Encompassing a rich mix of Romanesque, Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque and Manueline architecture, Braga Cathedral is the oldest building of its kind in Portugal and one of the most magnificent citadels of Christendom anywhere in the world.
The centrepiece of a city festooned with churches, chapels and other religious edifices, its imposing granite façade features the intricate ornamentation of a roofline embossed with the most striking twin towers looming high above a huge transept and dome.
Subject to successive decorative and architectural overlays over the centuries, there’s almost nothing to match the Sé de Braga (as it is known locally) in the whole of Portugal, except perhaps the massive monasteries of Jerónimos in Belém and Mafra 55 kilometres (34 miles) north-west of Lisbon.
In fact, the building is so old that the Portuguese have a specific expression for it: ‘Tão velho como a Sé de Braga’ (It’s as old as Braga Cathedral), which loosely describes something that’s been around for donkey’s years!
Its history stretches right back to the birth of Portugal, having been founded in the 12th century by Count Henry of Burgundy and his wife, Theresa of Léon (parents of the country’s first king, Afonso Henriques). Following the count’s demise, she was banished from Braga due to an illicit love affair but in death they were both reunited by their tombs in the cathedral’s King’s Chapel.
For its construction, they chose a prime site in the heart of the city that was once occupied by a 6th-century church (destroyed by the Moors in 711) and, prior to that, by a Roman temple to the Egyptian goddess Isis built in 43 AD.
Surviving in the cathedral’s overall shape, its original Romanesque architecture is beautifully exemplified by the delightful south portal and part of the west-side doorway now protected by an exquisite late-Gothic porch dating from 1532.
What to See in Northern Portugal
Its vast interior is notable for some fine tombs other than those of its founders, Henry and Theresa. Their bodies lie alongside that of Archbishop Lourenço who was wounded at the famous Battle of Aljubarrota in 1385, while the brother of Henry the Navigator, Afonso (who died in childhood in 1400) is buried in the cathedral’s south-western corner.
The great wealth of treasure on show at the Treasury (now the key component of the cathedral’s fascinating Sacred Art Museum) includes rare vestments, silver plates, chalices (the oldest belonging to Saint Gerald from the 10th century that was used at the christening of Afonso Henriques) and chasubles spanning almost a thousand years.
The museum’s star exhibit, however, is the unadorned iron cross which accompanied the famous explorer, Pedro Álvares Cabral, on his pioneering voyage of discovery to Brazil in 1500, which was used by Father Henrique de Coimbra for the first Portuguese mass ever celebrated in the New World. Amongst the interior’s other fine features are the mid-18th century twin organs installed in the raised choir (coro alto) which itself is notable for its very rare Brazilian jacaranda wood.
In a garden just a stone’s throw from Braga Cathedral (indicated on the Google map below) stands the 14th-century Archbishop’s Palace which now houses a huge library comprising 300,000 volumes, 10,000 manuscripts and the city’s archives dating back to the 9th century, with one priceless document dated the 27th of May 1128 proudly proclaiming Portugal’s independence from Léon.
Another road behind the cathedral leads through to the remarkable Capela (Chapel) dos Coimbras built in the style of a little square tower in 1525.
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