Church of Santa Maria do Olival - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The Church of Santa Maria do Olival is a Roman Catholic church in the city of Tomar

Tomar

Tomar Municipality has a total area of 351.0 km² and a total population of 43,007 inhabitants.The municipality is composed of 16 parishes, and is located in Santarém District...

, in Portugal

Portugal

Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...

.

The church was built in the second half of the 12th century by the provincial master of the Order of the Knights Templar

Knights Templar

The Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon , commonly known as the Knights Templar, the Order of the Temple or simply as Templars, were among the most famous of the Western Christian military orders...

in Portugal, Gualdim Pais

Gualdim Pais

Dom Gualdim Pais , a Portuguese crusader, Templar, Friar and Knight in the service of Afonso Henriques of Portugal, was the founder of the city of Tomar.-Biography:...

. It was used as a burial place for the Knights Templar of Tomar and, later, by the Knights of the Order of Christ

Order of Christ (Portugal)

The Military Order of Christ previously the Royal Order of the Knights of Our Lord Jesus Christ was the heritage of the Knights Templar in Portugal, after the suppression of the Templars in 1312...

, which succeeded the Templars in the 14th century. Gualdim Pais is buried in the church, and his original tomb slab, dated from 1195 and bearing a gothic inscription, is still preserved inside.

The current building is mostly the result of a reconstruction carried out in the 13th century in early Gothic

Gothic architecture

Gothic architecture is a style of architecture that flourished during the high and late medieval period. It evolved from Romanesque architecture and was succeeded by Renaissance architecture....

style. The main façade has a beautiful rose window

Rose window

A Rose window is often used as a generic term applied to a circular window, but is especially used for those found in churches of the Gothic architectural style and being divided into segments by stone mullions and tracery...

and a simple portal with several archivolt

Archivolt

An archivolt is an ornamental molding or band following the curve on the underside of an arch. It is composed of bands of ornamental moldings surrounding an arched opening, corresponding to the architrave in the case of a rectangular opening...

s, and is flanked by a free-standing bell tower. The interior is very simple. The church has three nave

Nave

In Romanesque and Gothic Christian abbey, cathedral basilica and church architecture, the nave is the central approach to the high altar, the main body of the church. "Nave" was probably suggested by the keel shape of its vaulting...

s covered by a wooden roof, and the columns of the pointed arches of the naves are devoid of capitals

Capital (architecture)

In architecture the capital forms the topmost member of a column . It mediates between the column and the load thrusting down upon it, broadening the area of the column's supporting surface...

. The main chapel of the apse

Apse

In architecture, the apse is a semicircular recess covered with a hemispherical vault or semi-dome...

is covered by a Gothic ribbed vault. The tracery

Tracery

In architecture, Tracery is the stonework elements that support the glass in a Gothic window. The term probably derives from the 'tracing floors' on which the complex patterns of late Gothic windows were laid out.-Plate tracery:...

of the small rose window in the Eastern wall of the nave has the shape of a pentagram

Pentagram

A pentagram is the shape of a five-pointed star drawn with five straight strokes...

.

In the 16th century the church was restored and several chapels were added to the Southern side of the church. Notable are the polychromed statue of the Virgin Mary and Child (early 16-century) in the main altar and the funerary monument of Diogo Pinheiro, first Bishop of Funchal

Funchal

Funchal is the largest city, the municipal seat and the capital of Portugal's Autonomous Region of Madeira. The city has a population of 112,015 and has been the capital of Madeira for more than five centuries.-Etymology:...

, a fine Renaissance

Renaissance

The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...

work dated from 1525, located on the wall of the main chapel.

See also