Church of Saint Francis
Gothic church whose gilded Baroque interior sits above catacombs with a bone-filled ossuary window.
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About this audio guide
This guide to Porto's Church of Saint Francis opens beneath your feet, where a glass panel reveals a pile of human bones, the remains of monks and ordinary parishioners whose burial spots under the floor were leased and reused until an 1845 law banned the practice. It then turns upward to the church's gilded Baroque interior, where carvers spent decades coating every pillar and saint in gold, and traces the building's own path from a modest 1244 chapel to a later expansion under King Ferdinand the First. It's a study in the contrast between what the Franciscans practiced and what they built above it.
This audio guide was created using AI.
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