SAINT-ANTOINE CHURCH AND MUNICIPAL MUSEUM
Church with single nave, featuring a municipal museum with ethnography of the colonial Algarve and a collection of various inventions.
In Lagos, once you have reached this prominent building, you will find yourself in front of an exceptional work of art in the Algarve, regardless of your sensitivity to religious monuments. This church is one of the major churches of the region's religious heritage. It is distinguished by the particularity of having been designed with a unique nave. It is a marvelous miniature in the art of the talha dourada of the Baroque period in the eighteenth century, and it is well deserving of this national heritage listing. The walls of the church are covered with gilded wood where volutes and figures (some of them, on the right wall, of undetermined sex...) that carry columns framing paintings narrating the life of Saint Anthony. This masterpiece is attributed to Custódio de Mesquita and Gaspar Martins. The altarpiece is breathtaking. Unfortunately, the earthquake of 1755 did not spare it. Its structure and moldings, as they are visible today, are mostly from the reconstruction of 1769.
This church gives access to the Municipal Museum. The latter presents an ethnography of the colonial Algarve. It is a multidisciplinary space that deals with the history of the peoples who came to Portugal. From Neolithic menhirs to weapons, from a collection of coins to sacred art, and an exhibition of wacky inventions from the 19th century. Several museums in one, like the museums of the 1930s when it was created. Quite a visit in perspective.
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