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Churches and convents of Goa

Indian World Heritage site

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Goa was the capital of Portuguese India and Asia and an evangelization center from the 16th century. The justifications for the inclusion of religious monuments in Goa in the World Heritage List are: 1) the influence of the monuments in the dissemination of Western art forms—the Manueline styles, Mannerist and Baroque—throughout Asia where Catholic missions were established; 2) the value of the set of monuments of Goa as an exceptional example that illustrates the work of evangelization and 3) the specific value of presence in the Basilica of Bom Jesus of the tomb of Francisco Xavier, which illustrates a major world event: the influence of the Catholic religion in Asia in the modern era.

History

The city of Goa was founded in the fifteenth century by the Muslim Sultanate of Bijapur as a port on the banks of the Mandovi river. The city was taken in 1510 by Afonso de Albuquerque with the help of the Goan Hindu privateer Timoja, remaining continuously under Portuguese rule until the twentieth century. The city was recorded as having over 200,000 inhabitants at its peak and was known by the title 'Rome of the East', specifically for its splendid and numerous Catholic religious buildings.

The first converts to Christianity in Goa were native Goan women who married Portuguese men that arrived with Afonso de Albuquerque during the Portuguese conquest of Goa in 1510. During the mid-16th century, the city of Goa, was the center of Christianization in the East. Jesuits, Franciscans, Dominicans and other Catholic religious orders settled in Goa from the sixteenth century. They used the city as their base for the spread of Catholicism in India. The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were the Golden Age of Goa, which ran a flourishing trade and came to have administrative privileges similar to those of Lisbon.

In the first two centuries of the Portuguese presence most of the churches and monasteries were erected that still populate the city, earning the admiration of travelers who pass through Goa. These monuments reflect the cultural exchange and legacy of the Portuguese: while the architectural forms follow the European canon, the internal decoration of altars, altarpieces, paintings and furniture reflect the labour, the work of local artists. This was made possible by the presence of native Goan artists and labourers, which made it not necessary to import European artists or African slave labour (unlike in contemporary colonial Brazil).

From the late seventeenth century, trade competition with Dutch and British led to the economic decline of the city of Goa. Several epidemics ravaged the city and the river Mandovi became inadequate for the more modern ships. The Viceroy moved to Pangim (Nova Goa) in 1759, and Velha Goa lost its capital status officially in 1843.

The Republic of India invaded and annexed Goa in 1961, ending more than 451 years of continuous Portuguese rule. However, the cultural influence continues to this day and it is evident in the religious monuments of Goa, declared a world heritage site by UNESCO in 1986.

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