San Francisco Convent and Church, Baroque monastery in Historic Center, São Paulo, Brazil

The Church of Saint Francis in São Paulo has a pale yellow Baroque facade with white pilasters, three arched entrances with iron gates, and a tower with two bells. Its single nave has a painted wooden barrel-vault ceiling, a rear balcony, and brass chandeliers. The adjoining convent was demolished in 1933; the Law School now stands on its site.

Franciscan friars from Bahia arrived in São Paulo in 1639 and moved to the edge of the hill in 1642; their convent was inaugurated on 17 September 1647. In 1827–28 the friars left and the imperial government installed the Academy of Social and Legal Sciences, today the Law School of the University of São Paulo. The colonial convent was demolished in 1933 for Ricardo Severo's neo-colonial building.

The complex holds two churches: the convent church and, attached to its facade, the Church of the Wounds of the Seraphic Father Saint Francis. The latter grew out of a chapel begun in 1676 by the Secular Franciscan Order and opened as an independent temple in 1787. In the convent church, look for the rosewood choir stalls and the two carved altarpieces in the transept, in the D. João V style.

The church stands on Largo de São Francisco, beside the Law School of the University of São Paulo and the Church of the Wounds of the Seraphic Father Saint Francis. Enter through the three iron-gated arched doors of the yellow facade; inside, pews face the high altar beneath the painted barrel-vault ceiling. Look up at the choir stalls of rosewood and the 1953 ceiling paintings on the life of Saint Francis.

A major fire in the late 1800s damaged the building, leading to the arrival of new altarpieces and paintings from Germany. These pieces, including scenes from the life of Saint Francis, remain central to what you see inside today.