and Michael Angelo, are executed with a skill and intricacy that constitute them a marvel of that style of artistic work. The predominating hues of chocolate and deep blue in the extraordinary amalgamation of rare marbles and coloured stones give the small interior a sombre, compressed aspect on a dull day. It should be seen in the morning when the sunshine, pouring through a window across the church, lights up the wonderful mosaics, and the lovely ultramarine of the lapis lazuli pillars, sets the gilded bronze capitals and decorative gold striæ ablaze, and strikes flashing rays on the massive, richly-wrought censors of silver.
The treasures in altar furniture and vestments belonging to this recessed shrine are even more eloquent of the magnificence of King João V. They are so valuable that they are displayed in a room apart of the Misericordia, forming an artistic and interesting museum in themselves. A wonderful altar-front with lavish repoussée ornamentation of lapis lazuli and silver, worked by the artists Corsini and Ludovici, excites great admiration, as also a pair of giant candlesticks, silver-gilt, splendid specimens of the Italian silversmith's art of the period. Their fabulous price of some £12,000 is mentioned with bated breath in conjunction with their weight of 800lbs respectively. The whole collection is considered by the Portuguese as one of their chief artistic possessions.
As an institution of charity the Casa da Misericordia was founded by D. Manuel and his third queen Leonor under the name of Our Lady of Mercy, in the position known as the Conceição Velha (Old Church of the Conception) near the Ríbeira Velha east of the Praça do Commerçio. In 1768 it was removed to the old Jesuit buildings of S. Roque which have in the intervening years been enlarged and renewed. It is a benevolent institution
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