Built by the Constable Nuno Álvares Pereira, it was for centuries the largest Gothic monument in Lisbon, until the 1755 earthquake marked it forever. The restoration has not erased the scars, but the ruins of Carmel retain a singular grandeur.

After the Battle of Aljubarrota, the new king D.João, first of the Avis dynasty, has a monastery built next to the camp where Portuguese soldiers guaranteed sovereignty over Castile. Hero of this victory that marks the end of the interregnum of 1383-1385, D.Nuno Álvares Pereira devises another monument, which had to be erected far from Alcobaça, high on a slope of the kingdom's capital, which overlooked the Castle of S.Jorge and Rossio.

After permission from Pope UrbanVI, work began on Mount Carmel, which was a challenge for the masters of the time: twice the foundations gave way, but at the insistence of the Constable the work was done. In 1423, thirty-four years later, the imposing Carmelite Convent of Nossa Senhora do Vencimento appeared in Lisbon.

Gothic in design, the project combines the polygonal plan used in the Batalha Monastery with the staggered chapels of the 13th century mendicant buildings. The largest church in existence at the time, nearly 70 meters in length, obeys the Latin cross plan, with three side aisles, with a chancel at the head, flanked by four absidioles.

It was the entire roof of this temple that disappeared on November 1, 1755, when the city was razed by one of the most devastating earthquakes ever. The convent remained standing, but much of the artistic heritage donated by Nuno Álvares Pereira was consumed by the great fire that occurred after the earthquake.

It will be Queen D. Maria I who will be interested in the reconstruction of the monument, the first essay in Portugal of what was later called neo-Gothic, says art historian Carla Varela Fernandes in this video. However, due to lack of funding, the works are interrupted and the church will continue in the open, remembering that terrible All Saints Day.

The degradation of space, which became a public outlet, was halted in the nineteenth century with the granting of the building to the Royal Association of Civil Architects who gave it a new public utility by creating the Archaeological Museum, the first Portuguese museum there.