Nuevas noticias en torno al origen de la Capilla de San Antonio de la nación portuguesa, del convento de San Francisco (Sevilla) 1594-1614

Résumé

On August 12, 1594, Simon Freyle de Lima and another group of Portuguese cameup with the idea that the “Portuguese nation” should agree to buy, for 1,700 ducats, a site onwhich to build their own chapel in the former convent of San Francisco Casa Grande. They meton September 8 in the Franciscan convent, and agreed that the “design and model” of the chapelshould be carried out by Asencio de Maeda, Master Architect of the Main Church in the cityof Seville. In 1595, Pedro de Figueras and Pedro Nuñez were appointed as deputies, and put incharge of building the new chapel and collecting voluntary donations in an attempt to balancethe books. Initially the Chapel and Brotherhood were named “the Wounds of Our Lord JesusChrist”, but this title was changed in 1604 to “San Antonio”. In 1610, two Senior Brothers wereappointed Treasurer and Scribe, while Gaspar Lopez de Setubal was given the post of Treasurer.The latter decided, on his own initiative, to take charge of the works and spent vast sums of money, which he would later attempt to recover in 1614 from the “Portuguese nation”. However,this was refused, and Setubal took them to court, threatening that if his money was not reimbursed,the Chapel would become his property. In the end, he did not achieve his objective, and theChapel remained the “common property” of the Portuguese nation. This work is based mainlyon documentary sources published in the year 1614, which describe the lawsuit and shed lighton the origin of the Chapel of San Antonio. It also draws on the Book of the Council of theBrotherhood of San Antonio from the years 1632-1778, which is preserved in the Archives ofthe Franciscan Betica Province (Convent of Our Lady of Loreto, Espartinas).