Church of Saint Francis of Assisi (Ouro Preto)

Of all the churches of Ouro Preto, the old gold capital of Minas Gerais, the church of Saint Francis of Assisi is the one most closely tied to a single genius. Antônio Francisco Lisboa, known as Aleijadinho, designed both the building and much of its carved decoration, and in it the Brazilian Rococo reaches a lightness that the heavier gilded churches of the coast never sought. The church belonged to the Third Order of Saint Francis, a lay brotherhood, which started building in the mid-1760s under a provisional licence, years before Lisbon gave its final approval in 1771.

Look first at the facade. Instead of the usual square towers, two round bell towers flank the front, giving the building a soft, curving silhouette against the hills. Above the single doorway Aleijadinho carved a soapstone frontispiece crowned by a relief of Saint Francis receiving the stigmata, and where a window would normally be there is a round oculus filled with a relief instead — both unusual in the religious architecture of colonial Brazil. Carved in the local soapstone, the ornament still reads with remarkable crispness two and a half centuries on.

Inside, the carved and gilded woodwork, statues and high reliefs follow Aleijadinho's designs, though the work dragged on long after his death and was only finished towards the end of the nineteenth century. Then look up. The wooden nave ceiling carries the masterpiece of Manuel da Costa Ataíde, Ouro Preto's great painter: the Glorification of Our Lady among Musician Angels, an illusionistic sky in which the Virgin floats among angels playing instruments, framed by painted columns, balconies, bishops and saints. The architecture of the real church seems to continue upward into the painted one. Aleijadinho himself, the son of a Portuguese architect and an enslaved African woman who went on working despite a crippling illness, makes the building a monument to the mixed society that the gold rush created. The church was protected by Brazil's national heritage service in 1938 and forms part of the World Heritage historic town of Ouro Preto.

Getting there

The church stands in the historic centre of Ouro Preto, a hilly town of steep cobbled streets best explored on foot. The nearest airport is Belo Horizonte's Tancredo Neves International Airport (CNF), about 96 km away in a straight line. Ouro Preto is about 96 km from Belo Horizonte, and the Pássaro Verde company runs frequent buses between the two cities, taking roughly one and a half to two hours.