Mac Rating: 5.00 | Votes: 1 | Date: 04/06/2026 17:45:00

Set on the elevated central Terreiro da Se hilltop in the historic Se district of central Porto, the Se do Porto is the principal Roman Catholic cathedral of the city and one of the most architecturally distinguished surviving medieval buildings anywhere in northern Portugal. The cathedral was originally constructed between approximately 1110 and 1737 across a substantial extended period of around six hundred and twenty years, providing one of the most continuously developed individual medieval ecclesiastical buildings anywhere in the wider Iberian peninsula. The principal original construction was carried out in stages between approximately 1110 and 1240 in the standard early Portuguese Romanesque architectural style of the wider northern Iberian peninsula. The original Romanesque core consists of the principal substantial three-nave central body with two flanking western fortified towers, a transept and a small original semicircular apse at the eastern end. The principal external character of the cathedral remains substantially the original Romanesque arrangement, providing one of the principal surviving early Portuguese Romanesque ecclesiastical buildings anywhere in the country. The principal Gothic additions to the original Romanesque core were carried out in stages between the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The substantial new Gothic cloister on the southern side of the principal church was completed in around 1385 during the reign of King John I and provides one of the principal surviving examples of the wider Portuguese fourteenth-century Gothic ecclesiastical architecture. The principal Gothic cloister consists of two principal storeys arranged around a central square garden court, with the various Gothic arches and tracery surviving substantially intact across most of the principal lower storey. The principal baroque interventions in the cathedral were carried out across the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, primarily under the direction of the prominent Italian baroque architect Nicolau Nasoni. The principal Nasoni interventions included the substantial new principal chapel at the eastern end of the principal church completed in around 1727, the substantial new western facade ornamentation completed in around 1733 and the principal northern entrance loggia completed in around 1737. The principal new baroque additions transformed the original medieval ecclesiastical character of the cathedral into a substantially baroque establishment. The cathedral has been the principal episcopal seat of the wider Diocese of Porto continuously since the original eleventh-century foundation. The principal current bishop of Porto, Bishop Manuel Linda, has held the principal episcopal role continuously since 2018. The cathedral is the principal historical venue for the various major ecclesiastical celebrations of the wider central Porto Catholic community throughout the year. The famous historical royal wedding of King John I of Portugal and Philippa of Lancaster on 2 February 1387 was the principal early historical royal celebration held at the cathedral.