The massive Baroque palace and monastery, which dwarfs the small town of Mafra,
was built during the reign of Portugal’s most extravagant monarch, João V. It
began with a vow by the young king to build a new monastery and basilica,
supposedly in return for an heir (but more likely, to atone for his sexual
excesses). Work began in 1717 on a modest project to house 13 Franciscan friars
but, as wealth began to pour into the royal coffers from Brazil, the king and
his Italian-trained architect, Johann Friedrich Ludwig (1670–1752), made ever
more extravagant plans. No expense was spared: 52,000 men were employed and the
finished project housed not 13, but 330 friars, a royal palace and one of the
finest libraries in Europe, decorated with precious marble, exotic wood and
countless works of art. The magnificent basilica was consecrated on the king’s
41st birthday, 22 October 1730, with festivities lasting for eight days.

The palace was only popular with those members of the royal family who enjoyed
hunting deer and wild boar. Today, a wolf conservation project runs here. Most
of the finest furniture and art works were taken to Brazil when the royal family
escaped the French invasion in 1807. The monastery was abandoned in 1834
following the dissolution of all religious orders, and the palace itself was
abandoned in 1910, when the last Portuguese king, Manuel II, escaped from here
to the Royal Yacht anchored off Ericeira.

Allow at least an hour for the tour, which starts in the rooms of the monastery,
through the pharmacy, with fine old medicine jars and some alarming medical
instruments, to the hospital, where 16 patients could see and hear mass in the
adjoining chapel without leaving their beds.

Upstairs, the sumptuous palace state rooms extend across the whole of the
monumental west façade, with the King’s apartments at one end and the Queen’s
apartments at the other. Halfway between the two, the long, imposing façade is
relieved by the twin towers of the domed basilica. The interior of the church is
decorated in contrasting colours of marble and furnished with six early
19th-century organs. Fine Baroque sculptures, executed by members of the Mafra
School of Sculpture, adorn the atrium of the basilica. Begun by José I in 1754,
many renowned Portuguese and foreign artists trained in the school under the
directorship of the Italian sculptor Alessandro Giusti (1715–99). Further on,
the Sala da Caça has a grotesque collection of hunting trophies and boars’
heads. Mafra’s greatest treasure, however, is its magnificent library, with a
patterned marble floor, Rococo-style wooden bookcases, and a collection of over
40,000 books in gold embossed leather bindings, including a prized first edition
of Os Lusíadas  (1572) by the Portuguese poet Luís de
Camões.