How ruined St Paul’s in Macau might have looked like Coimbra’s New Cathedral, and other delights from the Portuguese city
- The New Cathedral of Coimbra reportedly served as the model for Macau’s Church of St Paul – of which only the facade remains, following a fire in 1835
- Coimbra is full of beautiful ancient buildings, its university inspired Harry Potter creator JK Rowling, and it is now hosting its contemporary art biennial
Ever wondered what the rest of St Paul’s – the surviving facade of which is Macau’s most famous landmark – would have looked like?
It just so happens there’s a model, of sorts, in Coimbra, a city in central Portugal.
“The Church of St Paul, in Macau, was built to be a copy of the New Cathedral of Coimbra,” city culture official Sofia Serra explained to the newspaper Publico in 2013, upon the launch of a Chinese version of Coimbra’s tourism website.
Academic papers published in a 2020 book – Coimbra Visa: The College of Jesus between Portugal and the World – also connect the New Cathedral with Macau’s St Paul’s (referred to as Igreja da Madre de Deus, or the Church of the Mother of God) and explain how the Jesuits of Coimbra influenced ecclesiastical developments in Macau from the 16th century, as well as vice versa.
However, it stops short of claiming the Japanese Christian builders of St Paul’s granite facade were working from plans sent from Portugal directly.
