Monastery of Santa Clara - Coimbra

A female monastery of the Order of Santa Clara, with a Gothic mendicant church with a fully vaulted body. It had a first foundation in 1286, at the initiative of Dona Maior Dias, but having been extinguished in 1311, it was re-founded in 1314, sponsored by Isabel de Aragão - the Queen Santa. The church of three naves, without a transept, with a cradle vault broken in the central nave and vaults of warheads on the side aisles, had Domingos Domingues as responsible teachers between 1317-1325, Estevão Domingues between 1325-30, and was sacred in 1330. choosing the site for the location of the monastery proved to be unwise, since it began to be disturbed by the floods of the Mondego, just the year after the consecration of the church. Over the centuries the situation grew worse, and even the construction of an overhanging floor in the early 17th century prevented the need to leave the monastery. Indeed, in 1677, the old monastic complex was abandoned and the religious community occupied the monastery of Santa Clara-a-Nova, which was built in the near but higher area. The old monastery that happened to be denominated of Santa Clara-a-Velha was being degraded and buried in the sands of the Mondego. Despite having had a major intervention in the thirties and forties, carried out by the Directorate General of National Buildings and Monuments, it continued until the present intervention in a state of great abandonment.