Castelo de Castro Marim is located in the village and parish and municipality of the same name, in the District of Faro, in Portugal.
Raiana fortification, in a dominant position on the so-called Monte do Castelo, defended that crossing point on the right bank of the mouth of the Guadiana river, opposite the Castle of Ayamonte on the opposite bank, today in Spain. Ex-libris of the village, it is considered by scholars as one of the most significant monuments of the Portuguese Middle Ages in the landscape of the region. It is integrated in the Sapal de Castro Marim and Vila Real de Santo António Nature Reserve, and the panoramic view over the river, the Sapal area, the Algarve mountains, Spain, the salt flats and the beaches of that coast is very much appreciated.
The Order of Christ was created in 1319, by order of King D. Dinis, after the extinction, by Pope Clement V, of the Order of the Templars, one of the most famous Military Orders of Cavalry, founded in 1118, in the aftermath of the 1st Crusade. With a decisive role in the Reconquest period, in the military activity against the Moors and in the settlement of the territory, the Order of the Templars was also the owner of a vast patrimony that, by right, belonged to the Holy See, a fact that threatened the sovereignty of the king. With the pretext of defending the Algarve coast from attacks by pirates and Maghrebian pirates, D. Dinis manages to decree the creation of the new religious-military order. The 1st headquarters of the Order of Christ was then the Castro Marim Castle, with one of the most solid defensive systems in the entire Kingdom of the Algarve and located on the maritime border with Morocco and in the vicinity of the Islamic community of Granada. “Castro Marim, First Seat of the Order of Christ” is an exhibition approved under the Interreg Spain-Portugal Program 2014-2020, supported by the European Union, co-financed 75% by the […]
Using its own methods of torture, the Catholic Inquisition was responsible for thousands of deaths and barbaric acts against human integrity, which only served to cause excruciating pain and atrocious suffering to those who did not profess their faith. Throughout the exhibition you can find several replicas used to punish the condemned and that convey to us a little of the horrors committed in the dark period of the inquisition. * This exhibition was approved under the Interreg Spain-Portugal 2014-2020 program, supported by the European Union, 75% co-financed by the ERDF | project 0131_FOURTOURS_5_E.