Mafra Convent virtual tour
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Experience an online visit to Mafra Convent virtual tour
Initially conceived as a small convent for 13 friars, the project for the Real Convento de Mafra has undergone successive enlargements, ending in an immense building of around 40,000 m2, with all the dependencies and belongings necessary for the daily life of 300 friars of the Order of S Francisco.
It was D. João V’s concern to guarantee the sustenance of the Convent, paying the expenses of his “pocket”. Thus, bribes were given twice a year, at Natal and São João. They consisted of tobacco, paper, linen cloth and burel for habits, with each brother entitled to two, one to use and one to wash. They still had to mend their own clothes.
In the convent, for example, 120 barrels of wine, 70 barrels of oil, 13 mills of rice (each mill is equivalent to 828 litres) or 600 heads of the cow were spent each year.
Next to the convent was the Jardim da Cerca, with a vegetable garden, orchard, several water tanks and to distract yourself, seven playing fields, four of the ball.
Occupied by French and then English troops at the time of the Peninsular Wars, the Convent was incorporated in the National Treasury when the extinction of religious orders in Portugal, on May 30, 1834, and, from 1841 to the present day, was successively inhabited by several regiments since 1890, is the headquarters of the Practical School of Infantry and, today, headquarters of the School of Arms.
