THE MAFRA MONUMENT IN POPULAR CULTURE

King João V's decision to only use marble instead of wood or gilded wood carvings in the Basilica of Mafra was undoubtedly because he wanted to emulate the Roman churches, whose altars were then almost exclusively built in stone.

This programme is expressly underlined in the correspondence sent to Rome in 1729 and reiterated in the following year.

Similarly, the colours of the marble used in Mafra were not unconnected to this choice, corresponding to the need to match the image of the Basilica of Mafra with the text of the Apocalypse, which describes the heavenly Jerusalem lined with precious stones.

The New Jerusalem descends from heaven radiant with glory: "It shines like a very precious stone, like crystal jasper".

The Angel who guided the seer on Patmos showed him a glorious city similar to a cube:

"And the work of its wall was of jasper, and the city of pure gold, like unto pure glass. And the foundations of the city's wall were adorned with every precious stone. The first foundation was jasper; the second, sapphire; the third, chalcedony; the fourth, emerald; the fifth, sardonyx; the sixth, sardius; the seventh, chrysolite; the eighth, beryl; the ninth, topaz; the tenth, chrysoprase; the eleventh, jacinth; the twelfth, amethyst. And the twelve gates were twelve pearls: each was a pearl; and the city's square of pure gold, like transparent glass."

The gems and their incomparable, fairy-like brilliance evoked two biblical realities: the High Priest's breastplate, described in Exodus, and the heavenly city omnipresent in prophetic visions.

The precious stones that make up this heavenly Jerusalem are minerals impregnated with light, not sensible light, but the Lord's light that builds the incorruptible order.

Now, according to the tradition of the Animated Place, which dates back to classical antiquity (Homer, Virgil, etc.) from where it passed into Judaism and then into nascent Christianity, the intentional use of marble in the construction of a temple gives it a cosmological and primordial meaning, immediately referring it to the mythical ocean of origins that surrounds the cosmos, to the frozen sea (observable in the Hagia Sophia), potentially available to receive Creation.

Hence the doctrine accepted by the theologians of Byzantium, who compared a church to the sea and the ambo (a projection coming out from the soleas (the walkway in front of the iconostasis) in an Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox and Eastern Catholic church) to an island.

What's more, the Animated Place is the work of the Holy Spirit, through whose action inert materials become alive and appear fluid, which again brings us back to the eschatology of the End set out in the Book of Revelation: the Throne of God will become universally visible when it lands on a sea as bright as crystal.

In this way, not only is Alexandre Herculano's unequivocal bias underlying his conception of history demystified, but also his extreme ignorance when he used the term "marble sensation" to characterise the Mafra Monument.

From then on, based on the premise of Herculano and his peers, a black legend would spread, acquiring the status of likeliness and systematically disparaging the Royal Work of Mafra. This negative influence would contaminate popular culture's understanding of the monument.