São Bartolomeu Church / São Bartolomeu (Igreja de )

(Church of) The ancient church of S. Bartolomeu was built on Rua Direita in the old settlement of Funchal, a street that then extended along the left bank of the Santa Luzia stream to the vicinity of the current Torreão bridge. It was founded by Gonçalo Eanes de Velosa and was annexed to a hospital or hostel intended to accommodate poor and invalid clerics. He instituted an entailment with the obligation to celebrate a mass there every Friday of the year, for the soul of the Infante D. Fernando. He was buried in the said church, with the following epitaph engraved on his tombstone, as we read in an old nobiliary: Here lies Gonçalo Annes de Veloza, squire of the Infante D. Fernando whom God has, a native of Celorico, builder of this church of São Bartholomeu and hospital, who passed away in the era of 1497, on August 1. The annotator of the Insular History says that this hostel was never inhabited by poor clerics, according to the provisions of its founder, and that it often served as lodging for missionaries who, passing through Funchal on their way to India, stayed there. It was in this hospice that the Jesuits settled in 1566, and they remained there until the construction of the church and college of São João Evangelista. The church of São Bartolomeu, long desecrated, was demolished in the second quarter of the last century.