THE INFIRMARY

This remarkable former religious complex, now sold, comprised a two storey cloister and a three section rectangular church dating from the sixteenth century. With 2,315 sqm of built area set on a plot with private garden, the ensemble preserved the architectural gravity of its origin: ribbed vaults resting on polygonal corbels, Manueline floral keystones and stone galleries that once framed monastic life. At the entrance, a marble armillary sphere crowned the doorway, a rare symbolic detail anchoring the building firmly within Portugal’s Renaissance imagination.

Inside, the church revealed layered history. The main chapel still carried traces of seventeenth century frescoes, including faint geometric compositions and golden palm motifs, recalling a time when it was considered among the most richly decorated sacred spaces in the region. Commissioned under King João III in 1531, the complex originally included infirmaries and hospital functions, later administered by the Order of the Canons Regular of St John the Evangelist and subsequently by the Misericórdia of Montemor o Novo.

Beyond its ecclesiastical past, the property offered twelve rooms, five bathrooms, a fireplace, terrace, balcony, garage and ancillary spaces including storage and former commercial areas. The cloistered courtyard, chapel volumes and generous scale positioned it as a rare adaptive reuse opportunity within the historic fabric of Montemor o Novo. A building of architectural presence and narrative depth, it represented not only real estate, but a fragment of Portugal’s sixteenth century civic and religious history.