Guided tours of the Museu de São Roque and Igreja de São Roque

Guided tours of the Igreja de São Roque and Museu de São Roque offer an in-depth insight into one of Lisbon’s most extraordinary heritage sites. The church, notable for its Mannerist and Baroque architecture, survived the 1755 earthquake almost intact, preserving a rare and valuable collection. Of particular note is the Chapel of St John the Baptist, one of the richest collections of 18th-century religious art, commissioned in Rome and installed in Lisbon with great pomp, and currently in the process of being designated a National Treasure. At the Museu de São Roque, founded in 1905, in addition to the treasures of the Chapel of St John the Baptist, the collection features 16th-century paintings of St Roch and reveals the global scope of the Jesuit mission, with examples of sacred art, liturgical vestments and devotional objects that bear witness to centuries of spirituality and cultural exchange between the West and the East. In its final section, it recounts the presence of the Santa Casa da Misericórdia de Lisboa, founded in 1498, which since 1768 has ensured the continued preservation and promotion of this unique part of Portugal’s heritage at this site.