Rua do Colégio | Largo dos Colegiais

In Évora there are still areas that perhaps go unnoticed but which have an undeniable memorial value. The “Largo dos Colegiais”, so called due to its proximity to Colégio do Espírito Santo and the Seminary, is certainly one of them. This space belonged to the Melo family (currently the Dukes of Cadaval) for many centuries, having come into their possession after the construction of the Cerca Nova in the 14th and 15th centuries, and it was precisely here that the layout of the medieval wall would come to be linked to the old Roman and Muslim walls. Once the ditches and the barbican of the old walls were filled in, the Melo family surrounded an area with ironwork and sponsored, on an uncertain date, the placement of a public wash-house in this area with an access route for the population. This gave rise to the term “hole of the Colegiais”, to describe the gate of the wall that we can still see today. D. Jaime Álvares de Melo (1913-2001), 10th Duke of Cadaval, would donate all this space to the municipality, starting in 1955, through a reorganising project by the engineer Alfeu de Almeida, integrated into Évora’s spirit of renewal of 1930s to 1960s.

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Sinais Internacionais / Internacional Signs