포르탈레그르 대성당

Portalegre Cathedral — Portalegre, PT

Portalegre Cathedral in the hills of northern Alentejo was begun in 1556 and finished in the later sixteenth century in Mannerist style, built after a bishopric was created here in 1549. Its restrained front of Italian inspiration and two towers rise above the upland town, and several altarpieces by sixteenth-century Portuguese painters survive inside, gathering Mannerist painting in one place; the azulejos of the Lady Chapel are seventeenth-century. Not far from the Spanish frontier, Portalegre suffered repeated wars, and a royal tapestry works founded in the eighteenth century makes it a textile town to this day. The former seminary beside the cathedral is the municipal museum, and the forests of the Serra de São Mamede rise above. Few tourists come, so the church is always quiet.