Chapel of St. Catherine

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Address: Old Goa
City: Panaji
State: Goa
Location: South West India
Year of Construction: 1510 AD
Constructed By: Afonso De Albuquerque
Type of Construction: Medieval
Type of Building: Church
Religion: Christianity

The chapel was rebuilt in 1552 on the remains of an earlier structure, built in 1510 by Afonso de Albuquerque to commemorate his entry into the city on St. Catherine's Day. The earlier chapel was enlarged in 1550 by the Governor George Cabral, who put up an inscribed slab, which when translated, reads as follows: "Here in this place was the doorway through which Governor Afonso de Albuquerque entered and took this city from the Mohammadans on the day of St. Catherine in the year 1510 at the expenses of his Highness." Thus the chapel was built on the spot where stood the gates of this city under the Muslim rule.

The Portuguese Viceroy Redondo commissioned the Se, or St. Catherine's' Cathedral, southwest of St. Cajetan's, to be "a grandiose church worthy of the wealth, power and fame of the Portuguese who dominated the seas from the Atlantic to the Pacific". Today it stands larger than any church in Portugal, although it was beset by problems, not least a lack of funds and Portugal's temporary loss of independence to Spain. It took eighty years to build and was not consecrated until 1640.

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