The ''Igreja de Santo Ildefonso'' is an eighteenth-century church in

Porto Porto or Oporto () is the second-largest city in Portugal, the capital of the Porto District, and one of the Iberian Peninsula's major urban areas. Porto city proper, which is the entire municipality of Porto, is small compared to its metropol ...

Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic ( pt, República Portuguesa, links=yes ), is a country whose mainland is located on the Iberian Peninsula of Southwestern Europe, and whose territory also includes the Atlantic archipelagos of ...

. The church is located near

Batalha Square Batalha Square ( pt, Praça da Batalha) is a historical public square located in the city of Porto, in Portugal. Origin of the name According to tradition, the name ''batalha'' (battle) comes from a 10th-century battle fought between the Moorish ...

. Completed in 1739, the church was built in a proto-

Baroque The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including t ...

style and features a

retable A retable is a structure or element placed either on or immediately behind and above the altar or communion table of a church. At the minimum it may be a simple shelf for candles behind an altar, but it can also be a large and elaborate structur ...

by the Italian artist

Nicolau Nasoni Nicolau Nasoni (or originally Niccoló Nasoni, 2 June 1691 – 30 August 1773) was an Italian artist and architect mostly active in Portugal. He became one of the most influential figures in Portuguese Baroque architecture with his original and v ...

and a façade of 1932

azulejo ''Azulejo'' (, ; from the Arabic ''al- zillīj'', ) is a form of Spanish and Portuguese painted tin-glazed ceramic tilework. ''Azulejos'' are found on the interior and exterior of churches, palaces, ordinary houses, schools, and nowadays, resta ...

tilework. The church is named in honour of the

Visigoth The Visigoths (; la, Visigothi, Wisigothi, Vesi, Visi, Wesi, Wisi) were an early Germanic people who, along with the Ostrogoths, constituted the two major political entities of the Goths within the Roman Empire in late antiquity, or what is kno ...

Ildephonsus of Toledo Ildefonsus or Ildephonsus (rarely ''Ildephoses'' or ''Ildefonse''; Spanish: San Ildefonso; c. 8 December 607 – 23 January 667) was a scholar and theologian who served as the metropolitan Bishop of Toledo for the last decade of his life. His Go ...

, bishop of Toledo from 657 until his death in 667.

History

Prior to the building of the church of Saint Ildefonso, a chapel, known as Santo Alifon, stood on the site. Its construction date is unknown, but several early texts mention its existence. The earliest known reference to the site and the original chapel is in a work by a bishop of Porto, Vicente Mendes, dated 1296. The aged chapel, in danger of collapsing, was demolished in 1709 and construction began on the new church that year. The building took thirty years to complete, finally inaugurated and blessed on 18 July 1739. The first stage of construction was completed in 1730, when the main body was finished and the tympanum, bearing the date M DCC XXX (1730), was placed. The second construction phase, from 1730 to 1739, saw the erection of the two bell towers, and the façade and

narthex The narthex is an architectural element typical of early Christian and Byzantine basilicas and churches consisting of the entrance or lobby area, located at the west end of the nave, opposite the church's main altar. Traditionally the narthex ...

were finalised. The architect of the ''Igreja de Santo Ildefonso'' is unknown, although records exist giving the names of the carpenters, masons, and locksmith who worked on the building. Extensively repaired following a severe storm in 1819, the church also suffered damage from artillery fire on 21 July 1833 during the

Siege of Porto The siege of Porto is considered the period between July 1832 and August 1833 in which the troops of Dom Pedro remained besieged by the forces of Dom Miguel I of Portugal. The resistance of the city of Porto and the troops of Dom Pedro made t ...

. Over the years the church has undergone structural modifications and improvements, including the replacement of stained glass windows in 1967. The new ones were created by the artist Isolino Vaz. During 1996 renovation works to the narthex, an area that corresponds to the original chapel's churchyard, nineteen graves were discovered.

Features and usage

Constructed of

granite Granite () is a coarse-grained (phaneritic) intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly cools and solidifies undergro ...

, the shape of the church's main body is that of an elongated octagon, with decorative plaster ceilings. The façade, also granite, is regular and mostly plain, with two bell towers and a rectangular recess where a figure of the patron saint of the church stands. The bell towers include decorative

cornice In architecture, a cornice (from the Italian ''cornice'' meaning "ledge") is generally any horizontal decorative moulding that crowns a building or furniture element—for example, the cornice over a door or window, around the top edge of a ...

s and

dentil A dentil (from Lat. ''dens'', a tooth) is a small block used as a repeating ornament in the bedmould of a cornice. Dentils are found in ancient Greek and Roman architecture, and also in later styles such as Neoclassical, Federal, Georgian Reviv ...

s. Each tower is topped with masonry spheres, a stone cross, and a metalwork flag. A monolithic obelisk stands to the left of the church, although it initially was erected on a set of steps extending toward Rua de 31 de Janeiro. Originally positioned to align with the bell tower of nearby

Clérigos Church The Clérigos Church ( pt, Igreja dos Clérigos, ; "Church of the Clergymen") is a Baroque church in the city of Porto, in Portugal. Its 75-meter-tall bell tower, the Torre dos Clérigos, can be seen from various points of the city and is one of ...

, it was moved to its present location when the steps were altered in 1924 to accommodate shops. Two notable features of the church are the retable and the blue-and-white tiling. The artist and architect

designed the retable, which was created and installed by architect Miguel Francisco da Silva in 1745. Approximately 11,000 azulejo tiles cover the façade of the church, which were created by artist Jorge Colaço and placed in November 1932. The tiles depict scenes from the life of Saint Ildefonso and figurative imagery from the Gospels. The church sits near Porto's Batalha Square, a historic, mostly pedestrian, public space that is frequented by tourists. The church receives many visitors each year, and mass is held there daily.

References

External links

Church website
{{Porto Baroque church buildings in Portugal Roman Catholic churches in Porto Roman Catholic churches completed in 1739 18th-century Roman Catholic church buildings in Portugal 1739 establishments in Portugal