Santo António dos Olivais, commonly shortened to Olivais, is an urban civil parish in the municipality of Coimbra in Portugal, making up the eastern part of the historic city of Coimbra, east of University Hill. The population in 2011 was 38,936, in an area of 19.27 km². It is the most populated parish in the Municipality of Coimbra, and among the most densely inhabited in the country outside of Lisbon and Porto metropolitan areas. Created in 1836, the parish was named for Anthony of Padua, who joined the local branch of the Order of Friars Minor; Anthony took his name from Saint Anthony the Great, to whom the local Franciscanhermitage was dedicated.
History
Even by 1064, before the creation of the Kingdom of Portugal, the region of Olivais was pasturelands interspersed by parcels where the local settlers cultivated vineyards and olive orchards, in addition to vegetable gardens and fruit trees, while the remaining lands were still forested. The beginnings of the parish occurred in the 13th century, when D. Sancha founded the Royal Monastery of Santa Maria de Celas, in the locality of Vimarães, under administration of friars of the Order of Saint Bernard. The establishment of the monastery in Vimarães was basis for the founding of the parish of Celas. A few years later, Queen Urraca donated a small chapel on a hill of olive groves to the first Franciscan friars arriving into Portugal, which they transformed into a humble hermitage dedicated to Saint Anthony the Great. Around 1220, friarFernando de Bulhões after taking religious orders at the AugustinianMonastery of Santa Cruz joined the humble Franciscans friars, adopting the name of the small chapel's patron. After his death, he was canonized almost immediately, and the Franciscan friary that flourished in Olivais quickly changed its patron from Saint Anthony the Great to Anthony of Padua, becoming known as Santo António de Olivais and attracting new settlers into the region. By 1247, the Convent of São Francisco da Ponte attracted many friars, resulting in the late 15th century delimitation of the churchyard and convent in the 16th century. Slowly the built-up area developed within the territory, with new agglomerations forming around the principal centres of Celas and Olivais; by 1740 the town of Celas had 48 buildings with about 200 inhabitants, while Olivais had just about the same. On the night of 10–11 November 1851, a fire gutted the cloister, dormitory and other dependencies of the convent. Renovations and remodelling of the Church of Nossa Senhora da Piedade continued after May, becoming the parochial church of the newly defined parish of Santo António dos Olivais. By 1854, with the expulsion of the religious orders and municipal reforms, the need to reorganize the municipality of Coimbra, resulted in the 25 November 1854 decree establishing the civil parish of Santo António dos Olivais, in addition to six other parishes. Olviais included the largest of these early settlements, established from the remnants of São Pedro and clergy of Torres.
Geography
The largest civil parish of Coimbra city proper and the most populated in the Municipality of Coimbra, the parish of Santo António dos Olivais is surrounded on all sides by neighbours from this political division: north by São Paulo dos Frades; east by Torres do Mondego; south, along the Mondego River, by the parishes of Ceira, Castelo Viegas and south/southwest by Santa Clara; and west by central civil parishes of Santa Cruz, Sé Nova and Almedina, which make up the core of the historical quarters of the city proper. The region is a semi-circular bowl, that extends from the riverbanks of the Mondego to the foothills of Rocha Nova, skirting the populated city of Coimbra in the west and the eastern Mondego River valley near Misarela. The central part of the parish, intrinsic to the main city of Coimbra, is concentrated between the main road accessways: Avenida Mendes Silva and Avenida Fernando Namora-Avenida Augusto Seabra that circles the outside perimeter of Coimbra. It includes several individual places that formed during the historical settlement of the region, including: Olivais, Celas, Solum, Calhabé, Norton de Matos, Arregaça, Vale das Flores, Quinta da Nora, Quinta da Boavista, Casa Branca, Chão do Bispo, Picoto, Vale de Canas, Casal do Lobo, Cova do Ouro, Alto de S. João, Pinhal de Marrocos, Portela and Tovim.
