World Heritage

Inspiration foutain, with highlighted attempts of repetition in some parts of the world, the Bom Jesus mountain hill comfirms his vocation to elevate mankind to its sublimity. Here, where art obtains a perfect marriage with nature, mankind reaches its fullness. Here, where devotion gives rise, increasingly, to an increasing artistic and tourist interest, an inevitable phenomenon of the history of a people is located, such a style aside that must consecrate the Bom Jesus as patrimony for all humanity.

The secular tradition of pilgrimage, as a testimony of faith, is present in the history of religions, in many (hindu, judaica, muçulmana, cristã), in many destines of pilgrimage (Jerusalém, Roma, Santiago de Compostela, Bom Jesus do Monte).

The sacred mountain hill, after Itáli, spread throught other european areas, Portugal, Suíça, Áustria, Espanha, França, Bélgica, Alemanha, Checoslováquia and sporadic cases casos in Hungria, Turquia, Rússia e Jugoslávia. The sacred mountain hill of Bom Jesus, in Braga, which roots reassemble to the 14th century, it develops from the end of the middle ages, when the first movements of pilgrimage, devotion and worship emerge, evoking the “New Jerusalem”. In this walk, the sacred hill, as a significant pole of sacred architecture, passes, synthetically, through three phases:

– The time of the hermitages, from the 14th century to 1629, where they stand out D. Jorge da Costa II and D. João da Guarda;

– The time of the solification of the devotion to the Holy Cross, from 1629 to 1723, where the constitution of the Confraternity of Bom Jesus mountain hill wins a decisive role in the definition of the direction of the office;

– The time of the implementation of the «via-crucis», from 1723 until today, in which the President of the Confraternity D. Rodrigo de Moura Teles launches a daring project and begins the construction of the structure of the current complex, the most monumental sacrum Santa Cruz in Portugal, evocative of the painful path of Calvary, translated into the Porch, Staircase, Chapels, Fountains, Statuary and Basilica, although improvements, reforms and significant alterations in tune with the artistic tastes of the moment have been introduced over time.

In this place we are inevitably led to a level that transcends our own existence in a dialectic of the two worlds (the natural and the constructed) and we are captivated by its globality, by the symbiosis between the «expression of nature» and «human intervention», considered now as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO.