Musée RenEU - Monastery of Serra do Pilar: a window on Europe

The itinerary, “Monastery of Serra do Pilar: A Window on Europe”, is the result of a partnership between SETEPÉS, as the promoter of “RenEU: New Renaissance in Europe” project in Portugal, and the Northern Region Directorate of Culture (DRCN).
The Monastery of Serra do Pilar was the site chosen to host the Portuguese route developed in this project, due to Renaissance characteristics that are unique in the region, and even throughout the country and Europe.
Combining in its genesis a set of architectural, religious and philosophical ideas and practices, the monastery, like various other earlier and contemporary buildings, was conceived to be an “imago mundi” - a representation of the cosmos, a place where heaven and earth merge - a window of the world overlooking the world itself.
The Monastery of Serra do Pilar is therefore a privileged place, because it allows you to see both banks of the Douro river and a great part of its heritage, and also broadens our horizons.
Thus, in the Monastery of Serra do Pilar, it is not possible to just study the Renaissance period, you must bring it back and relive it through reflection and imagination.
However, we may yearn for other times, but we certainly never leave our own time. So, let’s take advantage of that. In the window of the world, the view is actually European.