Church of Nossa Senhora da Anunciação

The Church of Nossa Senhora da Anunciação (Igreja Paroquial de Mértola/Igreja de Nossa Senhora da Assunção/Igreja de Nossa Senhora da Anunciação) is a 12th-century church and former mosque in the civil parish of Mértola in the municipality of Mértola, in the Portuguese Alentejo. The building was likely built at the end of the 12th century as a mosque. But, by the 13th century, the building had already become transformed into a Christian church, and its altar relocated to the northern wall. It was re-installed in the east sometime at the end of the 15th century. In 1506, Duarte de Armas represented the church with a timber roof truss and a minaret/tower. By the middle of the 16th century, though, Pedro Dias described the changes to the building: the minaret had already been substituted for a belltower and the roofline had become adorned with merlons, which crown the roof of the building (authored by Fernão Pires). Between the 17th and 18th century, the belltower was redecorated. On 2 February 1969, the region experienced an earthquake resulting in damage to buildings on the hilltop, including the church. The church is located on an isolated hilltop, implanted on the steep slopes below the Castle of Mértola, but dominating the northern aspect of the town, on terraces above the Guadiana River. Its principal facade is situated along a roadway delimited by wall across (PT040209040017), and nearby the Chapel of Calvário. The plan consists of a large, rectangular nave, rectangular annex (in the north), a pentagonal mihrab (in the east) and a square bell tower (in the southeast) all covered in differentiated tile roof. The four facades are crowned by triangular staccato merlons, alternating along the lateral walls with conical pinnacles and chamfered merlons. The principal facade, oriented on an angle to the south, one of the pinnacles acts as decoration and cylindrical buttress (in the left corner), adjoining the prismatic bell tower with windows in the upper section and fogaréus in the four corners. Attached to the middle axis of the facade, is a three-storey buttress of differing molding that ends in a conical pinnacle. To its right, in decentered posit

Church data from Wikidata (CC0). Summary from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA).