From sculpture to architecture: Jean de Rouen at the Monastery of Santa Cruz of Coimbra (ca 1528-1535)

Abstract

Upon his arrival in Coimbra, in about 1528, Jean de Rouen immediately started working for the Monastery of Santa Cruz, of the Canons Regular of St. Augustine. The house was undergoing a spiritual and physical reformation ordered by John III, with the Hieronymite Friar Brás de Braga in charge. Jean de Rouen, sculptor, or “imagineer”, was commissioned with some ornamental architectural pieces, such as arches and doorways, where he applied the new language of the Renaissance – as, for example, the arch of the high choir of the church, framed by a classic composition of pilasters, entablature and a pair of tondi. Simultaneously, he also became responsible for those space-containing architectural structures such as a small chapel amongst the Silence cloister, or the Manga cloister fountain tempietto. In this paper we aim to analyse Jean de Rouen’s work at Santa Cruz, during the first phase of his Portuguese career, and the growing scope of his artistic activity from the scale of sculpture to that of architecture.