São Francisco Church and Convent, Salvador
Igreja e Convento de São Francisco
Interesting facts
- About 35,000 of the complex's roughly 50,000 azulejos line the cloister, among the largest tile collections of any church in Latin America.
- The cloister tiles may have been made by Portuguese artists working in the Netherlands, probably in Delft, according to the art historian Thijs Weststeijn.
- Portuguese tiles and lioz marble crossed the Atlantic as ballast in the holds of ships bound for Brazil.
- Two holy water fonts in the nave are carved from reddish Arrábida breccia, a variegated Portuguese limestone, and were a gift from King John V.
- The facade stone came from the Boa Viagem quarry on the Itapagipe peninsula, which was itself donated to the Franciscan friars.
- The eight-metre cross in the square stands on a 5.5-metre base and, although it sits in a public square, belongs to the Third Order of Saint Francis.
- The friars came at the invitation of Bahia's third bishop, after Friar Melchior de Santa Catarina had petitioned Pope Sixtus V for a convent in 1585.
- The sacristy behind the high altar keeps 17th-century tiles, a coffered ceiling and a lavabo of red and white marble with taps shaped as masks.
- In 1938 the complex became one of the first listed monuments in Brazil, taking inscription number 1 in the national register of historic works.
- In 2009 the church and convent, with the neighbouring Third Order church, were voted one of the Seven Wonders of Portuguese Origin in the World.
Why it is worth it
Salvador, Brazil's first colonial capital, is a city of churches, and São Francisco is the one where the Portuguese idea of the igreja dourada, the "golden church", is carried to its limit. Behind a dark sandstone facade with two bell towers, three portals and a marble Saint Francis in the gable, the nave is a cave of gold: walls, pillars, vaults and ceilings are all covered in carved and gilded woodwork, with twisted Solomonic columns, foliage, birds and angels spiralling over every altar. Eight massive carved Atlantes appear to bear the weight of the side altars on their shoulders.
The Franciscans came to Salvador in 1587, but their first convent and church were destroyed during the Dutch invasions of Bahia in the following century. Rebuilding began on a grand scale under Father Vicente das Chagas in 1686; the present church was laid out from 1708 and structurally finished by 1723, and the decoration of its interior went on for decades, most of it complete by 1755. Unusually for a Franciscan house in north-east Brazil, the church has three aisles rather than one, and the stone was Bahian sandstone, not the Portuguese limestone used elsewhere in the city. In front of the church stands an eight-metre cross of Lisbon marble dated 1807, which gives the square its name, Largo do Cruzeiro de São Francisco. Right next door stands the separate Church of the Third Order of Saint Francis, built in parallel over a far longer span.
What makes São Francisco especially rewarding is the blue-and-white tilework. Lisbon azulejo panels by Bartolomeu Antunes de Jesus line the lower walls of the chancel and transept with scenes from the life of Saint Francis. The two-storey cloister, built between 1707 and 1752, is wrapped in thirty-seven great tile panels installed in the 1740s — not saints but moral allegories after the Roman poet Horace, drawn from an emblem book by the Flemish painter Otto van Veen, each with a Latin motto beneath, full of pagan gods, soldiers, putti, animals and European buildings. The ceiling of the entrance hall is an illusionistic painting by José Joaquim da Rocha of 1774. Church, convent and the Third Order church form part of the World Heritage historic centre of Salvador.
Getting there
The church faces the Largo do Cruzeiro de São Francisco in Salvador's historic centre, about 2 km from the city centre, and is best reached on foot through the old quarter. Deputado Luís Eduardo Magalhães International Airport (SSA) is about 21 km away in a straight line.
On these lists
From the encyclopaedia
The São Francisco Church and Convent is located in the Historic Center of Salvador, in the State of Bahia, Brazil. The ornate Church of the Third Order of Saint Francis sits adjacent to the convent. The friars of the Franciscan Order arrived in Salvador in 1587 and constructed a convent and church on the site. This structure was destroyed by the Dutch during the Dutch invasions of Bahia in the next century; Father Vicente das Chagas initiated the current structure in 1686, which was completed in the 18th century. The Franciscan church and convent have the largest number of azulejos, 55,000, of any church in Latin America.
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