INNOVATION AND ASSIMILATION: THE JESUIT CONTRIBUTION TO ARCHITECTURAL DEVELOPMENT IN PORTUGUESE INDIA David M. Kowal The Jesuit presence in Asia officially commenced in 1542 when Francis Xavier arrived in Portuguese-held Goa on the west coast of the Indian subcontinent. Francis initially responded with favor to the physical and religious climate he encountered there; writing to his comrades in Rome soon after his arrival in the Indies, he remarked that "Goa is a city pleasant to see, entirely inhabited by Christians. It has a monastery with many friars of St. Francis, a very fine cathedral with many canons, and many other churches. There is reason for giving many thanks to God our Lord seeing how the name of Christ is flourishing so well in such distant lands and among so many infidels." . See Georg Schurhammer, Francis Xavier, His Life, His Times, Vol. II, Rome, 1997, p. 271. Although Francis' remarks were brief, they nevertheless suggest the extraordinary transformation that had taken place in Goa since its capture by the Portuguese in 1510. Over the years Goa had emerged as the administrative and economic capital of Portugal's eastern domains and, under the direction of the Portuguese-crown "padroado" (which had sponsored Xavier's presence in the Indies) the enclave became the control-center and staging-ground for Christian religious activities throughout Asia. Already in 1518 Observant Franciscans had established a fixed headquarters in the city, and in 1534 Goa became a bishopric, followed in 1557 by elevation to the status of a metropolitan archbishopric. Moreover, during the initial decades of Portuguese rule authorities had engaged in a campaign intended to displace native religious beliefs for those of Christianity. This policy was effected, in part, through the systematic destruction of the most visible physical traces of the native religions -- its mosques and temples. . See A. D'Costa, S.J. The Christianization of the Goan Islands, Bombay, 1966. After Albuquerque, later viceroys and religious authorities instituted severe prohibitions on Hindu practices in Portuguese-controlled Goa and in 1540 the Hindu temples on the Goan islands were appropriated. Often appropriating their very sites, the Portuguese built Christian churches which, as they multiplied in number, endowed the Goan islands with the physical and spiritual look and feel of metropolitan Portugal itself. . See David M. Kowal, "The Evolution of Ecclesiastical Architecture in Portuguese Goa," Carl Justi Vereinigung, Mittelüngen, 1993, pp. 1-22, for a survey of architectural developments in Goa. In fulfillment of its "padroado" duties the crown provided engineers to design and construct many of the early ecclesiastical structures in Goa and elsewhere in the Portuguese Indies. Most were built in accord with a nationalistically-based, late-gothic style called the Manueline, whose fortified and decorative features were symbolically identified with the combined secular power and religious authority of the Portuguese nation. . The Manueline style is so named for King Manuel I (1495-1521), under whose banner Portugal's overseas expansion began. For an analysis of the nationalistic political and religious implications of the style, see Paulo Pereira, "A simbólica manuelina. Razão, celebração, segredo," in História da Arte Portuguesa, vol. II, Lisbon, 1995, pp. 115-155. Thus, the ecclesiastical establishments built in Goa prior to the arrival of the Jesuits served not only as functional places in which to administer spiritual needs, but, by virtue of their concrete presence on the Indian subcontinent, they ideologically asserted the preeminence of western Christianity over the religious beliefs of Portugal's new, non-Christian and non-western subjects. More specifically, the symbolic Manueline form of these churches literally embodied within it the essential role and responsibility of the crusading Portuguese state in transplanting its religion to the East. . See Kowal, pp. 3-6. Little remains of the Manueline structures of Goa beyond the entrance portal of the original church of the Franciscan Observants (erected from 1519-27) which was later incorporated into a structure of 1661, and the still intact Dominican priorate church of Nossa Senhora do Rosário built by Portuguese military engineers in 1542. For a sense of the Manueline city, see Rafael Moreira, "Goa em 1535, Uma Cidade Manuelina," Revista da Faculdade de Ciencias Sociais e Humanas, II, Lisbon, 1995, pp. 177-221. Xavier seemed to recognize this quality in the ecclesiastical structures he encountered in Goa and perhaps he even understood how the utilization of specific architectural plans and forms could convey referential allusions to the policies, goals, and values of the sponsors and users who design such edifices. Such was certainly the case with Jesuit successors, who, having firmly established and expanded the Society's presence throughout Portuguese India, engaged in the vigorous construction of novitiates and professed houses built to maintain the Order and its members, and colleges and churches -- the latter undoubtedly the Jesuits greatest architectural achievement in India -- erected to fulfill the Society's educational duties and proselytizing mission. The more substantial Jesuit churches were erected in locales where there was a significant Portuguese presence, as for instance in Goa, Daman, Diu, Bassein, Chaul and Cochin, and most were associated with Jesuit colleges. Moreover, in specific localities where the Society was vested with parochial responsibilities -- as for instance in the Goan district of Salcete -- the Jesuits took on the responsibility of establishing and supervising the construction of parish churches. In all these instances, Jesuit sponsors recognized the practicality of configuring these structures in concordance with the Order's own religious practices and its specific proselytizing mission. Equally, the Jesuit builders of Portuguese India seem to have understood -- as Manueline builders had before them -- that the choice and utilization of specific architectural forms could invest their structures with particular symbolic meaning. Many of the Jesuit-sponsored churches of Portuguese India survive in whole or in part. An overview of these structures provides incite into how the fabric of India-based, Jesuit churches evolved and the sources from which they were derived. Furthermore, their direct examination lends understanding to how the choice and utilization of specific plans, configurations, and architectural forms served to convey ideological significance specific to the Jesuit presence and mission in what was then the periphery of Christendom. In 1551 the administration and property of the Confraternity of the Holy Faith was formerly turned over to the care of Francis Xavier, thus setting in motion the establishment of a home-base and initial mother-church for the Society in the Manueline city of Goa. . See Schurhammer, Vol. II, pp. 235-243 and Vol. III, pp. 456-472, for a discussion of the Confraternity of the Holy Faith (founded in Goa in 1541 to administer to the spiritual and temporal welfare of native Christians and to recruit and train native speaking secular priests) and the Jesuit administration and development of that institution. Under Jesuit guidance the educational duties and Order-related activities of the institution grew so dramatically that its existing structures on the Rua de Carreira dos Cavallos -- situated on a site where a mosque had formerly stood -- became insufficient. In the 1560's the buildings previously erected for the Confraternity were demolished and new ones built on the site under Jesuit auspices. The foundation stone of a new church was laid in 1560 by Antonio de Quadros, then the Society's Provincial in India, who oversaw the project through to its completion in 1572. . See Allesandro Valignano, Historia del Principio y Progresso de la Compañia de Jesús en las Indias Orientales (1542-64), ed. by J. Wicki, Rome, 1944, pp. 419-425 for Quadros' initiation of Goa's church of São Paulo as well as the college churches in Cochin and Bassein. Throughout the remainder of the 16th century and into the 17th, the Colegio de São Paulo and its church served as the Society's principal staging-ground for educational and missionary activities in Goa and throughout Asia. Already in the early 17th century, however, the area in which the complex was located became increasingly unhealthy and was progressively abandoned, the various functions performed there moved to other locations in and around the city. . See José Nicolau da Fonseca, Historical and Archaeological Sketch of the City of Goa, Bombay, 1878, for a brief synopsis of other Jesuit structures in Goa and the adjacent islands of Chorao and Jua. By the late 18th century the Colegio lay in ruins and in 1829 the Portuguese governor ordered the demolition of all but a portion of São Paulo's facade, today the only remaining part of a church described in its glory-days as "the largest and most beautiful in India." . See Documenta Indica, ed. J. Wicki, X, Rome, 1968, p. 456, which transcribes a letter written in 1576 by Gomes Vaz. Mário Chicó has hypothetically reconstructed the facade of this first Jesuit church in the Indies. . Mário Chicó, "Algumas observações acerca da arquitecura da Companhia de Jesus no distrito de Goa", Garcia de Orta, Lisbon, 1956, pp. 257-74. Following his model, it can be shown that São Paulo's facade stood four stories in height and was three bays wide; the stories were differentiated from one another by entablatures and the compartmentalized bays separated by projecting vertical buttresses rising the height of the structure. The church's interior was accessed through three portals, the largest and most prominent of which is the surviving central doorway whose arched opening is flanked on either side by paired columns raised on decorated pedestals which support a projecting entablature (fig. 1). In turn, this entablature provides a base upon which rests a square window with niches to either side on the second story. The combined articulation of the first and second stories of the central bay creates a retable-like configuration that accents the principal entrance to the church and the vertical axis of the facade. Likely, the third story of the facade was punctuated with round windows in each of its three bays, while the whole was capped by a single, central compartment screened on either side by curving volutes extending over the adjoining outer bays. The surviving central portal (and presumably the side portals, and window moldings and entablatures above) are carved from granite which would have stood in sharp contrast to the local laterite in which the bulk of the church was constructed. The latter areas were undoubtedly white-washed with lime to protect the porous laterite stone from the heavy monsoon rains. By virtue of its height, embellishment and whiteness, São Paulo's tall, tower-less facade must once have stood out in its lush tropical setting like an imposing stage front intent upon awing its public. As in previous Manueline structures, the mere presence of this monumental facade asserted the authority of the Christian religion. Yet, the specific forms utilized to articulate the principal entrance of the facade possibly invest it with additional meaning and reference. São Paulo's surviving central doorway represents the first instance in which a classically-based, Italianate configuration was utilized on the facade of an Asian-built church. As Chicó first observed, the arch and paired-columnar configuration of São Paulo's portal is derived from designs encountered in the architectural books of Sebastiano Serlio. . Sebastiano Serlio, Tutti l'opere d'architettura et prospettiva di Sebastiano, Venice, 1619 (reprinted 1964). A Spanish edition of Serlio's Books on Architecture was printed in 1547 and circulated widely in Portugal soon thereafter. Perhaps it is also due to Serlio's suggestion that the specific architectural order which embellishes that doorway is of the corinthian-composite type, a luxuriant order symbolically acknowledged by most architects of 16th century Italy as the architectural emblem of the triumphant Church and symbolic of its claim to world dominance. . See John Onians, Bearers of Meaning, The Classical Orders in Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the Renaissance, Princeton, 1988, pp. 277 and 310-314. Serlio, who advocated that the use of a particular architectural order on a structure should express the character of that building's patrons and occupants, demarcated his church designs using the Corinthian order. Significantly, the corinthian-composite is an architectural order regularly used with such implications on a majority of 16th century Italian church facades, excepting those structures erected by or for the various religious Orders. By and large, in the churches constructed for religious Orders, including those for the Jesuits, a clear preference for severe facade articulation prevails, in which the austere Doric or Tuscan orders are employed as embodiments of morality. . See Pietro Pirri, S.J. Giovanni Tristano e i Primordi della Architettura Gesuitica, Rome, 1955, for an account of Jesuit constructions designed by Jesuit architect Giovanni Tristano. His churches possess simple facades, from the Annunziatina (1561) -- the original Collegio Romano in Rome - with superimposed Doric pilasters, the Gesù in Perugia (1561) with square piers, and the Gesù of Ferrara (1570 with a single order of Doric pilasters. Only with Vignola's 1568 design for the Gesù in Rome does a European-based Jesuit structure -- here the Society's mother-church -- first utilize the corinthian-composite order in its triumphal sense on both the exterior facade and an otherwise austere interior. The presence in 1561 of the symbolically luxuriant corinthian-composite architectural order on a Jesuit church located in the East thus seems the result of conscious choice, perhaps a means of visually denoting the hoped for fulfillment and triumph of the Christian mission in lands to which the Jesuits had come with the intention of bringing its populace into the fold of the universal and dominant Catholic Church. Classical articulation indeed invokes the center from which Christianity emanated and could visually relate an edifice located geographically distant to Christendom's spiritual heart in Italy and Rome. The fact that the church was built in what was then the periphery of Christendom and designed for the use of an Order specifically set upon bringing new peoples into spiritual allegiance with Roman Christianity, conceivably explains the conscious use of such specifically symbolic forms as the corinthian-composite order on Asian-sited church prior to its use on european-based Jesuit structures. The plan and interior configuration of São Paulo can be reconstructed with the help of contemporary accounts; they indicate that the building was designed as a hall church with three naves of equal height, each leading down a longitudinal axis to square chancels. . See Valignano, p. 421, and Documenta Indica, V, 1958, pp. 595-96, which transcribes a letter written in Goa in 1562 by P. Balthasar da Costa describing the construction and form of the church. All three aisles were covered with barrel vaults supported by "columns of stone". As descriptions note, for the first time in an ecclesiastical structure erected in the Indies the nave vaults were articulated with coffered panels in the "estilo romano", a term used to denote a vocabulary of classically-based architectural forms in distinction to the medieval vocabulary (termed the "estilo moderno") of ribbed vaults and pier supports utilized on the Manueline style buildings previously erected in Goa. Classical forms were thus embedded within the interior of São Paulo and utilized there in a more thoroughly consistent manner than in the hall churches being contemporaneously constructed for the Society in Italy by Jesuit architectural advisor Giovanni Tristano. . See Pietro Pirri, pp. 31-32 and 40-54. Those Jesuit churches closest in date to Goa's São Paulo are the hall churches of Perugia (ca. 1561) and Palermo (ca. 1563). It might again be presumed, as it was for São Paulo's facade, that the utilization of classically-based articulation sought to visually relate this Goan structure to the heart and soul of Christendom. While the prevailing Manueline mode of structural articulation was replaced in São Paulo by a more classically-Italianate one, still the essential model for the church fabric can be traced to the Portuguese metropolitan where the hall plan ("igreja salão") had often been employed for ecclesiastical structures in the Gothic period. Most specifically, São Paulo's plan and interior articulation can be related to a vernacular refashioning of church edifices which took place in mid-16th century Portugal leading to the emergence of the so-called Portuguese "plain style" ("estilo chão"), one in which architects sought structural simplicity, more unified and rationally proportioned spaces, and a disornamented look whereby Manueline embellishment was displaced by the classicizing articulation of the "estilo romano". The Portuguese plain style of architecture was first given large-scale expression in a series of hall-plan cathedrals begun in the 1550's at Leiria, Portalegre, and Miranda do Douro. All were erected with the support of King Manuel's son and successor, the much differently tempered João III (1521-57). whose personal austerity and piety is reflected in the "estilo chão". . See George Kubler, Portuguese Plain Architecture, Between Spices and Diamonds, 1521-1706, Middletown, Conn., 1972, pp. 28-44. The foundation stone at Leiria was laid in 1550, Portalegre was begun in 1556, and Miranda do Douro in 1552. A number of smaller churches in the Alentejo region of Portugal were also built in the "estilo chão". The plain style quickly supplanted the Manueline in Portugal as the new visual embodiment of the nation and its later use in São Paulo at Goa undoubtedly served to identify the structure with the state and indeed, the particular monarch who had solicited and sponsored the Jesuit presence in the Portuguese metropolitan and in the Indies. As noted above, both the form and articulation of Goa's São Paulo differs considerably from contemporary churches erected for the Jesuits in Italy. Nor does its plain-style, hall-plan find a parallel among the known church prototypes that circulated from and to the Society's headquarters in Rome. . See Jean Vallery-Radot, Le recueil des plans d'édifices de la compagnie de Jésus conservé a la Biblioteque Nationale de Paris, Rome, 1960. Moreover, an understanding of São Paulo's Portuguese models and classical sources suggest that the design of the church was not initiated from the Society's center in Rome but instead arose from within the Goan Provincial itself (although, it is not inconceivable that the plan was passed to Rome for comment and adjustment). . See Rudolf Wittkower, "Problems of the Theme", Baroque Art: The Jesuit Contribution, N.Y., 1972, p. 6. In 1558 the first General Congregation of the Order issued a ruling regarding the erection of structures for the Society, which was expanded in 1565. From this date, all projects were to be examined by the Jesuit General and required his approval. These rules, however, were not thoroughly applied or followed. São Paulo's likely designer was a Portuguese royal engineer versed in plain style architecture. The use of "estilo romano" articulation, inherent in the "plain style" itself, was likely enhanced at São Paulo in deference to the Society in India, which by necessity invoked the visual prototypes of its Portuguese sponsors, and by choice desired to allude to their ultimate superiors in the Roman Church and its claim to the triumphal fulfillment of the faith worldwide. Moreover, at this still early stage of the Jesuit presence in India, no architects or engineers belonging to the Order are known to be among them, nor does it seem unreasonable to assume that crown builders were employed to work on behalf of an Order supported by the "padroado" and sponsored directly by the king, as they had on churches constructed prior to, during and after São Paulo. . see Kowal, pp 5-8. Nossa Senhora do Rosario was constructed by Portuguese engineers in 1542, while St. Francis Xavier was in Goa. The new Cathedral, begun in 1652 and not finished until 1631 was constructed by military engineer Antonio Argueiro and then by the chief government engineer in the Indies, Julio Simão. Having noted that the Jesuits relationship with the Portuguese state affected the very form of their first church in the Portuguese Indies, it should be noted that the initial structures erected for Jesuit use in metropolitan Portugal itself were built in a collaborative manner between the Order and its royal sponsors. . See Paulo Pereira, "A Arquitectura Jesuíta, Primeiras Fundações", Oceanos, no. 12, November, 1992, pp. 104-111, for a recent summary of the early Jesuit churches in Portugal. The first Jesuit church begun in Portugal, São Roque in Lisbon, designed by military architect Áfonso Alvares in 1565, was originally conceived as a hall church of three naves, similar to Goa's São Paulo and like it, derived from the preceding "plain style" cathedrals of the metropolitan. In 1567, however, the "igreja salão" plan was definitively abandoned and the church was constructed on a single nave plan. While the nave is laterally bound with transepts and collateral chapels, these areas are formally separated so that the nave takes on the semblance of a wide, unencumbered space where, in accord with the Order's practices, communal congregations could be accommodated to hear orations delivered from preaching pulpits placed along its walls and multiple confessionals could be placed. The church's sanctuary -- where the host is stored and celebrated -- remains the primary focus of attention from all parts of the church, yet it too, tentatively emerges as a space distinct in its function and its sanctity from the nave. The Jesuit churches for the University of Évora (begun in 1566 by Manuel Pires and completed by Álvares) and for the Jesuit College at Braga (1567-88) further adapt the single-nave plan. Évora's Espírito Santo was capped with a continuous barrel vault which further unifies the nave and distinguishes its space more effectively from that of the sanctuary. At Braga the cellular chapels bordering the nave are replaced by niches embedded in the lateral walls, creating an even more economical and box-like space. Moreover, at Braga, the square chancel of the church is covered with its own coffered barrel vault, resulting in a sharper spatial and functional distinction between the unified nave and the sanctuary, and thus endowing the chancel with a sense of special sanctity. These three fully developed, plain style churches eschew "estilo moderno" ornament in favor of the classicizing decoration of the "estilo romano". In all, they are skillfully formulated in accord with both the austere religious mood of the nation and the character and religious practices of the Jesuits residing in the metropolitan. The predilection in the metropolitan for the plain style church was readily adopted in the Portuguese Indies. Subsequent to the construction of Goa's São Paulo, the "igreja salão" is discarded in favor of simple, box-like designs whose singular, unified naves and distinctive, barrel-vaulted chancels become the typological plan of choice for Jesuit-related churches over the next two centuries. In addition to its economy of construction -- well suited to the practical limitations of the Asian environment -- the plan was a highly functional one for churches utilized as settings for proselytizing and preaching to potential converts, hearing the confessions of the newly converted, and celebrating the sanctity of the Eucharist. Moreover, its very form offered a visual association that linked the Society in India collaboratively with its Portuguese sponsors. The adoption of metropolitan models into the Portuguese Indies was not, however, undertaken without adaptations. In general, Jesuit-related churches erected in Portuguese India are structurally simpler and more functionally regulated then their prototypes. In addition, they continue to incorporate classically-derived architectural motives upon their facades, and while over time such motives lose much of their western integrity through interaction with native forms, the continued reference to the classical tradition in these structures maintains their visual and symbolic link with the spiritual center of Roman Catholicism. Perhaps in the most marked distinction to brethren structures in Portugal or Italy, the Jesuit churches in India early on assimilate to their fabric decorative features drawn specifically from the local Indian environment, as if engaging in a dialogue with indigenous traditions that ultimately are welcomed into the Christian fold. An early case in point is the Jesuit college church built within the fortified Portuguese enclave at Bassein. Construction began there in 1561 and was completed around 1578/79. . See Schurhammer, Vol. III, 1980, p. 396 and J. Gerson da Cunha, Notes on the History and Antiquities of Chaul and Bassein, New Delhi, 1993. The buildings remained intact until 1739 when Hindu Maratha forces captured the city; today, only the shell of the church and its accompanying buildings remain. . See Dauril Alden, The Making of an Enterprise, The Society of Jesus in Portugal, Its Empire and Beyond, 1540-1750, Stanford, 1996, pp. 592-596. The capture of most of the Portuguese domains of the north resulted in the loss of four Jesuit colleges --Bassein, Tana, Bandora and Chaul. The plan of the Bassein church is exceedingly simple and anticipates to some degree the economy of definition found in the metropolitan college church at Braga. Composed of a single, rectangular nave, with neither lateral chapels or transept arms, the interior walls are broken only by doors to either side -- creating a cross-axis -- and tribune windows admitting a subdued flow of light. While now stripped of ornamentation, the nave walls were once articulated with pilasters which shaped an arrangement of modular bays. As in Évora's Espírito Santo, a cornice marked the upper perimeter of the nave and possibly a barrel vault supported by exterior buttressing once capped it, thus further unifying the space. The nave wall which opens into the much narrower, barrel-vaulted, rectangular chancel takes on the form of a triumphal arch, both saluting and separating the sanctuary from the area which accommodates the congregation. Despite a singular entry portal and an unusual semicircular top the Bassein facade bears resemblance to that of São Pãulo, Goa, in its imposing vertical orientation, its oculi on the upper levels, and most particularly, in its Serlian-derived, classically-configured portal (fig. 2). As at São Paulo, the arched entrance is flanked by coupled corinthian-composite columns raised on decorated pedestals; they support a florid entablature that serves as the base for a pedimented window framed by matching panels immediately above. These panels are themselves bound with fluted pilasters, curving volutes and ball-topped, triangular pinnacles. The two-tiered portal is thus densely populated with architectural motives that give it the appearance of a retable appended in relief to the flat surface of the larger facade. Most interesting here is the nature of the relief embellishment, for together with the purely classical architectural motives and the Jesuit IHS emblem which occupies the second-tier panels, are found native designs such as the rose of Iran. And all this decoration, whether of European or Indian derivation, is carved in the patterned and florid style of native craftsman. While a lack of available western artisans in the Indies might account for the practical necessity of using indigenous artisans to embellish these structures, the extent to which natives are employed to render western motives and ultimately allowed to incorporate decorative motives of their own tradition -- as evidenced at Bassein and most other Jesuit churches in the Indies -- suggests that the Jesuits stationed in India not only had an appreciation for local talent, but more significantly, they recognized the efficacy of the native visual languages to attract a local audience into the Christian spiritual domain by interpreting and presenting Christian ideas in a way both familiar and enticing. The process of grafting together models, motives and associations drawn from Portuguese, Italian and Indian sources can be measured further in the church of the Bom Jesus, the sole surviving Jesuit church in the capital of Old Goa. Attached to a new professed house built some years before, the Bom Jesus was begun in 1594 and completed in 1605 in accord with the design of a Portuguese Jesuit architect, Domingo Fernandes, who was aided in his task by the chief government engineer in the Indies, Julio Simão. . See Documenta Indica, XI, p. 23, XVI, p. 934, and XIII, p. 618. Simão was then at work upon Goa's Sé Novo. Fernandes, born in Mello, Portugal, was a lay brother who joined the Society in 1570 and was posted to St. Paul's in Goa in 1578. The new professed house was begun in 1583 and suffered a fire in 1663, after which it was rebuilt with alterations. Letters from Jesuits in Goa to Rome bemoan the difficulty of finding western architects available in the Indies to design this structure. At least one plan -- rejected as unsuitable for the location -- came from Rome. A plan by Domingo Fernandes and Julio Simão sent to Rome in 1586 survives (see J. Vallery-Radot, p. 118). As previously noted by Chicó, the cruciform ground plan and basic proportions of the Bom Jesus are similar to the 13th century church of São Francisco in Évora, Portugal, which had also provided a model for that city's 16th century Jesuit church of the Espírito Santo. . See M. Chicó, "Algumas observações...," pp. 267-68. São Francisco in Évora was remodeled after 1460 and consecrated 1501. Unlike its metropolitan prototype, however, the Goan church dispenses with lateral, connecting chapels and its high nave forms a totally uninterrupted volume of space undiluted by the low-arched entryways into the transept arms (figs. 3 and 4). Rising in three stories, the nave walls are divided into bays by pilasters and entablatures with pedimented windows on the first and second levels and oculi at the top, a sequence that matches the configuration of the exterior facade. Although presently covered with a wooden ceiling, the church was intended to carry a coffered barrel vault. By means of an embellished archway, the large and accommodating nave opens into the square chancel of the church which is covered by its own reticulated tunnel vault. Within sits the gilded late-17th century high altar in which the Eucharist is enshrined, brightly illuminated by windows in the chancel's side walls. By these means the sanctuary takes on a distinct and separate identity from the nave as an area of special sanctity, continuing a process of functional differentiation and spatial juxtaposition tentatively initiated in the metropolitan churches of São Roque and the Espírito Santo, and more emphatically in São Paulo in Braga and the Jesuit college church in Bassein. The tower-less, three-bay wide, four-level high facade of the Bom Jesus emulates the modular configuration of its Goan predecessor São Paulo, with its three portals below (giving access to a vestibule with a singing gallery above), rectilinear windows on the second story, oculi on the third, and at the summit, a gabled fronticepiece flanked by fan-shaped volutes (fig. 5). In contrast, however, the facade of the Bom Jesus is densely populated with multiple, projecting pilasters articulated in an ascending sequence of architectural orders which have become increasingly less classical and more hybrid in their appearance. Still, the relative diminution in the height of the stories reflects a classical canon and adheres to Serlio's advise in regard to the proper proportions for lofty facades articulated with superimposed orders; and, but for the excessive height of the gable, the facade of the Bom Jesus is essentially square. The arched, central portal of the Bom Jesus again follows a Serlian model, and like the main door of São Paulo relies upon the luxuriant and symbolic corinthian-composite order to lend its coupled columns physical and associative richness. As at Bassein, the handling of the reliefs that surround doors and windows and which most especially populate the gable panel, denote the hand of native artisans as does the inclusion of Hindu decorative motives -- like hanging garlands -- among the hybridized western angels, cartels and Jesuit heraldic devices that fill the gable to capacity. Similarly, hybridized embellishment fills the church's interior, including its carved, polychromed preaching pulpit, the high altar, and the extraordinary catafalque-tomb -- a combination of parts executed in Florence and Goa -- which houses the body of St. Francis Xavier in the right transept of the church. . See C. Azevedo, "Um artista italiano em Goa, Plácido Francesco Ramponi e o túmulo de S. Francisco Xavier", Garcia de Orta, numero especial, Lisbon, 1956, pp. 277-302O and G. Schurhammer, "Der Silberschrein des Hl. Franz Xavier in Goa, ein Meisterwerk christlicher indiscer Kunst", Das Münster, May-June, 1954. The accommodation and assimilation of native motives into an essentially Portuguese structure with classical overtones is also paramount in the Jesuit college church of Sao Pãulo erected on the Portuguese-controlled island of Diu. Construction of the college complex was initiated in 1601 and finished some time in the second decade of the century. . See A. B. de Braganca Pereira "Os Portugueses en Diu", O Oriente Portugues, 1938, pp. 379-383 and A.R. Pereira Nunes, Diu. Historia, Nova Goa, 1987. The design of the church and adjoining college is usually credited to its rector, Gaspar Soares. The Diu facade varies in its configuration from previously erected Jesuit churches of Portuguese India (fig. 6). Wider than tall, the now three-story elevation is composed of framed, modular bays in the european classical tradition. On the ground level paired, fluted corinthian-composite columns divide the bays, while fluted pilasters do the same above. The two principal stories are widened at the sides by the addition of a narrow bay closed at their ends by buttressing. The three ground-level bays each possess a portal, the central arched entrance of the Serlian type; rectilinear windows occupy the second story while a centralized fronticepiece into which an oculus has been inserted, caps the facade. The pedimented gable is flanked by volutes while pinnacles pierce the skyline. Virtually the entire surface of this otherwise European-configured facade is embellished with painted relief decoration which intermingles motives drawn from both East and West. Here, Christian heraldic devices (again including the IHS emblem) and angelic figures coexist with Hindu rosettes and vegetal ensembles, and Islamic geometric arabesques. Those forms derived from a western repertoire are totally hybridized into the flowing patterns and stylizations of the indigenous artistic tradition. The particularly wide, three-portal facade of the Diu church masks a single-nave interior similar in its economy to the Jesuit churches at Bassein and most especially Braga in the metropolitan figs. 7 and 8). As in these churches, Diu's nave is little more than an elongated rectangular space, unpunctuated by transepts or collateral chapels. The nave is covered in its entirety by a unifying barrel vault whose large panels contain delicately painted Hindu vegetal motives raised in low relief against the white plaster of the vault. The two-story nave wall, systematically divided into bays by pilasters and entablatures, is composed in its lower level of scalloped niches, adapting a design previously introduced in the 1567 Jesuit church at Braga. And as at Braga, the square chancel is tunnel-vaulted and approached from the nave through an arched opening, denoting its special sanctity. In 1605, Gaspar Soares, who had presided over the initial construction at Diu, became rector of the Jesuit college in the Goan district of Salcete, south of the capital. One year later Soares lay the foundation stone for a new college church -- designed with an interior and exterior arrangement similar to that of Diu -- on the site of the fort at Rachol. . In 1567 the Hindu temples in Salcete were destroyed and their lands and wealth appropriated and utilized for parish administration and the construction of a Jesuit College in the district. In 1574 a Jesuit college was first constructed in the village of Margão but was destroyed in 1579 by the Moslem forces of Bijapur. At that time the college was relocated to within the protected fort at Rachol where it remained until 1597 when it was shifted back to Margão. When in 1606 the Margão college was again destroyed -- this time by Maratha forces -- it was definitively returned to Rachol. The Rachol college served as the administrative center for the Jesuit-supervised parishes in Salcete. Like Diu, the plan of the Rachol church consists of an elongated and relatively narrow nave, although its two-story interior walls are only minimally articulated with pilasters and the whole is covered with a wooden ceiling. The sanctity of the barrel-vaulted chancel is here emphasized not only by the gilded retable that stands within it, but most especially by the colorful, embossed reliefs that cover its lateral walls. Depicting scenes from the life of St. Ignatius, each vignette is contained within a medallion held by Indianized angels and set against a patterned floral background. Clearly of Indian craftsmanship, the reliefs again demonstrate how -- with obvious Jesuit sanction -- western motives and Christian stories were translated into a visual language familiar to peoples of a predominantly Hindu origin and artistic tradition. Moreover these hybridized designs -- which also include some pure Hindu motives -- are not simply accommodated, but thoroughly integrated into the fabric of the sanctuary, as if to tacitly acknowledge that non-western traditions and ways of the indigenous population have found a viable and recognized place within a larger Church that had sought to include them within its encompassing and universal fold. . See Alden, pp. 46-47. The Jesuits of Goa, and most particularly those at Rachol (like Thomas Stephens), engaged in multiple efforts towards accommodating and integrating native traditions. For instance, they spoke, wrote, and published -- on their printing presses at Sao Paulo and Rachol -- in the local languages of Konkani and Marathi. From these presses came exceptional works such as Stephens' Purana Christao (1610), a catechism written in the verse of a Hindu Purana, and his Bible in Marathi verse (1616). While Rachol's interior maintains the functional, box-plan favored in Jesuit churches in India, its three-story facade -- basically configured as that of Diu -- discards the hybridized embellishment that characterizes the latter in favor of a chaste design composed solely of rows of classically-pedimented windows and doors. Moreover, the facade is now framed between towers, an imposing feature not utilized on earlier Jesuit structures in India or the metropolitan. Undoubtedly, both the sober, palace-like arrangement of the facade and its double towers are derived from the example provided by two prominent, non-Jesuit structures in the nearby capital, the Sé Novo and the Augustinian church of N.S. da Graca. . See M. Chicó, "A Igreja dos Agostinhos de Goa e a arquitectura da India Portuguesa", Garcia de Orta, Vol. II, no. 2, Lisbon, 1954, pp. 233-240. Chicó argues that the Graca's facade (1597-1602) was derived from the model of São Paulo, Goa. Interestingly, over the course of the 17th and 18th centuries, towered facades became the new norm for Jesuit-sponsored churches, particularly in provincial Salcete where Rachol and a host of parish churches erected under Jesuit supervision are located. . See Alden, pp. 335ff and 584ff. Salcete had been ceded into Portuguese hands in 1548, although for the next two centuries it remained subject to attack, first from the Moslem rulers of Bijapur and then by Hindu Marathas who had supplanted Bijapuri rule. Jesuits from the Colegio de São Paulo in the capital first entered Salcete in the 1560's achieving success in making conversions, establishing parishes, and in attaining their first martyrs in Portuguese India. In 1567 Portuguese authorities systematically destructed Salcete's many temples, appropriating their wealth and forcing Hindus to flee to inland districts where, in the late 17th and 18th centuries, they reconstructed temples under Maratha sponsorship . Meanwhile in Salcete, the Jesuit Order was given the duty of administering and maintaining parishes; the Society took the opportunity to turn Salcete into a lucrative domain where they controlled the economy, education and religious persuasion. While concrete documentation is lacking, it seems assured that most of the 17th and 18th century Jesuit-established parishes in Salcete were the products of natives trained and working under Jesuit supervision. Although generally smaller in scale, the Salcete parishes -- Cortorim (1647) and Varca (1700) serve as good examples -- mirror their college church brethren in the utilization of a single, box-like nave (variously covered with barrel vaults or wooden roofs) to which is appended a narrow, square chancel capped with a coffered barrel-vault. Sometimes niches, but more usually rows of altars are ranged along the lateral walls of the nave, which, at best, are articulated by molded pilasters. Often interior surfaces display an overlay of hybrid decorative detail -- some of european Baroque origin -- although it is hardly ever sufficient to activate the interior space or alleviate its basically conservative and functional nature. Even in larger parishes, like the Espírito Santo of Margão (1675), where the plan is cruciform and the nave is lined with shelled niches, the church's transepts remain subordinate and the unencumbered space of an audience-hall in which to preach is maintained. The Jesuit penchant for the accommodation and association of its own western roots with traditions and tastes of the indigenous environment prevails as well on the stage-front facades of the Salcete parishes (fig. 9). Most possess wide, double-story facades topped with billowing volutes, pinnacles and balustrades, and articulated with superimposed orders whose original classical canons of formal design and harmonious proportion are drastically altered. Surfaces are delicately adorned with activated "late baroque" reliefs of Indo-European design. As at Rachol, these facades are invariably flanked by towers (usually double, sometimes single), which serve as signpost markers of the triumphal Christian presence at the site, in visual and ideological confrontation with the light towers ("deepmalas") and sanctuary towers ("shikaras") which surmount contemporaneously constructed Hindu temples in the geographically near-at-hand, Maratha-occupied inland district bordering Jesuit-controlled Salcete. The facade of the Margão church, which stands close upon the site originally occupied by a Hindu temple and later the original Jesuit college in Salcete, is an embellished adaptation of the towered facade of Rachol (fig. 10). The towers of the facade are here recessed and exist in a not altogether coherent or proportionate relationship to the whole. Significantly, the religious rivalry that existed in the 17th and 18th centuries between the Christian and Hindu authorities across that border did not forestall, but instead encouraged the interchange of architectural motives and ideas between the two. Both Jesuit and Maratha sponsors vied for the attention and affiliation of the same populace and thus relied on similar forms and employed many of the same artisans to craft them. It appears, in fact, that the indigenous Jesuit-trained builders who constructed Salcete's parishes were active in the construction of the neighboring Maratha temples. . See Teotonio da Souza, Medieval Goa, New Delhi, 1979, p. 117, no. 45. Several documents and accounts, including an interesting letter from a Jesuit priest to the King of Portugal, express concern that Indian Christian's were employed in the building of temples to a faith they and their ancestors had supposedly renounced. This dual employment endowed the Jesuit-supervised parishes of Salcete with motives of Hindu and Islamic derivation, while populating the nearby temples with architectural forms transmuted from the west. As such, the shikaras and deepmala's of the border temples are often overlaid with hybridized, western-style engaged columns and entablatures, while the towers of the Salcete parishes are capped with cupolas and lanterns drawn from the syncretic Islamic-Hindu precedent of the temples. More, however, than an exchange of forms took place, for the lamp towers which stand before the Maratha temples have an ideological function drawn, in part, from the church tower; they symbolically pronounce the structures of which they are a part and the locations on which they stand as sacred Hindu ones, just as the signpost towers of Salcete's Jesuit-supervised parishes triumphantly proclaim their sites as Christian. The Salcete parishes culminate a process in which the Jesuit-sponsored churches of Portuguese India were programmatically adapted to both a functional and ideological role commensurate with the Society's mission and practices in the Indies, a role which also took cognizance of the Society's sponsors, allegiances and clientele. From the onset, Jesuit structures in Portuguese India embrace the Portuguese "plain style", ultimately adopting a simplified version of the single nave, box-like design developed in Portugal through the collaboration of the crown and Jesuits resident in the metropolitan, a plan practically geared to preaching, proselytizing, hearing confession, and glorifying the sacrament. Perhaps due as well to its economy of construction, this basic pattern was repeated in Indian-based, Jesuit churches -- despite obvious changes in stylistic syntax -- for two centuries. Most importantly, the associative reference of this form to the nationalistic and spiritual aspirations of the Portuguese state -- sponsors of the Society in India -- was consistently maintained. Likewise, the conscious utilization of classical motives to articulate the facades of these structures, no matter how hybrid in form they become over time, served to give western shape, order and identity to structures sited in the non-western world, in addition to visually relating these edifices -- and, in turn, the Jesuits who built and administered them and the indigenous populace who used them -- to the Italian center of Christendom whose ultimate authority the Jesuits themselves were dependent on and responsible to, and into whose desired worldwide domain local populations were persuaded to submit. Almost immediately the equation became more complicated as the Jesuits in India entered into a dialogue with native traditions, incorporating into their structures Indian motives and architectural forms crafted by native builders and artisans. And by doing so, they explicitly denoted their recognition of indigenous tastes and sensibilities as having a legitimate place within the greater Church. Ultimately in bringing together Portuguese, Italian, and Indian forms with symbolic references inherent within them, the Jesuit-sponsored structures of Portuguese India forged an innovative and accommodating visual symbiosis that linked newly conquered Christian lands and peoples with old, thus creating a more encompassing and universal topology for the Christian Church. ENDNOTES 1