English
Church of Saint Cajetan
Assagao, Goa, India
Religious Architecture
This church began as a chapel affiliated to the parish of Anjuna founded in 1775, later becoming parish seat in 1813. It was built in the late 19th century (1896-7). The domed façade precedes a two-storey nave with semicircular shell niches housing windows and articulated by superimposed pilaster orders. Saint Cajetan’s is therefore among the churches which emerged in the second half of the 18th century. To enlarge the church, the builders adopted a procedure that would prove very successful a century later: they created two naves perpendicular to the crossing, in the mode of a long transept opening to the nave via two large segmental arches. Saint Cajetan’s has one of the most balanced courtyards in Goa. It faced eastward; the 18th century parish buildings abut its southern flank against a slope which protects the building from dominant winds during the rainy monsoon. This courtyard is a regular rectangle facing east, levelled out of the slope. The covered cemetery is located at the end opposite the church. An old porched building stands on the slope to the south.