EnglishReligious Architecture
Daman [Damão/Damaun], Guzerate, India
Religious Architecture
Of the four biggest convents complexes founded by European clergy (Jesuits, Dominicans, Franciscans and Augustinians) in Daman which still existed in the mid-19th century, only that of the Augustinians remains, but with another use and very much changed. The main non-convent churches in Big Daman remain well-preserved on the contrary, specifically the parish church dedicated to the Holy Name of Jesus, that of Our Lady of the Rosary, the church of the Remédios parish located just to the south of the bastioned perimeter of the settlement, the Chapel of the Anguishes, also in that neighbourhood and, in Nani Daman, the church of Saint Jeronimo’s Fort, Our Lady of the Sea (the latter with a recent façade). We know very little about the convent churches. We can assume to a certain degree that they were all single-naved, tile-roofed and with vaulted chancels. The walls of the large Church of Our Lady of Victory pertaining to the Dominican convent west of the city still stand, as do the chancel and façade of the Augustinian convent’s church in the opposite quadrant. The ruins of the Jesuit church have been incorporated in the College of the Eleven Thousand Virgins, since the 18th century commonly known as Saint Paul’s, and can be made out on the perimeter of the Daman government building in the centre of town. The Franciscan’s convent was to the north, next to the land gate, but was completely gone by the 1920s, except for the church ruins which disappeared later. Pedro Barreto Resende’s cartography along with António Barreto’s report, from around 1635, a late 18th century map of Daman at the Overseas Historic Archive and the Dominican ruins all allow us to suppose that the Dominican and Jesuit churches were situated on block corners. They would have had a chancel to the north, opening when possible an axial door and a side door to the street, just as otherwise occurs with the parish church, thus making use of the city’s regular and orthogonal grid. The Augustinian church, the Chapel of the Rosary and perhaps the Franciscans’ church used another possible option and are or were axially oriented to only one street. The very sharp triangular axial gables with a half-open round oculus are very characteristic, as we see in the parish church, the church of the Augustinians, and in those of the Rosary, Remedies and Anguishes, and certainly the same model existed in the Saint Jeronimo’s Fort chapel before the façade was renovated. Exclusive in Daman, this front façade design can also be seen in many churches, perhaps the oldest, in the Islands district in Goa and in various of those in the Província do Norte. It is a façade type tried by Portuguese builders in India between the mid-1540s and 1580s, which certainly had steep corresponding roofs that were much more inclined than the current ones, though not as inclined as the gables. It is even possible that a high number of Portuguese churches and houses from the Middle Ages and the early Modern Age had very steep roofs, as occurs throughout Atlantic Europe, and which, with monsoon rains in mind, served as the model for the first buildings raised in India. The explanation will surely be grounded on reasons of a constructive nature. Moniz Júnior’s writings, though not yet documented, indicate that most of the wooden sculptures for Daman’s retables and pulpits were done by artisans from Vasai. If so, Damanese interiors allow us to mentally reconstruct the appearance the churches in the capital of the North, Vasai, would have had before it fell in 1739. The front façades of Daman’s churches are distinguished by the bell tower situated on the side and accessed by an outside staircase. The parish church’s bell tower called Pedro Barreto Resende’s attention to such an extent that he depicted it very precisely in his drawing of Daman.