English
Jesuit Chapel
Fatehpur-Sikri, Uttar Pradesh, India
Religious Architecture
Between 1580 and 1583 the Jesuits administered a mission in the Mughal court of Fatehpur-Sikri, the city built by the Emperor Akbar beginning in 1570. Their letters indicate that they occupied three different sites during their mission, thus corresponding to three small chapels within the Fatehpur-Sikri palace complex. The last chapel occupied was described as being in a house where perfumes and oils were formerly manufactured, next to the palace’s inside wall. Archaeological excavations were carried out from 1983 to 1985 around a small structure in the Fatehpur- Sikri palace ruins, identified as being the Jesuit mission’s last chapel. But no object or vestige of the presence of Christian activity at the site was found. The rectangular structure in question comprised three main divisions; the central room has three niches (north, south and west) and opens to the outside and to the two contiguous divisions