Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Nossa Senhora do Carmo
Rua do Carmo • Tues-Sat 9-11.30am & 1-5pm, Sun 1-6pm • R$2
A “third-phase” Baroque church a short walk east along Rua Borba Gato and then
Rua do Carmo from Praça Melo Viana,
Nossa Senhora do Carmo
demonstrates the
remarkable talents of
Aleijadinho
(see box, p.156), who oversaw its construction and
contributed much of the decoration between 1763 and 1778. The interior manages
to be elaborate and uncluttered at the same time, with graceful curves in the gallery,
largely plain walls, comparatively little gilding and a beautifully painted ceiling.
Aleijadinho left his mark everywhere: the imposing soapstone and painted wood
pulpits, the banister in the nave, and above all in the two statues of São João da Cruz
and São Simão Stock (in the two
retábulos
on either side of the nave). You can tell an
Aleijadinho from the faces: the remarkably lifelike one of São Simão (facing the altar,
he is on the left) is complete with wrinkles and transfixed by religious ecstasy.
2
Museu do Ouro
Rua da Intendência • Tues-Fri 10am-5pm, Sat & Sun noon-5pm • R$1 •
T
31 36711848,
W
museudoouro.wordpress.com
The small but absorbing
Museu do Ouro
(“gold museum”) is a short but steep walk
behind the Nossa Senhora do Carmo, a memorial to the trade that made the town rich
in the eighteenth century. The museum occupies a creaking, slanting wooden colonial
building built around 1730 to serve as the royal foundry and mint, as well as the living
quarters of the of
cial “Intendência” who oversaw the operation and collection of taxes
from the balcony overlooking the inner courtyard - a function it served until 1833.
The lower rooms, fittingly enough, are full of scales, weights, pans and other mining
instruments, and a strongroom containing plaster-cast replicas of eighteenth-century
gold bars. There's also the
Sala dos Inglês
, a room dedicated to the mostly British
engineers and mining companies who helped revive extraction of the region's mineral
wealth in the nineteenth century, using the deep mining techniques established in
Cornwall (the British-owned
St John d'el Rey Mining Co
operated the famed Morro
Velho mine between 1830 and 1960).
Upstairs you'll find living quarters decorated circa 1750 with a collection of colonial
furniture, porcelain and
arte sacra
(including a
Sant'ana Mestra
by Aleijadinho), with it
as well as the
Sala dos Quatros Continentes
, handsomely painted ceiling (by an
anonymous artist) representing the four continents known at the time it was built.
Igreja Matriz de Nossa Senhora da Conceição
Praça Getúlio Vargas s/n • Tues-Sun 9am-noon & 2-5pm • R$2 •
T
31 3671 1724,
W
nsconceicao-sabara.blogspot.com.br
Sabará's most spectacular church,
Igreja Matriz de Nossa Senhora da Conceição
, is a
1.5km walk from Praça Santa Rita, its modest red-and-white exterior situated on the
work a day Praça Getúlio Vargas at the eastern end of town. The interior, however, is
another story: completed between 1710 and 1714, it's a jaw-dropping example of the
so-called first and second phases of
barroco mineiro
. Inside the bejewelled cave-like
interior is a row of heavily carved and gilded arches on each side of the nave, a
beautifully decorated ceiling, and almost every space is smothered with paintings and
murals the closer you get to the altar. Check out the doors on either side of the apse
(especially on the left facing the altar) - for an added dose of the exotic these feature
painted panels with unmistakable red and gold Chinese influences, most likely added
by craftsmen from the Portuguese colony of Macau (or at least, someone who had
been there).
Igreja de Nossa Senhora de Ó
Largo Nossa Senhora de Ó • Daily 8am-noon & 1.30-5pm • R$2 •
T
31 3671 1724
From Praça Getúlio Vargas it's another 1km (well signposted) trek to Sabará's most
enigmatic church, the tiny
Igreja de Nossa Senhora de Ó
. Located, incongruously, in a
quiet residential area on the other side of the river, it doesn't look in the least Brazilian:
