Our Lady of the Peña de Francia (chapel)

The chapel of Our Lady of the Peña de Francia (Nossa Senhora da Penha de França) stands in Rua da Penha de França, in this city. It was founded in 1622 by António Dantas and rebuilt in 1712. It became the centre of a well-attended pilgrimage, with pilgrims coming from various parts of the island. Attached to it was a house for those who came from the more distant parishes to fulfil their vows to Our Lady of the Crag. In 1755 major repairs were carried out on it, paid for by the donations of the faithful. Around 1818 it was incorporated into national property (bens nacionais) and given to the diocesan bishop, and the pilgrims’ house was then turned into a summer residence for the prelates of this diocese. At that time the locality (sítio) was still regarded as a suburb of the city. For some time, for reasons unknown to us, it ceased to belong to the mitre; in 1838 it passed back into the possession of the prelates. Some years later repairs were made there at the expense of the State, which gave rise to a question and a debate in parliament. The Penha chapel had its own chaplain, and for many years its worship was maintained by the house of Carvalhal (‘oak grove’).

Several of the prelates have lived there for a time, and Bishop Dom Manuel Agostinho Barreto made the little house his permanent home, drawn by the pleasantness of the spot, its position overlooking the sea and its distance from the centre and noise of the city. The prelate Dom José da Costa Torres was living there when, on 6 October 1796, he found the house surrounded by troops and was forced to embark at once, ‘without taking leave, says a manuscript of the time, of any person, nor of the Most Holy Sacrament; and to this day the reason for this contrived embarkation by night and by back doors is unknown’. From 27 November 1840 to 9 January 1841 our great poet Castilho (see that entry) lived in this house. He had come to the island to accompany his brother, Canon Augusto Frederico de Castilho, who died there on 30 December and lies buried in the Angústias (‘sorrows’) cemetery. In his historical eulogy of his brother, delivered at the Royal Conservatory of Lisbon, Castilho referred to his stay in Madeira, and in particular to the house adjoining the chapel, in these terms: ‘... a dwelling in a lovely suburb of the city, the parochial residence of Nossa Senhora da Penha de França; a humble house, cheerful and solitary like that of our hermitage, and not only neighbour to its church but embraced by it, shaped as if on purpose for both kinds of health: for that of the body through the freshness of the air, the tranquillity of the spot and the nearness of the sea, which bathes the feet of its modest garden and almost mirrors its banana trees; for that of the spirit through all these same circumstances of the beauty and grandeur of creation and through the worship of the Virgin...’

The prelate Dom Manuel Agostinho Barreto, who lived there for more than thirty years, left as his last testamentary wish that his mortal remains be ‘transferred in a small urn to the churchyard of the Penha chapel, in front of and next to the main door, covered by a plain stone slab on which his name shall be engraved, with the dates of his birth and death, a cross at the top and below the letters P. N. A. M., to beg from the faithful who pass by at least a pious Requiem aeternam.’

In the parish (freguesia) of Monte (‘hill’), Luís Gonçalves Mercador built a chapel dedicated to Our Lady of the Peña de Francia in 1620, and in 1685 a chapel with the same dedication was built in the locality of Fazenda (‘farm’), in the parish of Faial. This latter chapel has the peculiarity of being hollowed out and built within a single solitary block of soft cut stone (cantaria mole). The walls, the ceiling, the floor, the altar and the portico were all carved from the enormous stone, forming a single piece. It was founded by António Teixeira, 5th-generation grandson of the discoverer Tristão Vaz Teixeira, and the deed of endowment is dated 13 August 1685.

An interesting article published in the Correio da Madeira (‘Madeira Courier’) of 22 September 1922, which we believe to be the work of Father Fernando de Meneses Vaz, contains some curious details about this chapel. The most striking of them is that it was originally intended to serve as a small mosque for a number of Moorish slaves. The author of the article gives the chapel as founded by Irvão Teixeira in the first quarter of the 16th century, whereas the date we have recorded above was taken from an official document kept in the archives of the Diocesan Chancery (Câmara Eclesiástica) of the diocese.

On the quinta (country estate) known as Quinta dos Ferreiros (‘blacksmiths’), in the parish of Calheta (‘small cove’), the physician Manuel Fernandes Gomes had a chapel dedicated to Our Lady of the Peña de Francia built in 1682, endowing it by public deed of 15 June of the same year.

In 1670 Maria do Rosário Arvelos founded a chapel with the same dedication in the parish of Santa Cruz (‘Holy Cross’).