Photo credits: who photographed the Convento de Cristo
Nine photographs of this convent on this site are somebody else’s work, taken from Wikimedia Commons and credited there to seven different names. Eight of them carry licences that make naming the maker a condition of use. This page names every one, links each back to its own file page on Commons, and states the licence it is used under. It is a condition being met, not a courtesy.
Which pictures here are of this building, and which are props
Only the ones in the table below are photographs of the Convento de Cristo or the ground it stands on. Everything else you will see on this site was made for it, and the made set has a hard rule: lime, chisels, rope, stone offcuts, brass dividers, a blank ticket, a steep cobbled lane, closed shutters, olive trees. Materials and the climb. Not one of those pictures contains a building, an arch, a cloister, a carving or a cross, and not one is captioned as though it did.
That line is drawn harder here than on most sites and it is worth saying why. The subject of this site is a specific set of carved objects that exist and can be photographed: a round oratory of 1160, a window on the Chapter House whose carver is disputed, eight cloisters. A manufactured picture of a Manueline window, printed under a heading with a stonemason’s name on it, would not be an illustration of that window. It would be a forgery of a thing you can go and stand in front of. So the made pictures illustrate the arguments — how it was built, what it costs, the hill you have to get up — and the photographs do all of the identifying.
The photographs, their makers and their licences
| What it shows | Where it appears | File on Wikimedia Commons | Credited to | Licence |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| The west front of the church, with the Chapter House window set into it | the home page | Convento de Cristo - Chapterhouse Facade.jpg | Ingo Mehling | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
| Inside the Charola: the Templar oratory, painted and gilded | the home page | Charola - Convento de Cristo, Tomar.jpg | Sara Araújo Marques | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
| The Janela do Capítulo, the Chapter House window, from outside | the home page | Janela do Capítulo. Convento de Cristo, Tomar.jpg | José Luis Filpo Cabana | CC BY 3.0 |
| The Claustro de D. João III, two storeys of Renaissance arcading | the home page | Tomar-Convento de Cristo-164-Claustro de Joao III-2011-gje.jpg | Gerd Eichmann | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
| The upper choir Manuel I added to the round church | the home page | Upper Choir of the Church of Convento de Cristo, Tomar, Portugal julesvernex2.jpg | Jules Verne Times Two | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
| The Pegões aqueduct, which carried the convent's water | the home page | Upward view of Aqueduto do Convento de Cristo, Tomar, Portugal julesvernex2.jpg | Jules Verne Times Two | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
| The Templar walls the convent was built inside | another page on this site | Tomar-Muralhas da fortaleza templária-20140914.jpg | Daniel VILLAFRUELA | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
| The painted ceiling of the new sacristy | another page on this site | Tomar-Covento do Cristo-Tecto da nova sacristia-20140914.jpg | Francisco Lopez | Diogo Marques Lu / public domain |
| Carving over the church portal, close enough to read the stone | another page on this site | Convento de Cristo - Church Portal - Portal Roof.jpg | Ingo Mehling | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
If you are one of the photographers
If your name is spelled wrong, your licence is stated wrong, or you would rather the file were not used here, email me and I will correct or remove it. A wrongly attributed CC BY-SA photograph is a licence breach dressed as a typo, and I would rather hear about it from you than not at all.
Frequently asked questions
Are the photographs on this site real?
The photographs of the convent are real, taken by other people, published on Wikimedia Commons under Creative Commons licences and credited by name in the table above. The other pictures on the site are made props: lime, chisels, rope, a blank ticket, a steep lane, closed shutters. None of them shows a building, a carving or a cross, and none is captioned as though it did.
Can I reuse the photographs from this site?
The Commons photographs are reusable under their own licences, which the table names — follow the link to each file's page and read the terms there, because CC BY-SA requires attribution and requires you to share alike. Do not take the copy from this site: take the original from Commons, where the licence and the maker travel with it.