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Mota Prego’s house comes from an initial tower-house, which was a common structure built in the Middle Age and whose presence is noted in Guimarães. These tower-houses dominated the urban and rural areas and behave themselves as a symbol to nobility families. Building with stone materials, the height of the building, battlements and decorations were symbols of prestige associated with the nobility power. The initial structure of the tower-house is currently clearly visible in the Mota Prego’s house, now changed by later interventions which opened new windows and skylights and coated the walls in order to integrate it into the remaining architectural arrangement.
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Mota Prego’s house comes from an initial tower-house, which was a common structure built in the Middle Age and whose presence is noted in Guimarães. These tower-houses dominated the urban and rural areas and behave themselves as a symbol to nobility families. Building with stone materials, the height of the building, battlements and decorations were symbols of prestige associated with the nobility power. The initial structure of the tower-house is currently clearly visible in the Mota Prego’s house, now changed by later interventions which opened new windows and skylights and coated the walls in order to integrate it into the remaining architectural arrangement.
In the mid XVI century, Gaspar de Carvalho, D. João III chancellor, improved the previous building by adding small marble columns on the windows of the last floor of the tower and on the building that he engaged to the part of the tower facing Val Donas street. D.João III offered Gaspar de Carvalho Indian ebony wood applied on interior decorative details. While the entire building was remodeled, windows and skylights maintaining the small marble columns were opened in the part of the house built in Val Donas street by Gaspar de Carvalho.
In the early XVIII century, after the new Largo da Misericordia’s, the current landlord, Tadeu Luís António Lopes de Carvalho Fonseca e Camões, guides the construction of the main facade of the house. The unfinished facade still preserves traces of another wing that was supposed to be built along the existing one.
The abandonment of the construction must have occurred around 1746, when Braga’s Archbishop, D. José de Bragança, turns Mota Prego’s house into the Archbishop’s Palace. The owner, Tadeu Luis Antonio, starts then building his new house - the Palácio de Vila Flor.
The house’s last improvement dates from the late XVIII century, early XIX century, when it was ladyship Luísa Joana de Carvalho e Camões. During this period the last section of the house was built, the rearmost, which allows the connection of the Largo da Misericórdia entrance and the large lobby garden in the interior.
At the entrance gate stands the coat of arms with the helmet facing forward, four moons and a star, corresponding to the Carvalho’s arms.
Garden
18
Kitchen
Rooms
Largo João Franco4800-413 GuimarãesGPS: 41.442747, -8.294023
Produced by:Bruno SantosHelder SantosSusana Graça
