it still looks like the parish church it always was
Out front, two tall towers with battlements at the top. The Sé de Viana still looks like the late-Gothic fortress-church of the north, and it is. It was built in the early 15th century as the Igreja Matriz de Santa Maria Maior, and only became a cathedral in November 1977, when Pope Paul VI created the Diocese of Viana do Castelo. More than five centuries doing the job of a cathedral before officially becoming one.
Construction began around 1400, at the highest point of the old town, next to the keep. By 1420 taxes were already being levied to fund the work; by 1455 it was ready for worship. The main portal is worth taking your time with: three archivolts decorated with scenes of the Passion of Christ in relief, musician angels, and six columns with engaged apostle sculptures (St Peter, St Paul, St John, St Bartholomew, St James and St Andrew). It's among the finest Gothic sculptures of this type in the north, with affinities to the Galician portals.
The region spent centuries under foreign religious jurisdiction (Tuy, then Valença, then Ceuta) before the Diocese of Viana was created in 1977. Inside, three naves with side chapels, projecting transept and a rectangular chancel. Two fires, in 1656 and 1809, destroyed much of the original interior decoration. What's there today is mostly later reconstruction, with Neoclassical altarpieces and some surviving Baroque woodwork. There are armorial tombs and recumbent effigies of local nobility, especially the tomb of Frei Gaspar Gaifar.
The cathedral is in the historic centre, a short distance from the Praça da República. When you leave, Viana opens up around the Lima.
what you'll find inside
- the two towers with battlements, from the fortress-church period
- Latin cross plan with three staggered naves, projecting transept and rectangular chancel
- Neoclassical altarpieces and Baroque woodwork that survived the fires of 1656 and 1809
- armorial tombs and recumbent effigies of Viana nobility, with the tomb of Frei Gaspar Gaifar standing out
