The Damned fall headlong into the mouth of Hell: detail of superbly sculpted mid-1300s Gothic Last Judgement relief on marble tomb of Dona Inês de Castro (1325-1355), murdered mistress of Portuguese monarch Pedro or Peter I. The lovers are both interred in the church of the former Cistercian royal monastery of Santa Maria at Alcobaça, Centro, Portugal.
Alcobaça, Centro, Portugal: the Damned tumble headlong into a monstrous Hellmouth, mouth of Hell or mouth of Leviathan in this detail of a superbly sculpted Last Judgement Gothic relief on the sarcophagus of Dona Inês de Castro, murdered mistress of Dom Pedro I of Portugal. The tomb stands in the north transept of the church of the Mosteiro de Santa Maria de Alcobaça, the former Cistercian royal monastery founded in 1153. Like other carvings in the church damaged by French troops in the early-1800s, some sculpted figures are now headless or are missing limbs. Opposite the tomb, in the south transept, stands the ornate Gothic sarcophagus of Dom Pedro. The tombs, both surmounted by recumbent effigies, were placed there because Pedro wanted the lovers to see each other when they rose from their graves on Judgement Day. An inscription on his sarcophagus reads “Até o fim do " (Until the end of the world…). Inês de Castro was a Galician noblewoman who moved to the Portuguese court as lady-in-waiting to Constance of Castile when she married Pedro, the heir to the throne. Pedro began a long love affair with Inês, but Constance died in 1349, Pedro’s father, King Afonso IV, banished Inês from court and then ordered her assassination. She was beheaded at Coimbra in front of her young child in 1355. Pedro (1320-1367) became king two years later. He exacted a gruesome revenge on her killers and ordered his lover’s remains to be taken to Alcobaça. According to popular (but probably false) legend, he crowned her exhumed corpse as queen and ordered courtiers to swear allegiance to her and kiss her decomposing hand. The monastery is the burial place of many of Portugal’s monarchs. The last monk left in 1834 and the entire monastic complex is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Size: 3408px × 3408px
Location: Alcobaça, Centro, Portugal.
Photo credit: © Terence Kerr / Alamy / Afripics
License: Royalty Free
Model Released: No
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