IGREJA E CONVENTO DE SÃO FRANCISCO

Closed until further notice after the roof collapsed in February 2025, the São Francisco church and convent is undoubtedly the jewel of Bahia's religious art. This church, the city's most emblematic, is the symbol of a past magnificence that it is patiently trying to recover. Covered in 800 kg of gold, it is a pure example of colonial Baroque and neoclassical architecture. It was the Franciscan friar Melchior de Santa Catarina who, after receiving the approval of Pope Sixtus V, decided to found the convent in 1585, and construction began two years later. In 1675, under the aegis of Vicar Provincial Vicente das Chagas, the decision was taken to rebuild the convent, and the architectural complex was considerably enlarged: the cloister was built first to the design of Francisco Pinheiro, then the choir of the church in 1708, followed by the walls and pillars around 1710, so that by 1713, the chapel was ready for worship. The rest of the church, including the façade, was completed in 1720, the date engraved on the frontispiece, and interior decoration work began. In 1733, Jerônimo da Graça began painting the ceiling, and in 1737, the azulejos of the church choir were installed, before gilding work began on the chapel and side altars. In 1752, the cloister was completed and the library installed, but it wasn't until 1797 that the towers were completed, with the addition of bells and a clock.

The walls of the convent's interior square (which houses a dozen cells still in use), around which runs a two-level gallery inspired by ^16th-century Portuguese cloisters, are covered with superb panels of antiqueazulejos depicting scenes opposing the philosophy of the Ancients and Moderns, as well as various biblical episodes, some of the prints attributed to Otto van Veen, master of Peter Rubens. The ceiling of the cloister library, with its monumental paintings, and the refectory, covered withazulejos dating from 1650, are also noteworthy.

In front of the church's façade stretches the Largo do Cruzeiro de São Francisco, a square adorned with a calvary and surrounded by pretty colonial mansions that joins the Terreiro de Jesus. Some purists consider the São Francisco church to be overloaded with gilding invading its powerful arches. We'll leave it to the visitor to appreciate.