Capela de Nossa Senhora da Piedade

Introduction

Above the door sits a heart in flames, pierced by a dagger. It is the sign of Our Lady of Sorrows and the best thing the chapel has to show from the outside. Capela de Nossa Senhora da Piedade is a small baroque chapel from the second half of the 1700s, built for a lay brotherhood, in 1758 according to the municipal church guide. It stands where the town gate Porta da Vila led through the wall down to the river. The gate has been demolished, the chapel remained, and opposite it stands the town's old main fountain, Fonte da Praça, today the water supply's visitor centre. Nobody goes to Tavira for this chapel, but it is the most precise place to stand if you want to know where the town once ended.

Historical highlights

By the vanished town gate

The chapel stands on the small square where Rua dos Pelames and Rua Gonçalo Velho meet, a few steps from the Gilão. This is where Porta da Vila stood, one of the town gates. The gate is gone, but the wall can still be read. The houses along Rua dos Pelames are built on top of it and follow its line. The facade faces west, onto the square. Directly opposite stands Fonte da Praça, the town's most important fountain, later a pumping station and since 2009 the visitor centre for Tavira's water supply.

The brotherhood and the year

The municipal church guide has no doubts: "Este templo de pequenas dimensões, perto da Fonte da Praça, pertencia à confraria de Nossa Senhora da Piedade e foi construído em 1758, junto à muralha do castelo." SIPA is more cautious and writes second half of the 1700s, a new building or the rebuilding of an older chapel. Where the year 1758 comes from, neither of them says. The English church guide writes 1578. That is a misprint.

The portal from Graça

The door is the most ambitious thing about the building. The portal resembles the portals of Convento da Graça, which Diogo Tavares (Faro 1711, Lagoa 1765) designed, and SIPA therefore links the chapel to his circle. The facade is a gable with a broken, counter-curved pediment between two volutes, an elliptical oculus above the door and the flaming heart in relief in the tympanum. SIPA calls it scenographic. That is putting it politely. It is bigger than what it hides.

A room with two naves

Inside, the space is short, a single nave with a barrel vault and no chancel. All the light comes from the oculus. To the north, two round arches were later opened into a lower side nave; when, no source says. At the end stands a rococo altarpiece in gilded talha from the late 1700s, with a concave central panel behind glass, where the painting of Nossa Senhora da Piedade hangs. The wooden floor was replaced with clay tiles in the 1980s, and a gravestone in front of the altar disappeared at the same time, nobody knows where to.

Practical

None of the official sources give opening hours, so expect the door to be closed and look at the facade from outside; the municipality has put up a small plaque with the chapel's history. Stand with your back to the water centre and you have the facade as it was intended. Travessa da Fonte on the south side leads to Igreja da Misericórdia. Do not confuse the chapel with Convento das Bernardas, which is also dedicated to Nossa Senhora da Piedade.

Timeline and context

Timeline

• 2nd half of the 1700s The chapel is built, or an older one rebuilt (SIPA).
• 1758 The church guide's year of construction, for Confraria de Nossa Senhora da Piedade.
• 1758-78 Convento da Graça gets a new portaria by Diogo Tavares, the chapel's model.
• Late 1700s The rococo altarpiece in gilded talha.
• Later, undated – The north nave is added.
• 1911 Lei de Separação; church property passes to the state.
• 1934 The chapel is handed over to the church committee of the parish of Santa Maria.
• 1980s Clay tiles instead of the wooden floor; the gravestone in front of the altar disappears.
• 1983 The municipality proposes listing.
• 1991 IPPC opens the listing case.
• 1996 Approved as Interesse Municipal.
• 2000 Walls painted by a local mason as a preventive measure.
• 2010 IGESPAR: church property cannot be listed by the municipality.
• 2024 CCDR Algarve proposes a new listing case at national level.

Why it stands here

The site was one of the most important in the old town: the town gate down to the river, and right beside it the town's most important public fountain. Whoever built a chapel here built it where everyone passed by, and that explains the facade. It is arranged for the square, not for the room behind it, and SIPA writes that it is the chapel that determines the shape of the square. When Porta da Vila was demolished, the square lost its coherence, but the chapel and the fountain still face each other.

Listed, almost

The listing case is the chapel's longest story. The municipality proposed listing in 1983, the case was opened in 1991, and in 1996 the minister ruled that the chapel was of municipal interest. In 2010 IGESPAR found that the chapel belongs to Diocese do Algarve and therefore cannot be listed by the municipality, and in 2024 CCDR Algarve proposed starting over at national level. After forty years the status is still "em vias de classificação". It is a better story about administration than about the chapel, but it shows how hard it is to list small church buildings that the church owns.