The Story Behind a Frightening Chapel of Bones in Portugal

There is a Church of San Francisco found in the Portuguese city of Évora, 140 km (87 miles) from Lisbon. Inside this church, next to the cloister of the former Franciscan monastery, in the place where the monks' cells were once located, is the frightful “Capela dos Ossos” (Chapel of Bones.)

This peculiar chapel was built in the Gothic style throughout the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Specifically, there were three monks who were in charge of the planning and building of the site between 1460 and 1510. It is said that the monks’ reasoning for the chapel was to bring their brothers to the contemplation of the ephemeral, volatile, and transitory nature of life.