Gli angeli sostengono dolcemente la testa e le spalle coronate di Dom Pedro i (re Pietro i di Portogallo): Recumbent effigy sulla sua elaborata tomba gotica di marmo di metà 1300s nella chiesa dell'ex monastero cistercense di Santa Maria ad Alcobaca, Centro, Portogallo. Pedro si trova di fronte alla tomba della sua padrona assassinata, Inês de Castro (1325-1355).
7360 x 4912 px | 62,3 x 41,6 cm | 24,5 x 16,4 inches | 300dpi
Data acquisizione:
5 giugno 2013
Ubicazione:
Alcobaça, Centro, Portugal.
Altre informazioni:
Questa immagine potrebbe avere delle imperfezioni perché è storica o di reportage.
Alcobaça, Centro, Portugal: angels raise their eyes to heaven as they gently cradle the marble crowned head and sculpted recumbent effigy of Dom Pedro I (King Peter I of Portugal). The 14th century monarch, who reigned for ten years, lies on his elaborate Gothic tomb in the transept of the church of the Mosteiro de Santa Maria de Alcobaça, the former Cistercian royal monastery founded in 1153 by the first King of Portugal, Afonso Henriques. While four angels support his head and shoulders, two more hold incense censers. Pedro commissioned both his own tomb and that of his murdered mistress, Inês de Castro (born 1325), and their effigies lie facing each other, Pedro in the south transept and Inês in the north. Pedro wanted them to be able to see each other when they rose from their graves at the Last Judgement. A Portuguese inscription on Pedro’s sarcophagus reads “Até o fim do mundo..." (Until the end of the world…). Pedro (1320-1367) married Constance of Castile, but then embarked on a long love affair with Inês, her aristocratic lady-in-waiting. After Constance died in 1349, Pedro’s father, Afonso IV, banished Inês from court and then ordered her assassination. She was decapitated in front of one of her young children in 1355. When Pedro became king two years later, he exacted a gruesome revenge on her killers and ordered his lover’s remains to be transferred to her tomb at Alcobaça. According to popular (but probably false) legend, he had her exhumed corpse crowned as queen and ordered the entire court to swear allegiance to her and kiss her decomposing hand. The monastery is the burial place of many of Portugal’s monarchs. The last monk left in 1834 and the entire monastic complex is now protected as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. D1294.B5437
