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Parish Church of Our Lady of Pilar
Ouro Preto, Vila Rica, Minas Gerais, Brazil
Religious Architecture
Around 1700-1703, the congregation of the Broth- erhoods of Our Lady of Pilar and of the Blessed Sacrament built the old Chapel of Our Lady of Pilar, made of wood and rammed earth, which soon began to be used as the parish church. The construction of the definitive church, the design of which is attributed to the engineer Sergeant-Major Pedro Gomes Chaves, began before 1731; the contract was officially granted in that year to João Fernandes de Oliveira, but the construction of the church had already “begun and was well advanced”. It was also in 1731 that the Blessed Sacrament and images were temporarily moved to the Chapel of Our Lady of the Rosary of the Black People. As the church was made of adobe and rammed earth, the works advanced rapidly: the procession of the “Eucharistic Triumph ” was held in 1733 to celebrate the return of the Holy Tabernacle to the Parish Church of Pilar. Due to the frailty of the construction materials, several parts of the church had to be rebuilt later on. In 1781, it was necessary to repair one of the towers that was in risk of collapsing; the same thing happened with one of the structural walls in 1818; the rammed earth wall on the right-hand side was replaced by one of stone and mortar in 1825; lastly, the new frontispiece in stone masonry and the new towers, works entrusted to Manuel Fernandes da Costa, were finished in 1848-1852. As for the interior decoration, it can be seen that the elegant decagonal shape of the nave does not affect the church’s outer appearance (which has the form of a rectangular prism): it is a false wooden structure, with struts that support the altarpieces and tribunes stretching up to the ceiling – the woodwork was finished by António Francisco Pombal, the brother of Manuel Francisco Lisboa. The two pulpits were added between 1735 and 1737, as were the six gilded, carved and profusely decorated side altars, some of which were constructed before that period. In the second half of the 18th century, the panelled ceiling of the nave was adorned with a decorative painting that depicted figures and themes taken from the Old Testament and which is attributed to João de Carvalhais and Bernardo Pires. The chancel was enlarged between 1741 and 1754, following the initial design of Pedro Gomes Chaves and embellished with gilded wood carvings – which, according to M. R. de Oliveira, combine decorative themes from the 17th-century Roman baroque style with French motifs from the Louis XIV and Regency styles. At this stage, the work was held back because of the bankruptcy of the contractor António Francisco Pombal (1744) and the death of the woodcarver Francisco Xavier de Brito (1751). The decoration of the chancel was not finished until the 1770s, when gilding was applied to the wood carving and the fine side panels were painted. These latter panels were only discovered as late as the 1950s when the team of restorers coordinated by IPHAN removed the painting work from the decorative elements that had been added in the 19th century.
Cláudia Damasceno Fonseca