page_title: Portuguese colonial architecture
section_title: 16th century
hierarchical_section_title: Portuguese colonial architecture / 16th century
context_page_description: Portuguese colonial architecture refers to the various styles of Portuguese architecture built across the Portuguese Empire. Portuguese colonial architecture can be found in the plethora of former colonies throughout South America, North Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa, India, Oceania, and East Asia. Many former colonies, especially Brazil, Macau, and India, promote their Portuguese colonial architecture as major tourist attractions.
context_section_description: During the 16th century, the Portuguese Empire was the largest, and wealthiest, European colonial empire and Portugal was one of Europe's most important states. Within the first year of the century, 1500, the Portuguese had established the Captaincy Colonies of Brazil, in South America, the colonies of Terra Nova and Labrador, in North America, the trade-colonies of Cochim, in India, and Melinde, in Sub-Saharan Africa. This century really solidified the Portuguese stronghold on the spice trade, with territorial expansions in Portuguese India, with the conquest of key cities, such as Calecute, 1512, Bombaim, 1534, Baçaím, 1535, and Salsete, 1534, among others. The Portuguese colonization of the Americas also began in the 16th century, establishing three North American colonies and thirteen South American colonies, but by the end of the century the number of colonies, in total, was reduced to four, due to integration into mega-colonies. In the far east, the Portuguese established Portuguese Macau, 1537, and Portuguese Timor, 1596. By the end of the century, the Portuguese Empire was an enormously vast empire, spanning from Portuguese Malacca, in East Asia, and the Governorate General of Brazil, in South America, to Ormuz, on the Persian Gulf, and Mombaça, in Sub-Saharan Africa. The expansion of the empire, both territorially and economically, influenced Portuguese colonial architecture a great deal.
  Like in the 15th century, Portuguese colonial architecture in the 16th century was built for the utmost functionality and purpose. Unlike in the previous epoch, however, 16th-century Portuguese colonial architecture did not skip aesthetics in order to pursue functionality, instead it was, for the first time, able to truly compromise the two ideals of beauty and function, an ideal persistent throughout the Portuguese Renaissance. As in most times, military structures of the period were usually large, foreboding forts, but Portuguese colonial architecture of the 16th century also saw the creation of administrative palaces and governor mansions within these forts, which were built in a manner following necessity but also taste and style, on a different level than seen before. A good example of a Portuguese colonial military fort with palatial accommodations is the Fort of the Reis Magos, in Natal, Brazil. The fort is located on the edge of the ocean, on a strategic location for both land and sea attacks, and is completely sober in its exterior façade. On the interior, however, the Governor's Mansion was built in a simple, but stylish at the time, Alentejo style, originating in the south of Portugal.
  Alongside the increased sophistication of Portuguese colonial military architecture in the 16th century, religious architecture hit a level never seen before in the Portuguese Empire. Portugal's immense wealth from its empire, mainly from the spice trade, fueled its historical religious zeal for converting non-Christians. Portuguese India of the 16th century was the cultural and economic powerhouse of the Portuguese Empire, and this, in combination with the Goa Inquisition, subset of the Portuguese Inquisition, created a major court of the Portuguese Renaissance, evident in the enormous and elaborate churches of the epoch. The Cathedral of Goa, the cathedral for Portuguese India, embodies most all of what Portuguese colonial religious architecture stood for. The cathedral was built to commemorate a Christian victory, that of Afonso de Albuquerque over the Moslems, and the edifice is built in a grandiose Portuguese classical style. The high bell towers and detailed portal and windows are typical of Portuguese churches, and they seek to show Christian, more importantly Portuguese, dominance of the area, a major theme of Portuguese colonial religious architecture of the 16th century.
caption: The Portuguese Empire at the end of the 16th century.
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