Our Lady of the Martyrs

Memory of the Crusades of 1147 · Lisbon

In the Chiado lisboeta, the basilica of Nossa Senhora dos Martyrs reminds of the Crusaders fallen in the conquest of Lisbon of 1147: it was the first Marian church in the city reconquered, raised on the cemetery of those "martyrs."

Origin and history

The sources agree that the primitive hermitage and parish originated immediately after the reconquest of Lisbon in 1147. According to tradition, the church rose on the cemetery of the Crusaders - many of them from northern Europe - who helped Don Afonso Henriques on the siege of the city; the image of the Virgin there venerated was united in the people to the memory of those "martyrs."

The attribution to Don Afonso Henriques of the first stone belongs to the traditional account of the parish. The present church is a post-earthquake reconstruction of 1755, of baroque typology with neoclassical elements, raised about 1769 by Reinaldo Manuel dos Santos. Integrated into the monumental axis of Chiado, it retains its basilica range.