Igreja de Santa Clara, Porto

Igreja de Santa Clara pairs a Gothic church with an interior that erupts in gilt Baroque carving. Work began here in 1416 for a convent of Poor Clare nuns, and the community moved into the church in 1427 before the whole complex reached completion in 1457. The church takes its name from Clare of Assisi, the saint associated with that order.

Notice the entrance: its Baroque portal dates from 1697 and was reshaped during the eighteenth century, combining twisting columns with Corinthian capitals. Once inside, the scale of the decorative change becomes unmistakable. In the first half of the eighteenth century, the interior received its dense covering of gilded and painted woodwork, among Porto’s finest examples of Joanine Baroque carving.

The building has had a long afterlife. New sleeping quarters were added between 1707 and 1715, and the chapel was enlarged in 1729. After the last nun died in the late nineteenth century, the convent closed and declined; later repairs allowed the former monastery to serve as a health centre and other public institutions.

A major conservation campaign from 2016 to 2021 also uncovered seventeenth-century painted wooden panels, a 1645 granite memorial, and older angel paintings hidden behind the carving. It has been a National Monument since 1910 and part of Porto’s UNESCO World Heritage listing since 1996.