They are located in the parish of São Sebastião, municipality of Guimarães, district of Braga, Northern Portugal
The history of the Franciscan Order in Guimarães dates back to 1217, during the reign of D. Afonso III, when Friar Gualter arrived in the village, a minor friar sent to Portugal to introduce this mendicant order in the country.
The friars moved to precarious houses until 1400, when D. João I ordered the rebuilding of the convent in the place where it still stands.
The work lasted for much of the 15th century, the apse of the church, which is still the original in Gothic style, was completed around 1461.
D. Constança de Noronha (1395-1480), 1st Duchess of Bragança entered the Third Order of Saint Francis, and when she died she was buried in the church, the tomb with her recumbent profile can still be seen inside.
In the 1740s, the church nave was completely altered: the arches and columns of the nave were removed, creating a unified space of the church-hall type.
In the area between the transept and the nave, the three original arches were replaced by a single monumental arch, a new altarpiece in the main chapel designed by Miguel Francisco da Silva and executed by Manuel da Costa Andrade, in addition to several other gilded altarpieces that decorate the church.
The most notable from this period is the apse of the church made up of a large polygonal central apse flanked by two much smaller apses.
The large windows in the apse are large and subdivided by columns and moldings. The decoration of the capitals and moldings of these large windows shows influence from the Batalha Monastery.
Inside, both the chancel and the sides of the chevet are covered by cross vaults with warheads.
Other Gothic elements are the main portal of the church and the portal of the chapter room, located in the cloister, and the main portal, due to its almost absence of decoration and rough construction, looks more like a work from the Romanesque period.
The interior of the church has a single nave with side chapels, this space is the result of a major renovation that took place between 1746 and 1749 which suppressed the divisions of the body of the church, originally with three naves.
A large triumphal arch separates the nave from the transept area, topped by the royal crown and the symbol of the Franciscan order.
The wooden ceiling of the nave is decorated with illusionistic paintings (trompe d''''oeil), the walls of the transept are covered with white-blue tiles from the first half of the 18th century of uncertain authorship.
The Gothic main chapel is separated from the transept by a large gilded arch, the chapel's pointed vault has on its clasps the coat of arms of D. João I, the promoter of the work in the 15th century.
A large gilded altarpiece of excellent craftsmanship occupies the chapel: commissioned from the carver Manuel da Costa de Andrade (1743) who created it according to the design of Miguel Francisco da Silva inspired by the altarpiece in the main chapel of the Porto Cathedral that served as a model for others in the region.
On its Solomonic columns are images of several Franciscan saints. From 1591 onwards, the two-story cloister was built, an important work in the Mannerist style by the Guimarães master Gonçalo Lopes.
The friars moved to precarious houses until 1400, when D. João I ordered the rebuilding of the convent in the place where it still stands.
The work lasted for much of the 15th century, the apse of the church, which is still the original in Gothic style, was completed around 1461.
D. Constança de Noronha (1395-1480), 1st Duchess of Bragança entered the Third Order of Saint Francis, and when she died she was buried in the church, the tomb with her recumbent profile can still be seen inside.
In the 1740s, the church nave was completely altered: the arches and columns of the nave were removed, creating a unified space of the church-hall type.
In the area between the transept and the nave, the three original arches were replaced by a single monumental arch, a new altarpiece in the main chapel designed by Miguel Francisco da Silva and executed by Manuel da Costa Andrade, in addition to several other gilded altarpieces that decorate the church.
The most notable from this period is the apse of the church made up of a large polygonal central apse flanked by two much smaller apses.
The large windows in the apse are large and subdivided by columns and moldings. The decoration of the capitals and moldings of these large windows shows influence from the Batalha Monastery.
Inside, both the chancel and the sides of the chevet are covered by cross vaults with warheads.
Other Gothic elements are the main portal of the church and the portal of the chapter room, located in the cloister, and the main portal, due to its almost absence of decoration and rough construction, looks more like a work from the Romanesque period.
The interior of the church has a single nave with side chapels, this space is the result of a major renovation that took place between 1746 and 1749 which suppressed the divisions of the body of the church, originally with three naves.
A large triumphal arch separates the nave from the transept area, topped by the royal crown and the symbol of the Franciscan order.
The wooden ceiling of the nave is decorated with illusionistic paintings (trompe d''''oeil), the walls of the transept are covered with white-blue tiles from the first half of the 18th century of uncertain authorship.
The Gothic main chapel is separated from the transept by a large gilded arch, the chapel's pointed vault has on its clasps the coat of arms of D. João I, the promoter of the work in the 15th century.
A large gilded altarpiece of excellent craftsmanship occupies the chapel: commissioned from the carver Manuel da Costa de Andrade (1743) who created it according to the design of Miguel Francisco da Silva inspired by the altarpiece in the main chapel of the Porto Cathedral that served as a model for others in the region.
On its Solomonic columns are images of several Franciscan saints. From 1591 onwards, the two-story cloister was built, an important work in the Mannerist style by the Guimarães master Gonçalo Lopes.
