Candelária Church

You're standing before the Candelária, the church that for decades was Rio's tallest building. Its façade faces the bay because, for centuries, people first saw the city from the sea.

1A vow in a storm

According to a semi-legendary story, in the early seventeenth century a ship called the Candelária nearly sank. A Portuguese couple, Antônio Martins Palma and Leonor Gonçalves, vowed to build a chapel to Our Lady of Candelaria if they survived. What we know for certain is that a small church stood here from the seventeenth century and was later enlarged as a parish church.

2Nearly a hundred years of building

The present church was designed by the military engineer Francisco João Roscio, and work began in 1775. It was inaugurated, still unfinished, in 1811, in the presence of the Prince Regent João. The dome was an engineering headache: it was only completed in 1877, built of lioz limestone carved in Lisbon and crowned by eight statues by the Portuguese sculptor José Cesário de Salles. With it, the church reached about 62 metres.

In Coelho Neto's novel A Conquista, a newcomer spots the dome from his ship and asks what that thing is that looks like an egg.

The church's name is also tied to two twentieth-century events: the huge Diretas Já rally of 1984 and the July 1993 massacre of street children nearby.

3What to look for

• The contrast between white plaster and dark granite on the façade.
• The bronze doors by Teixeira Lopes, installed in 1901.
• The dome and its statues, best seen from Avenida Presidente Vargas.