Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church - Guimarães

The origins of the Insigne e Real Colegiada de Nossa Senhora da Oliveira date back to the monastery dedicated to the Saviour of the World, the Virgin Mary and the Holy Apostles, founded on this site in 949 by Countess Mumadona Dias.

The invocation of Our Lady of the Olive Tree originated after 1342, with the budding of an olive tree in the forecourt , although the site was already an important place of pilgrimage for the veneration of an image of the Virgin Mary.

The arcades of the cloister and the portal of the chapter house, a work of excellent engineering, bear witness to the best Romanesque-Mudejar granite ensemble in Portugal.

At the end of the 17th century, King Pedro II had the choir enlarged, on the vault of which his coat of arms can be seen; from the same period, the 17th-century armchair with neoclassical backrest is one of the highlights of the monument, together with the altarpiece of the main altar (from the second half of the 18th century), the silver altar of the chapel of the Blessed Sacrament and the large baroque canvases, attributed to Pedro Alexandrino, that decorate the walls. The building was remodelled in the 19th and 20th centuries.

In 1801, against the wishes of the local population, the municipal authorities cut down the olive tree that had marked out the area in front of the church for centuries.

Willem Vandenameele