Sacred mounts: A journey through Portuguese iconology

Abstract

Mountains have always fascinated the human being since before the lógos was put into effect, transmitting fear, devotion, and respect. Due to this, several mythical-religious interpretations were created, having such elevations as crucial elements: either as the representation of the deity, its abode, or places for its theophany. Thus, like the Judaism from which it emerged, Christianity was not unaffected by this pilgrimage to holy places, many of which were hills. Around 1000 AD, Christian pilgrims longed to head to Jerusalem as a way of atoning for their sins at the turn of the new millennium that was approaching. However, the Ottoman Turks made this process difficult, leading the European faithful to seek new alternatives to express their faith, such as the sacred mounts. Thus, this article aims at understanding how this process took place, seeking to rescue iconographic and iconological elements that were dispersed due to the action of time, so that Brazilian researchers and students may have access to this logo-image source also present in our artistic expression. For this, special logo-image research was undertaken, based on the iconographic considerations of Cesare Ripa (2007a, 2007b).