New Cathedral of Coimbra

Built for the Jesuits in the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and later raised to cathedral status, this church stands near the top of Coimbra's steep university hill. Its Mannerist facade of pale stone is layered with statues of saints of the order, while the vast single-nave interior is filled with light and dominated by a towering gilded baroque altarpiece. Side chapels and carved choir stalls, some moved here from the older Romanesque cathedral downhill, deepen a building tied to the city's intellectual life.