This point sits inside the Igreja de São Francisco in Évora, a Gothic-Manueline church still used as a parish today.
Last reviewed 16 October 2026 · A three-minute read · 1–2019
The short answer
The Capela dos Ossos, built onto the Igreja de São Francisco in Évora in the late 1500s or early 1600s, lines its walls, pillars and vaults with the bones of roughly 5,000 people exhumed from Évora's overcrowded monastic cemeteries. An inscription over its door reads: 'We bones that are here await yours.'
Chapel of the Bones dos Ossos — 2011 · tiago186703274 · CC BY-SA 3.0
1480 to 1536
Kings rebuilt a Gothic church into a Manueline nave
The Igreja de São Francisco is a Gothic-Manueline church in Évora, still standing as an active parish today. Its single nave rises 24 meters, one of the tallest vaulted spans in Portuguese Gothic building. Above the entrance, carved stone shows a pelican, the emblem of King João II, and an armillary sphere, the emblem of King Manuel I.
The story starts earlier. Franciscan friars reached Évora in 1224, founding the first Franciscan house in Portugal. An early Romanesque church stood on this ground by 1226. In 1336, Prince Pedro I married Constança Manuel inside it. By 1376, a Gothic cloister with marble and granite arches had gone up under Afonso de Morais, a commander of the Order of Santiago.
In 1480, King João II ordered the old three-naved church torn down and rebuilt. Builders Martim Lourenço and the Spanish architect Pero de Trilho raised the new single-naved church you see now, finishing around 1510. Royal painters Francisco Henriques, Jorge Afonso, and Garcia Fernandes decorated its altars soon after. King Afonso V and his court stayed in rooms attached to the convent during visits to Évora, and the building became a royal chapel. People called it the Convento de Ouro, the Convent of Gold, for the riches the royal family poured into it.
Tradition holds that the playwright Gil Vicente was buried here in 1536, though that claim rests on local memory rather than a written record.
late 1500s to early 1600s
Friars lined a chapel with 5,000 exhumed bones
Beneath all this gilding, the Franciscans built something grimmer. Évora held as many as 42 or 43 monastic cemeteries by the 1500s, crowding land the city needed. Friars solved the problem by digging up roughly 5,000 skeletons and hauling the bones into a chapel built just for them, the Capela dos Ossos. An inscription over the door reads "We bones that are here await yours." Another, inside, quotes Ecclesiastes: "Better is the day of death than the day of birth." Two full skeletons hang from one wall in glass cases. People believed for years they were a father and his son. Scientists who examined them in 2019 found they are actually an adult woman and a child.
1575 to 1773
Carvers and painters filled the church with gilded altars
Over the centuries, artists kept adding to the church. In 1575, painter Francisco João installed an altar retable showing scenes from the life of Christ, moved here from the Church of Grace. The Third Order of Penitence, a lay Franciscan group, decorated their own chapel inside the church through the 1600s. In 1727, woodcarver Manuel Nunes da Silva carved its ornate retable, one of the finest examples of the carved and gilded woodwork style called talha dourada from that era. By 1773, the original Gothic altar in the main chapel had been replaced with a large marble retable in the rocaille style, a swirling, shell-like decoration popular at the time.
1580 to 1834
Lost independence and dissolution ended the convent's riches
Portugal lost its independence to Spain in 1580, and the convent's golden age ended with it. The building limped on through the next two centuries, its splendor fading. Then in 1834, the Portuguese state dissolved the religious orders altogether. The friars left, and the convent buildings began to crumble.
1895 to 1910
A buyer saved the ruin before the state protected it
By 1895, the ruined convent was in such bad shape that much of it was sold off and torn down. A buyer named Francisco Barahona bought the site, rebuilt parts of it as houses, and paid to restore the church itself. Fifteen years later, in 1910, the Portuguese state named the Igreja de São Francisco a National Monument, protecting it for good.
1958 to now
Restorations kept the church standing as a working parish
Restoration crews returned in 1958 and again in 1990 to shore up the aging structure. A larger rehabilitation between 2014 and 2015 restored the church and its surviving convent buildings, converting upper galleries into museum space. The church still functions as an active Catholic parish.
The Igreja de São Francisco still holds Mass as a working parish church, its bone chapel open beside it.
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Franciscan monks dug up roughly 5,000 skeletons from Évora's overcrowded medieval cemeteries and used the bones to build the walls, pillars, and vaults of the Capela dos Ossos, right where you stand.
Portugal's loss of independence in 1580 closed out the convent's wealthiest era, once so richly decorated by kings it was nicknamed the 'Convent of Gold.'
Franciscan friars built the Capela dos Ossos in the late 1500s or early 1600s so the community would reflect on how fleeting life is, lining it with the exhumed dead.
The 1834 abolition of religious orders left the convent buildings to decay, and by 1895 most of them were sold off and torn down, sparing only the church and chapel.
Franciscan friars exhumed roughly 5,000 skeletons from Évora's overcrowded monastic cemeteries and used the bones to build the walls, pillars, and vaults of the Capela dos Ossos, attached to the Igreja de São Francisco.
What was here before the current church was built?
An earlier Romanesque church stood on the ground from around 1226, following the arrival of Franciscan friars in Évora in 1224, and a Gothic cloister was added in 1376 before King João II ordered the older three-naved church rebuilt from 1480.
Why was the Capela dos Ossos built?
By the 1500s Évora held as many as 42 or 43 overflowing monastic cemeteries, and friars built the chapel to move the exhumed dead into its walls, freeing land the city needed and prompting reflection on mortality.
Who are the two skeletons hanging in the chapel?
They were long believed to be a father and son, but a 2019 scientific study found they are an adult woman and a child.
Why was the church once called the Convent of Gold?
Kings Afonso V and the royal court poured riches into the convent, decorating its altars and staying in attached rooms, earning it the nickname Convento de Ouro before Portugal's loss of independence in 1580 ended that wealthy era.
When did the Igreja de São Francisco become a protected monument?
The Portuguese state named it a National Monument in 1910, after the convent's other buildings had been sold off and demolished by 1895 following the 1834 dissolution of religious orders.
Where this came from
1
Wikipedia — Bones of 5,000 people line the walls around you
