The tomb of St. Francis Xavier, located in the chapel with his name, in the Church of Bom Jesus of Goa, is an outstanding piece on several levels. Placed in the chamber of an impressive retable structure, the tomb itself is made of several elements, of which the parallelepipedic funeral casket staggered in silver, made by Goan silversmiths, and the later created marble and bronze sculptural apparatus of Italian origin must be pointed out. When Francis Xavier died, on December 3rd 1552, his body was buried in a wooden coffin, according to Chinese customs, a decision made by his friend, António de Santa Fé, and two layers of quicklime were immediately added (in order to accelerate the process of corruption of his remains), so as to facilitate the transference of the bones to a different location as soon as possible. Indeed, two and a half months later, the mortal remains of Francis Xavier were transferred to Malacca. There, they were again buried (this time without the coffin), and the face was covered, according to local traditions. In December 1553, the remains were then transported to Goa by Father Manuel de Távora, where they were solemnly received with the presence of the Archbishop and the Viceroy on March 15th 1554. The funeral ceremony took place in the church of the College of St. Paul, where the body of St. Francis Xavier stayed, later moving to the third floor (over the doorway) of the Casa Professa do Bom Jesus. When, in 1623, news of the canonization of St. Francis Xavier reached Goa (which had happened in Rome the previous year), it was decided that the saint's body would be transferred to the chapel of St. Francis of Borgia (in the transept, on the side of the gospel), in the church of Bom Jesus, which happened with a solemn procession, in 1624, and has since been exposed to adoration by the faithful. At the time, St. Francis Xavier's remains were already in a silver casket, of which not much detail is known, but it is assumed to have been a very simple one. Only on December 2nd 1637 was the saint's body transferred to the silver casket that can still be seen nowadays, and which was built by local silversmiths between 1636 and 1637. The casket is made of the parallelepipedic body with mainly architectonic and vegetalist decoration, and the presence of thirty-two plates on the sides (bigger and smaller) decorated with scenes depicting moments of the saint's life. The staggered lid is also decorated with an architectonic and vegetalist grammar and is animated by the counter-curves of the repeated cornucopias, which mark the horizontalising decoration of the whole. This horizontality is only contradicted by the upper pinnacle of the lid, which is more clearly architectonic with embossed plates, crowned with a cross with two angels, one holding the heart in flames and the other the latin phrase Satisest Domine, Satis est. The addition of the plates with scenes from the life of St. Francis Xavier was thought of in a way that allowed them to be (regularly) removed, so that the view of the body would be accessible to the eyes of the faithful, thus leaving it more clearly exposed for adoration.
In 1659, this silver tomb was transferred from the chapel of St. Francis of Borgia, where it had stayed since 1637, to the chapel on the other side of the church, to the side of the epistle, in the transept of that same church of Bom Jesus. This chapel was later named St. Francis Xavier and the walls and dome were then decorated with episodes of the saint's life.
The second element of the tomb of St.Francis Xavier was the result of an offer from the grand-duke of Toscany, Cosimo III, to whom the Procurator General of Goa Province, Father Francisco Sarmento, had given an object which particularly pleased the grand-duke: a small cushion on which St. Francis Xavier had laid his head for a few years. Thus, in September 1698, the monument arrived at Goa, and so did Placido Francesco Ramponi, an artist sent to coordinate and supervise its assembly and settlement. By November the monument was already placed in the saint's chapel in the church of Bom Jesus, acting as a great and elaborated foundation - part of the altar - for the already made sliver funeral casket, which was placed to finish the whole. The Florentine work is what we can consider the foundation (which is part of the altar) and displays several bronze embossments with scenes from the life of the saint on its four sides; the one on the front shows two angels holding a marble medallion, on which the following phrase is written in bronze: Nox inimica fugat. A marble balustrade rises above this structure and acts as a guardian for the silver casket.
The authorship of the sculpture work, particularly of that done in bronze, has been attributed to the Florentine sculptor Giovanni Battista Foggini (1652-1725), notable sculptor and especially influential in the Florentine context, at the time when Baroque was introduced and spread, known for being the master of other sculptors and for developing his activity almost exclusively in the close circle of the Medicis. Indeed, Foggini was, after a stay in Rome (where he attended the workshop of Ercole Ferrata), greatly responsible for the introduction of the roman baroque taste of the seicento in the preferentially classic environment of Florence. This updated language - conveying values such as the expression of movement, verisimilitude in the representation of the different materials, minutia in the representation of decorative detail - is obvious in the marble angels, but also in the bronze embossments which illustrate the sides of the foundation, which translate Foggini's talent for composite construction and layer gradation, also inherited from the sculptural Florentine Renaissance tradition.
Bibliography:
AZEVEDO, Carlos de, "Um Artista Italiano em Goa. Plácido Francesco Ramponi e o Túmulo de S. Francisco Xavier", in Garcia de Orta, Lisboa, 1956. Idem, "Pintura e Escultura da Índia Portuguesa", in Panorama, 2ª Série, Nº 13-14, 1955. CALDEIRA, José Carlos, "O Túmulo de S. Francisco Xavier", in Archivo Pittoresco, Vol. II, Lisboa, Castro & Irmão, 1858-1859. DIAS, Pedro, História da Arte Portuguesa no mundo (1415-1822). O Espaço do Índico, Lisboa, Círculo de Leitores, 1998. NAZARÉ, J. M. do Carmo, "Chaves do Cofre que Encerra o Corpo de S. Francisco Xavier em Velha Goa", in O Oriente Português, Vol. V, Bastorá, 1908. PISSURLENCAR, P. S. S., "O Túmulo, o Caixão e o Bastão de S. Francisco Xavier", in Boletim do Instituto Vasco da Gama, Nº 25, Nova Goa, 1935. SANTOS, Reynaldo dos, "A Índia Portuguesa e as Artes Decorativas", in Revista e Boletim da Academia Nacional de Belas-Artes, 2ª Série, Nº 7, Lisboa, 1954. VAZ, F. X., "Caixão e Túmulo de S. Francisco Xavier", in O Heraldo, Nova Goa, 18.06.1913. Na internet: http://www.goacom.com/culture/religion/stfrancis/tomb.html
Translated by: Ana Toste
