Our Lady of Light

The Virgin of the Miraculous Source · Carnide (Lisbon)

In Carnide, on the outskirts of Lisbon, one of the jewels of Portuguese mannerism keeps devotion to Nossa Senhora da Luz, linked from the Middle Ages to a source of water with medicinal.

Origin and history

According to tradition, a man from Carnide called But Martins, a captive in Africa, repeatedly saw the Virgin "aureolada de luz," who promised her freedom and asked her to lift up a hermitage again next to the Fonte da Machada, where she would find the image of Santa Maria de la Luz. This story is transmitted as a devout legend; the documented thing is that already in the 13th century, medicinal properties were recognized to those waters.

The image was solemnly enthroned on September 8, 1464. In the second half of the 16th century, the Infanta Doña María - the daughter of King Don Manuel I - ordered to build on the ancient hermitage a great mannerist church, with convent and hospital for the sick and pilgrims; the works began in 1575 according to the project of Jerónimo de Ruão. The whole, one of the great testimonies of mannerism in Portugal, is protected as a National Monument.