English
Church of Our Lady of Pity
Panelim, Goa, India
Religious Architecture
This small chapel was founded at an unknown date and under unknown circumstances, probably in the 17th century. It is worthy of mention because of its location on a highly visible site by the road on the edge of the parish of Saint Peter’s of Penelim. It is one of the few 18th century religious structures in Goa whose main façade reproduces architectural models from the home kingdom. Father Catão reports that in 1776 the chapel was awarded a papal brief granting full indulgence to whoever took part in the mass in honour of Our Lady of Pity. It is very probable that the brief was requested by an influential confraternity linked to the chapel and that the work which gave the building its current form dates to that time. The carved altars and decoration of the small rectangular interior dominated by a large high choir over the door certainly date to the 1780s or 1790s. The façade is characteristic of European architecture from the second half of the 18th century, due both to the central theme of the door with full-length window and the double pediment with back-curved upper level. The addition of side porticos to the façade via a pyramidal composition on the front elevation, also joined by a curvilinear gable, is more in line with Goan tradition. The pairs of composite pilasters that frame the façade have capitals made of black stone from the north, very finely wrought: they were probably removed from a construction in Old Goa, which was then undergoing accelerated dismantlement. The chapel is otherwise unexplainable outside the context of the transfer of devotions and investments to the area of Penelim and Ribandar which had been under way since the early 18th century. In the 19th century the chapel became an object of great popular devotion when an image of Our Lady of Miracles was transferred there. The respective confraternity had existed at Saint Francis of Assisi’s of Old Goa since 1661, organised around an image brought from Jaffna, Ceylon, when that fortress was captured by the Dutch.