Building Early Modern Goa

Research Seminar - Department of Art History and Cultural Practices, University of Manchester

Building Early Modern Goa

Dr Laura Fernández-González, Associate Professor, University of Lincoln

Abstract

Christian architecture in early modern Goa awed visitors at the time; the viceregal Portuguese capital in India boasted up to 100 churches at its peak. The city sits on seven hills, like Lisbon and Rome do, and was known as the ‘Rome of the East’. The city underwent a gradual process of depopulation that started in the seventeenth century, and today only some of its monumental churches and basilicas have survived the passage of time. The literature has chiefly focused on studying the circulation of European architects, patrons and how transregional design trends that originated in Europe were implemented in the city of Goa and the wider region. Scholarship has demonstrated, however, that the Goan baroque developed in parallel terms than other coeval designs and structures elsewhere in the Iberian world, and some key recent attention has been paid to the patronage of the Goan clergy. This paper considerably expands existing literature by exploring the role of Goan makers (artists, architects, and builders) in the building of early modern Goa.

Image credits: Interior, Church of Santa Rosario, Old Goa. Photo: Laura Fernández-González.

Biography

Dr Laura Fernández-González, FSA, FRHisSoc, is Associate Professor at the University of Lincoln, UK. Laura is an architectural, urban and art historian with expertise in the Iberian world, c. 1400-1950. Her monograph, Philip II of Spain and the Architecture of Empire (PSUP, 2021) was commended with an Honourable Mention in the 2022 Eleanor Tufts Awards. She has recently edited a roundtable article entitled ‘Race and the Built Environment in the Iberian World, c. 1400-1800’ for the Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians. She is currently working on a couple of projects that explore port cities of the Iberian World and architecture and building trade in colonial Peru.

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