Clérigos Tower and Church

Overview

The Torre dos Clérigos is the 75 m Baroque bell tower that Nicolau Nasoni built for the Brotherhood of the Clergy between 1754 and 1763, and it is the symbol of Porto, visible from most of the city and climbed by most of its visitors. The church it belongs to, begun in 1732, was one of the first in Portugal with an elliptical Baroque plan, and Nasoni, the Italian who gave the city its Baroque, is buried somewhere in its crypt.

The tower is worth the 240 steps for the view over the roofs to the river and Gaia, and the church is worth ten minutes for its oval nave and marble altarpiece; the ticket, €8, includes a small exhibition in the tower’s lower floors.

History

Nasoni, an Italian painter and architect who left a body of Baroque work across the north of Portugal, designed the church for the Clérigos brotherhood in 1732; it was finished in 1750, with an elliptical nave rare in Portugal at the time and a facade of garlands, shells and a broken pediment on an early 17th-century Roman model. The tower came second, built at the back of the church between 1754 and 1763 on the model of Tuscan campaniles with Roman Baroque ornament, together with the divided monumental stairway in front; it was the tallest structure in the city.

Nasoni also built the Misericórdia church, the Archbishop’s Palace and the side loggia of the cathedral; he joined the brotherhood and asked to be buried in its crypt, where his exact grave is unknown. In 2015, after 250 years, the brotherhood opened the tower and church at night for the first time.

Visiting

The complex on the Rua de São Filipe de Nery is open daily, 09:00 to 19:00 through most of the year, with short hours on 24 and 31 December and late opening on Christmas Day and New Year’s Day; the ticket covers the church, the exhibition and the tower. The church first: the oval nave, the polychrome marble altarpiece by Manuel dos Santos Porto in the main chapel, and the side facades that show the curve of the plan.

Then the tower: 240 steps up six floors in a spiral that narrows towards the top, past the exhibition rooms and the bells, to a viewing platform with room for a dozen people. The platform is small and in high season the staff meter the climb, so there can be a wait at the bottom; the reward is the whole city, from the Sé and the river to the Boavista.

Tips

• Go at opening or in the last hour; the platform is tiny and the midday queue for the stairs is the longest in the centre.
• Night openings, introduced in 2015, give the city lit up and fewer people; check the website for the current evening slots.
• The best photograph of the tower is not from the tower: the Jardim das Virtudes below the university and the Miradouro da Vitória across the valley frame it.
• The stairs are steep and there is no lift; anyone who dislikes narrow spirals should do the church and the exhibition only.

Nearby

• Livraria Lello: two minutes, across the Praça de Lisboa.
• São Bento station: five minutes downhill.
• Centro Português de Fotografia in the old prison: three minutes, free.
• Sé do Porto: ten minutes.