Capela de Nossa Senhora das Verdades, Porto

The small stone Virgin preserved here gives Capela de Nossa Senhora das Verdades its purpose and its name. She once crowned the Porta das Verdades, a gateway in Porto’s earliest defensive wall, before that gate was demolished in the nineteenth century. So this chapel keeps a piece of the vanished city wall’s religious life alive.

Let your eyes settle on the high altar. Its seventeenth-century carved woodwork is reused here, with spiral columns and Eucharistic motifs: vine leaves, grape clusters, phoenixes and small nude figures. The Virgin herself is Ançã stone, probably from the fourteenth century, and linked to Coimbra workshops.

A chapel for the image was first built in the fourteenth century, then rebuilt in 1697. Artillery damaged it during the Siege of Porto, between 1832 and 1834; it was repaired again after the conflict. Following another long decline, the city bought the chapel in ruins in 1950 and restored it.

It later underwent conservation work and reopened in March 2018 as a welcome centre for walkers and pilgrims on the Portuguese Coastal Route to Santiago de Compostela. Behind the Episcopal Palace on Rua de D. Hugo, this restrained rectangular building belongs within Porto’s protected historic setting.