de Nossa Senhora da Vitória Irmandade e Hospício (1530 ...

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Abstract
The Church of Our Lady of of Victory (Nossa Senhora da Vitória) is one of the small
churches, of downtown Pombalian Lisbon, that was first constructed in 1556 (adding to it a
Hospice, next to the Hospital of Todos-os-Santos), by the will of the Brotherhood of the
Boilermakers (Irmandade) and some sanctimonious persons dedicated to the Blessed Virgin of
Victory. Completely destroyed in 1755, the complex Church/Hospice was rebuilt between 1765
and 1826.
The present thesis is divided into two parts. In the first one, we present, in a
chronological way, the contextualization, the establishment and the evolution of the history of
the Brotherhood, as a materialization of the works of mercy and of the devotion and cult to
Mary, legitimized through the building of the Church and the Hospice. However, the lack of
material remains, destroyed with the earthquake of 1755, did not allow us to study the first
architectural complex.
Because of the renown religious buildings and wealthy brotherhoods, in the downtown
area, as well as the rest of the city of Lisbon, it is our objective to try to understand (following the
decisive role played by brotherhoods and fellowships from the 16th to the 18th centuries) the
importance and action of the Brotherhood of Blessed Mary of Victory. We did it through the
comparative study, highlighting the importance of its Hospice and Church, as places of
assistance, space of sociability and devotional practice.
In the second part, which consists of the main part of our work, we studied the new
Church and Hospice, built after the earthquake, and their implantation in the new city network,
designed by Eugénio dos Santos.
The artistic contextualization of the new Church, passed through the definition of the
Pombaline downtown area and we did elaborate a statement and study of the artistic equipment:
woodcarving, glazed tile (azulejo), painting and sculpture. We thought to write a third chapter,
on the works of improvement and restoration, that occurred in 1940, but, after consulting the
Historical Archive of the City of Lisbon, the Historical Archive of the Ministry of Planification,
Administration of the Territory and the Archive of the General Direction of National Buildings
and Monuments, we verified that no element could sustain the idea of restoration as well as the
few documents encountered in the Historical Archive of the City of Lisbon, which referred to the
authorization of works and two requirements for prorogating the terms; we concluded that
those were works of maintenance of the building with special focus on the roof.
For the first part of the study, we used manuscript sources and printed material as well as
monographs of reference, given that the first record of the Church was destroyed, with the