2005 © Oficina Virtual de Turismo
The São Francisco Church is one of the few remaining medieval buildings in
Porto. Also, it is the only Gothic church in the city. It was part of a
Franciscan convent and its construction lasted from the late 14th century until
the early 15th century. The medieval architectonic programme went through
several occasional changes but its structure remained unaltered. Diogo de
Castilho, following the instructions of João Carneiro, built the Carneiros
Chapel, or the Chapel of the Baptism of Christ, in the 16th century. The new
main portal was built in the following century and had baroque characteristics.
In the 17th and 18th centuries the interior of the church was completely
covered with wood carvings, forming a sort of golden box. It is one of the most
beautiful baroque interiors in the country. Although the wood carvings do not
present a stylistic coherence, their great quality, which was the fruit of the
best workshops in Porto, makes up a selection that enables the observation of
its evolution. It is a true museum of gilt wood carving in the city.
Several features of the building's simple architectonic structure are worthy of
notice, namely the three naves, of which the central one is taller than the
lateral and is covered on two sides, the transept, the apse and two polygonal
apsides, and the high choir. The main façade, which clarifies its internal
organisation through stair-shaped buttresses (the same solution is used to
support the transept, the apse and the apsides) has a beautiful Gothic rose
window compartmentalised into twelve sections by small radial columns united by
arches. The portal/retable of the frontispiece, a baroque addition, rises in
two storeys, the first marked by matching twisted columns (pseudo-Solomonic)
and the second by a niche with the image of St Francis, flanked by a twisted
column and a console. Above the cornice runs a prominent stylobate, where
consoles and twisted columns rest. A twice-interrupted fronton, comprising the
coat of arms of the Order, completes it. Along the lateral southern façade
there is a cornice standing on modillions. There is also a very simple portal
with ogival archivolts, and high windows.
Ten ogee-arched arcades that stand on fasciculated columns, four of which
demarcate the choir, form the naves. On the right side of the transept stands
the Chapel of the Three Wise Men, and on the left side the Carneiros Chapel.
When referring to the opulent interior of the building, the expert on the
Portuguese Art of Wood carving, Natália Marinho Ferreira-Alves, said the
following:
"On the nave, on the side of the Gospel, stands the Chapel of the Immaculate
Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary or of Jesse's Tree, whose wood carvings
were created by António Gomes and Filipe da Silva (1718) with the support of
the Braga-born sculptor Manuel Carneiro Adão, who was responsible for the
execution of the sculptures (1719). Flanking this beautiful whole are the
retable of Our Lady of the Roses, from 1740 (previously named Our Lady of
Grace) where the early 15th-century mural ascribed to António Florentino, the
royal painter of King John I, can be admired, and the retable of Our Lady of
Perpetual Help (previously known as Our Lady of the Rosary of Slaves), from
1743, both created by the wood-carver Manuel da Costa Andrade, following a plan
by architect Francisco do Couto e Azevedo.
At the centre of the opposite nave, on the side of the Epistle, stands the
Chapel of Our Lady of Soledad, one of the most precious examples of Porto's
rococo, by Francisco Pereira Campanhã (1764). It is framed by two retables from
1750, by Manuel Pereira da Costa Noronha: the retable of Our Lady of
Annunciation (previously named Our Lady of Incarnation) and the retable of the
Martyr Saints of Morocco.
This composition is adequately completed by the wood carving revetment of the
ceiling of the central nave and of the transept, which dates back to 1732."
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