The Houses of Mercy: A Welfare Presence in Early Modern Portuguese Cities

• In Event: Architectural Barriers in Renaissance Europe III: Spaces of Healing

Abstract

The brotherhoods of mercy, whose first foundation occurred in 1498 in Lisbon, became the most important Portuguese confraternity of the Early Modern era owing to their rapid spread across the country and overseas as effective social welfare structures that responded to local needs. To ensure the fulfillment of their aims, these brotherhoods promoted different objects and buildings. Particularly, the buildings, named Houses of Mercy, had to meet charitable, administrative, spiritual, celebratory, and funerary needs. The Houses of Mercy were composed of a multiplicity of spaces with different functions; they were the site of the most important healthcare and religious celebrations and to the whole daily life of the confraternities. The specific materiality of the House of Mercy ensured a strong presence in the urban context. This paper intends to present a systematization of the architectural and urban characteristics of House of Mercy ranging between functionality and institutional identity.

Author

• Joana Balsa de Pinho, Centre for Lusophone and European Literatures and Cultures