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The cloister of the monastery was built during the reign of, and sponsored by, King Dinis I. It is one of the largest mediaeval Cistercian cloisters in Europe.

The finished church and monastery were the first truly Gothic buildings in Portugal, and the church was the largest in Portugal. The last touch in the mediaeval ensemble was given in the late 13th century, when King Dinis I ordered the construction of the Gothic cloister, the Cloister of Silence.

From the church, visitors can pass through the King’s Hall into the monastery proper. From the King’s Hall, we passed into the Cloister of Silence, one of five (!!) cloisters in this monastery. Only one of those is open to the public.

The monks dedicated their lives to religious meditation, creating illuminated manuscripts in a scriptorium. The monks from the monastery produced an early authoritative history on Portugal in a series of books. The library at Alcobaça was one of the largest Portuguese mediaeval libraries, but was pillaged by the invading French in 1810, and many items were stolen in an anti-clerical riot in 1834, when the religious orders in Portugal were dissolved. The remnants of the monastery library, including hundreds of mediaeval manuscripts, are kept today in the National Library in Lisbon.

During the reign of Manuel I, a

second floor was added to the cloister and a new sacristy

was built, following the characteristic

Portuguese late Gothic known as

"Manueline". The monastery

was further enlarged in the 18th century,

with the addition of a new cloister

and towers to the church,

although the mediaeval

structure was mostly

preserved.

The columns of the Cloister of Silence are decorated by capitals with animal and vegetal motifs. The builder was the Portuguese architect Domingo Domingues.

Capela da Virgem do Claustro

Dormitorium The dormitory is a big gothic room where the monks slept together: only the abbot was allowed to have his own room. In the 16th century the space was divided into individual cells. In the 1930s the cell walls were demolished.

Dormitorium

Dormitorium

Dormitorium

The kitchen of the monastery

The kitchen of the monastery

The kitchen of the monastery was built and covered with tiles in the mid-18th century. The central chimney is enormous, supported by eight iron columns

Water and fresh fish were diverted from the river Alcoa to the kitchen basin through a specially-built canal.

Refeitório The refectory was the room in which the monks had their meals everyday. While they ate, one of the monks read aloud passages of the Bible from a pulpit, which in Alcobaça is embedded on one of the walls.

The Gothic Fountain Hall has an elegant early renaissance water basin inside, decorated with renaissance motifs including the coat-of-arms of the monastery and reliefs of gryphs.

Alcobaça remains, after 800 years, the largest Portuguese church.

The first architect(s) of the church, most probably of French origin, followed the design of the Abbey of Clairvaux (now mostly demolished), which had been founded by Bernard of Clairvaux in 1115.

Chapel of Saint BernardThis chapel, located in the South side of the transept, has a sculptural group depicting the "Death of Saint Bernard", one of the best works authored by 17th-century Alcobaça monks. In each side of the chapel are buried Kings Afonso II and Afonso III.

In each side of the chapel of Saint Bernard are buried Kings Afonso II and Afonso III.

the chapel of Saint Bernard

In the Baroque period, the monks were famous for their clay sculptures, many of them are still inside the monastery. Elaborate tiles and altarpieces completed the decoration of the church.

The lateral aisles of the nave are as high (20 metres) as the central one, which together with the relative slenderness of the church (17 metres) and large length (106 metres) conveys an impression of monumentality. The vertical emphasis observed in the building is a typical gothic feature.

Sound: Golden Age of Portuguese Music. Joo Lourenco Rebelo - Fratres Sobrii ;Panis Angelicus

Text: InternetPictures: Sanda Foişoreanu Gabriela Cristescu InternetCopyrights of the photos belong to each photographer

Presentation: Sanda Foişoreanuwww.slideshare.net/michaelasanda