Igreja de São Francisco de Assis

Aleijadinho's rococo masterpiece — soapstone façade, painted ceiling by Manoel da Costa Ataíde

The most celebrated of Ouro Preto's churches and the high point of Brazilian baroque. Built between 1766 and 1810, it is unusual for its rococo lightness — single nave, oval medallions, a curving façade flanked by cylindrical bell towers rather than the rectangular blocks that dominate elsewhere.

The exterior soapstone medallion above the door, carved by Aleijadinho, shows Saint Francis receiving the stigmata. The painted ceiling inside, by Manoel da Costa Ataíde, depicts the Virgin Mary surrounded by angels and is one of the great works of colonial Brazilian painting. Note that Ataíde gave several of his angels distinctly Afro-Brazilian features — radical for the time.

things to do sight architecture
A story
The architect Antônio Francisco Lisboa — known as Aleijadinho, "the little cripple" — designed this church and carved its soapstone medallions and pulpits while in the late stages of a degenerative disease that cost him fingers and toes. He worked with chisels strapped to the stumps of his hands. He died in poverty in 1814 and was buried under the floor of the Igreja de Nossa Senhora da Conceição.