Contributions for the study of classic sources in the production of figurative
gargoyles in the Portuguese context of the sixteenth century
Our research concerns gargoyles as elements of monumental sculpture, integrated in
religious buildings that played an important pedagogical and symbolic role from the 13th
century to the 16th century. Characteristic of the Central European Gothic, gargoyles reached
their apogee in the national context in the first half of the 16th century, a phenomenon for which
two things contributed a great deal: the first is related to the conventual complex of Santa Maria
da Vitória, Batalha, where gargoyles can be seen in all the construction, with an iconographic
program unknown among us until then. The second is the presence, in Portugal, of a very
significant number of artists proceeding from other countries, who were acquainted with its
existence in buildings. Therefore, in the first quarter of the 16th century, a significant number of
religious buildings have gargoyles, but the phenomenon of their integration and the legitimating
of their iconographic programs will have continuity in buildings where classical trends can
be detected. Our presentation reflects upon gargoyles sculpted under Renaissance inspiration,
upon the classic aesthetic principles, revealing an important process of formal and thematic
update, but also revealing some formal and iconographic persistence that will originate very
special gargoyles, in particular the sculptured gargoyles made by French sculptor João de Ruão
for the Manga’s Cloister, in Coimbra.