Macau Tourism

Built at the bottom end of the inner area of the St. Paul's Ruins - in the place where the magnificent church and the College of the Mother of God were previously located - the Crypt and the Museum of Sacred Art are evocative of the rich history of the missions in this region, whose main source was precisely the College of St. Paul.

The Crypt was built in the location of the chancel of the ancient church (destroyed by a big fire in 1835). On its side walls the visitor can observe the relics of the Japan and Vietnam martyrs. The list of their names can be found outside the crypt. The whole area is an invitation to meditation and evokes the first centuries of the missions of China and Japan and therefore the stones on which the first building was erected and also an initial grave have been left uncovered and they dominate the whole area. As a sacred spot, a cross and a tabernacle have been placed on the stones, facing an altar topped by a single marble stone.

In the room adjacent to the Crypt there is a Museum of Sacred Art, which includes objects of high historical and artistic value, dating from the 16th to the 19th centuries. It is worth noticing a beautiful collection of Sino-Portuguese crucifixes made of ivory, wood and silver, as well as a large number of liturgical vessels in silver (chalices, incense boats, patens, pyxes, reliquaries, etc.).

The statues and the sacred paintings are also very interesting, many of them in Indo-Portuguese style. Visitors should notice St. Michael Archangel, of the 17th century (painted according the western techniques and models by a Japanese disciple of the Jesuit Giovanni Nicollo), not only because of its antiquity and imposing figure but also because it is the only work of the ancient college having survived the fire. In the centre of the room there is the unique silver framework which carried Our Lady of Remedies, distinguished by its neo-classical lines but also showing rococo motives.

Remarks: The visitor should also visit the area surrounding the Ruins as well as the Crypt-museum in order to observe the foundations of the ancient naves of the church, old graves, the foundations of the old college, etc.

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Macau Tourism