Wow, fast replies!
Actually, we used to say in the XVIIIth century, when we found gold in Brazil, that we were the best at «turning gold into stone», due to the enormous amount of money spent building churches.
Just so as to give you an idea, and bearing in mind that a church is an EXTREMELY expensive thing to do (some chapels ordered by D. João V in Italy include purple marble columns, jade altars, gold ornaments and a whole other stuff that would cost literally hundreds of millions of dollars if they were made today), in the old part of Lisbon we actually have a church EVERY 25 meters (about 20 yards)...
No kidding! you leave one church, and you can easily see the next one across the street... and that no matter in which direction you go. We even have streets where churches face each other - it takes twenty seconds to leave one and enther the other... and they're all so richly decorated, especially the baroque ones (some really cannot be seen in full light, as all the gold inside shines so intensely that it hurts the eyes).
And it wasn't just the state - as soon as a merchant had spare money, he «donated» a church, so that his soul would go to heaven and his family could be buried there...
In the meanwhile, the protestants invested their money into new enterprises...
Regards,
Keoland
