Nicolau Chanterene arrived at the great workshop of the Monastery of Santa Maria de Belém (Lisbon) by the end of 1516, or in the beginning of the following year, and remained there throughout 1517, carrying out notable sculptural works, relevant for the introduction of the forms and themes of the Renaissance in Portugal.

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His subsequent artistic and personal journey, both in Coimbra and in Sintra and Évora, reveals him as a key personality for understanding the complex cultural and artistic process that underlies the introduction of new ideas and motifs to the transalpine renaissance, its generalization and subsequent evolution to typical mannerist forms of plastic expression, since he remained active until at least 1552.

From the modern plastic form, to the enunciation of essential matters of design of altarpiece structures, to the pioneering use of treaties, to the illumination and engraving as sources of inspiration, the life and work of master Nicolau, as he is referred in the documentation, allows the accompaniment of a wide evolutionary scope in the Portuguese and European art of the sixteenth century, accompanying and integrating multiple topics of scientific discussion to be debated at this congress. 

The study of the Art of the Renaissance in Portugal, especially with regard to sculpture, in view of the contemporary evolution of scientific understanding and the personality of the artists who worked in Portugal and in the Iberian Peninsula, to what is now known about the mechanics of dissemination of artistic influences in this chronological context, the details of sculptural practice, both in the context of the plastic treatment of human figure and in what concerns the universe of sculptural decoration, justify the proposal of an international scientific meeting of this type, in the framework of ARTIS – Institute of Art History and its strategic axes, namely the Late Gothic Art and the Renaissance in Portugal.