J. Gafarot's photos with the keyword: Gothic

Since prehistory, the region of Santarém has been inhabited, first by the Lusitani people, and then by the Greeks, Romans, Visigoths, Moors and later Portuguese Christians. Of the various legends related to the foundation of Santarém, the most famous tells of the Visigoth Saint Iria (or Irene), who was martyred in Tomar (Nabantia) and whose uncorrupted body reached Santarém. In her honour, the name of the town (then known by its Latin name Scalabis) would later be changed to Sancta Irene, from which Santarém would eventually be derived.

After the reconquest of the Santarém, the city was frequently visited by the successive monarchs and many feudal parliaments (Cortes) were held in Santarém. King Fernando I, in particular, was very fond of the city and chose to be buried in the Convent of Saint Francis (his tomb is now in the Carmo Museum in Lisbon). The city was one of the most important in medieval Portugal, as attested by its large number of monasteries and its royal palace (no longer standing but was located where the Cathedral currently stands). There are still enough examples of Gothic buildings in the city for it to be known as the "Capital of the Portuguese Gothic".

Unlike with past and future styles of art, like the Carolingian style as noted by French art historian Louis Grodecki in his work Gothic Architecture, Gothic's lack of a definite historical or geographic nexus results in a weak concept of what truly is Gothic. This is further compounded by the fact that the technical, ornamentation, and formal features of Gothic are not entirely unique to it. Though modern historians have invariably accepted the conventional use of "Gothic" as a label, even in formal analysis processes due to a longstanding tradition of doing so, the definition of "Gothic" has historically varied wildly. This Franciscan Monastery is a good example of it.