Pátio do Colégio

Pátio do Colégio (in Portuguese School Yard, written in the archaic orthography Pateo do Collegio) is the name given to the historical Jesuit church and school in the city of São Paulo, Brazil. The name is also used to refer to the square in front of the church. The Pátio do Colégio marks the site were the city was founded in 1554.

The city of São Paulo has its beginnings in a mission established by Jesuits Manuel da Nóbrega, José de Anchieta and others in the Brazilian hinterland. The village - then called São Paulo dos Campos de Piratininga - was founded on a plateau between two rivers, the Tamanduateí and the Anhangabaú, and was linked to the coastal village of São Vicente by a precarious path in the rainforest.

The date that marks the beginning of São Paulo is January 25, 1554, when the priests celebrated the inaugural mass of the Jesuit school. Initially, the church building was a modest hut covered with palm leaves or straw. In 1556, under father Afonso Brás, new buildings of the school and church were finished using taipa de pilão (rammed earth), a more solid technique. These buildings would be the centre of spiritual and educational life in the settlement in the next couple of centuries.

Since its beginnings, the Jesuit action in evangelising the Amerinds clashed with the interests of many settlers, who used indigenous slave labour and profited from the indigenous slave trade. In the early São Paulo, the expeditions of the bandeirantes to the hinterland in order to capture Amerinds were an important economic activity, and the conflicts with the Jesuits led to the expulsion of the Order from the village in 1640. Only in 1653, bandeirante Fernão Dias Pais Leme allowed the return of the Jesuit priests. The church and school were extensively rebuilt around 1653.

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