Another representation of the Rua Nova dos Mercadores, in Lisbon: the Martyrdom of St. Sebastian by Gregório Lopes

Abstract

From the empirical recognition of the connection between two urban representations – the depiction of the Rua Nova dos Mercadores (New Street of Merchants), in Lisbon, belonging to the Kelmscott Manor Collection (c. 1570) and the background architecture of the Martyrdom of St. Sebastian, painted by Gregório Lopes for the Convent of Christ in Tomar (1530s) – and its subsequent conclusions, this paper revisits some of the most iconic iconographic representations of the city, the arguments that supports their identification and their importance for the knowledge of the central areas of the 16th century Lisbon, city so often described and yet so poorly imagined.