Peniche and a glimpse into an older past

After the fascinating but slightly grim Fortress of Peniche we wandered around the fishing harbour and old town of Peniche. The town walls cut off the entire end of the peninsular almost making the town an island.

We had walked past the Igreja de Misericordia several times but it had always been closed. From the outside it has to be said typical if not rather plain.

However upon entering it is truly breath-taking.

The ceiling consists of fifty five painted panels, plus another six in the entrance doorway. Each panel depicts a scene from the bible, ( acts to revelation, New testament ) they are oriented to be viewed coming into the knave and looking right and left. Its a great exercise for your neck muscles!

They date from the 18th century. Mostly by two local artists Joseph of Obidos and Balthazar Gomez from Figuera.

There is a small curtained door that leads into the vestry where a local person was giving a talk about the sculptures and painting within, again our lack of Portugese was getting frustrating....
The paintings were obviously very old, the statue of our lady of Fatima possibly not so old

There were further rooms to see leading to the gallery above the knave.

Statues and Paintings were on display.

A further room seemed to be a meeting place for one of the holy orders of penitents judgeing by the black cloaks and hoods.Every room was richly furnished. The lady behind Lynne was quite concerned that she couldn't speak English and went off to find someone, she later gave us some literature in English, for which I am eternally grateful. I couldn't have explained the following without her.

In the final room was a beautiful carved Altarpiece, or at least the remnants of one in a hermetically sealed case. This turned out to be of Dutch origin and when it washed up ashore it alerted the locals to a shipwreck on the Berlengas islands, about 8 miles from Peniche. Twenty five Dutch people were saved and the interesting part of the story for us was that the local monks upon seeing the pieces of  sculpture insisted that the people be rescued as they were obviously Christians and not the piratical English. This was the 16th century, the time of Drake and Hawkins...........

If they had been English they would have been left to die.
I am no expert on art but looking closely at the fantastic carving I was struck by the thought that paintings from the 16th century struggle with perspective but the person who carved this had no such problem. A beautiful thing, and a privilege to see it.

It was only on leaving the church that I also noticed the rich tiling on the walls, its so easy to be distracted by the fabulous ceiling!
Very impressed by this church, I am guessing its particularly unique, although seemingly almost unknown.