The Church of Our Lord Jesus of Poverty, classified as a National Monument of Portuguese World Heritage by UNESCO, stands out as a small pearl of late Baroque style in Évora.
Currently very restricted in access, this magnificent work of eighteenth-century religious architecture is a prime example of the perfect harmony and balance between a taste for classicism and the attachment to the rational and geometric forms of seventeenth-century Baroque, present in so many other buildings of the same period throughout Évora and the Alentejo region.
Located near the Hospital do Espírito Santo de Évora, in Largo da Pobreza, the Church of Our Lord Jesus of Poverty was erected in the 1730s, the result of the continuous efforts of the then Canon of the Évora Cathedral, António Rosado Bravo, and under the supervision of the highly sought-after German architect João Frederico Ludovice.
Ludovice emigrated to Portugal in 1707, settling in Lisbon first as a goldsmith and later as an architect. He quickly became the chosen architect of King John V, the Magnanimous, known for the lavish wealth his reign brought to Portugal and for being responsible for a large number of majestic buildings throughout the country, some of them directed by João Frederico Ludovice. The most notable is the construction of the monumental Palace-Convent of Mafra.
Around 1730, Ludovice, under the patronage of João V, moved to Évora to complete his most recent project, the construction of the splendid chancel of the Évora Cathedral. Our Church of the Lord Jesus of Poverty was probably not directly designed by João Frederico Ludovice himself, but by one of the dedicated masters who, at the time, were learning from and working with the famous German-born architect.