Sanctuary of the Sacred Heart of Jesus - Viana do Castelo

The construction of this basilica dedicated to Saint Lucy and the Sacred Heart lasted from 1904 to 1959. The basilica was built to a design by architect Miguel Ventura Terra, who was succeeded by Miguel Nogueira after his death in 1919.

In front of the church was a small medieval chapel dedicated to Saint Lucy, patron saint of sight, whose attribute was her eyes on a tray. At the end of the 19th century, the first president of the Confraria de Santa Luzia, cavalry captain Luís de Andrade e Sousa, who suffered from eye problems, began to visit the small chapel to pray and ask for a solution to his problem. When his sight was restored , he founded the Brotherhood of Santa Luzia in 1884. He took over the isolated and abandoned chapel and had a road built connecting the town to the hill.

It is believed that the sanctuary was inspired by the Sacré Cœur Basilica in Paris . However, this idea has been disputed, since at the time of Ventura Terra's project (1899), the Parisian church was still poorly built and had no visible configuration.

The temple has a plan in the form of a Greek cross , with elements in neo-romantic, neo-gothic and Byzantine styles, in an eclectic and revivalist style that marked the turn of the century. The model was imported from France, where architect Ventura Terra learned.

The architectural style is Romanesque-Byzantine in inspiration and follows the trend of revivalist architecture typical of the early 20th century. The impressive rose windows are the largest in the Iberian Peninsula and the second largest in Europe.

The frescoes on the dome depicting the Passion and Ascension of Christ were designed by Manuel Pereira da Silva.

Willem Vandenameele