Igreja da Lapa, Porto

The most extraordinary thing kept here is invisible from the street: the heart of King Pedro the Fourth rests in the chancel of Igreja da Lapa. He bequeathed it to the brotherhood, and in 1837 it was placed in a mausoleum made by Costa Lima. Before you is a Catholic church dedicated to Our Lady of Lapa.

The Brotherhood of Our Lady of Lapa began in 1755, and its members built this church as the centre of a much larger charitable undertaking. The foundation stone went down on the seventeenth of July 1756. Worship began here in 1779, yet the whole building was not completed until 1863, after delays caused by limited funds and the Napoleonic invasions.

João Strovel and José Figueiredo Seixas are named among its architects. As you take in the church’s formal façade and decoration, you are seeing the result of that very long building campaign: Rococo details meet Neoclassical design. The church also belongs to a Lapa complex that includes a cemetery, school and hospital, and it holds the status of Monument of Public Interest.