Évora's Roman temple and Chapel of Bones: two monuments, two keepers

The short answer

Évora 's Roman temple and its Chapel of Bones are run in completely different ways. The Chapel of Bones (Capela dos Ossos) belongs to the Church of São Francisco, which describes itself as a private religious entity and sells one single ticket, the "bilhete único", for the chapel and its other museum areas.[2] The Roman temple is a first-century AD monument standing in the historic centre, and a national monument.[14] XTOUR could not open a page from the public body that manages it today, so it gives no visiting terms for the temple.

Neither is on the Évora Ticket, the city museum network's pass: the list of places on its page, read on 9 October 2026, named thirteen sites and included neither the Church of São Francisco nor the temple.[13] XTOUR's reading is that the pass and the chapel ticket are separate purchases.

The Chapel of Bones and the Church of São Francisco

The church's own page says the chapel was built in the 17th century, following a model then in fashion, to provoke reflection on the transience of human life. Its walls and pillars are covered with "alguns milhares de ossos e crânios" (some thousands of bones and skulls) taken from the convent's burial places, and the frescoes of the vaulted ceiling are dated 1810. At the exit, a tile panel by the architect Siza Vieira answers the allusion to death with the miracle of life, in the page's words.[1]

The chapel is part of a larger complex. XTOUR keeps separate records for the church and the chapel, because the church's page puts the chapel on its paid single ticket while the church itself is visited free, and states the link between them here in prose.[2] The church's history page says Franciscans are thought to have reached Évora in 1224, that the church was rebuilt from the reign of Afonso V to that of Manuel, and that it was known in the 16th century as the "Convento de Ouro". After the religious orders were abolished in 1834 the convent declined; the page says the church and the Chapel of Bones were kept partly thanks to the Third Order, popular devotion to the Senhor dos Passos and the move of the São Pedro parish seat into the church.[3] The municipality's historical summary places the rebuilding of the convent in the city's 16th-century golden age.[10]

What the single ticket covers

The church's timetable and prices page lists the areas the single ticket opens: the Capela dos Ossos, the Chapter House (Sala do Capítulo) with the Presépio Évora, the museum of sacred art (Núcleo Museológico de Arte Sacra), the Royal Tribune room (Sala da Tribuna Real), the Galilee terrace (Terraço da Galilé) and the Canha da Silva nativity-scene collection. The same page says visits to the church itself are free.[2] XTOUR does not restate the ticket prices the page lists.

Two lines on that page matter if you hold a discount card. It says the Church of São Francisco is a private religious entity and that it does not apply the state museums' discounts and rules to holders of any card or identification. The page also lists the church's Mass times; XTOUR does not know how services affect access to the chapel.[2]

Most of what the ticket opens beyond the chapel is recent. The church's works page says the church and the chapel were restored between June 2014 and October 2015, and that two new museum spaces were created: the nativity-scene collection in the galleries above the side chapels, and the sacred-art museum above the Chapel of Bones.[5] The museum page says that museum occupies the friars' former dormitory and draws on this and other extinct Franciscan convents of Évora.[4] The works' technical sheet names the owner of the works as the Fábrica da Igreja Paroquial da Freguesia de S. Pedro, the São Pedro parish church body.[6] A page on the church's organs, by the historian Artur Goulart, records that the Genoese organ-builder Pascoal Caetano Oldovino was contracted on 4 January 1742 to build a new organ for São Francisco.[7]

The Roman temple

For the temple's history and condition, XTOUR could open a Lusa report published by RTP, Portugal's public broadcaster, on 26 June 2018. It dates the temple to the first century AD and describes conservation and study work carried out between August and December 2017, promoted by the Direção Regional de Cultura do Alentejo with the Câmara de Évora. Cleaning showed that the temple mixes materials, the report says: capitals in white marble, column shafts in granite and bases in marble. It also says the 19th-century intervention was a restoration that freed the columns from the masonry that had filled the gaps between them, and that the temple is a national monument covered by the World Heritage classification of the historic centre.[14]

XTOUR could not open the national heritage authority's website on 9 October 2026, and found no page from the temple's present managing body. It therefore does not know who manages visits to the temple today, whether there is any ticket, or whether the podium can be approached. Turismo do Alentejo's World Heritage page lists "the Roman temple" among Évora's highlights without describing a visit.[12]

"Temple of Diana"

The temple is also known as the Temple of Diana. Portuguese Wikipedia, an encyclopaedic source, calls that name erroneous: it attributes it to a theory advanced in the 17th century by the Jesuit Manuel Fialho and says the temple was dedicated to the emperor Augustus. The same article describes later uses of the building, as a fortified tower and as a butcher's shop until 1836, before a decision in 1871 to put its columns and capitals back on view.[15] XTOUR uses "Roman Temple of Évora", the name in its place records, and treats "Temple of Diana" as a popular name, not an identity.

The World Heritage centre: city or historic centre?

The municipality's World Heritage page names the inscribed zone as the Centro Histórico de Évora, with 1986 as the year of inscription and reference 361, and gives criteria II and IV.[9] Portugal's National Commission for UNESCO gives the same name, Centro Histórico de Évora, the same year and the same criteria;[11] its list of Portugal's World Heritage sites is in Portugal's World Heritage sites. It describes a city closed by three successive walls, Roman, medieval and Vauban-type.[9] Turismo do Alentejo's page puts it more loosely, saying "the entire city has been rated as a UNESCO World Heritage site".[12] XTOUR follows the municipality: the designation covers the historic centre, not the whole modern city, and in XTOUR's records the historic centre is a designation, not a single place to visit.

The Lusa report says the temple is covered by the historic centre's classification.[14] XTOUR found no read page that places the Church of São Francisco inside the inscribed zone, so it does not say so; its place records put the church, the chapel and the temple within the city of Évora, which is not the same claim.

What XTOUR does not know

XTOUR does not publish opening hours, closing days, prices or last-entry times for either monument; the church publishes its own, and changes them. It does not know the temple's current managing body or visiting arrangements, whether the Évora Ticket's list will change, or how long either visit takes. XTOUR has no travel times between Évora and Lisbon or anywhere else, so it does not say whether Évora works as a day trip. For bases across the country, see Portugal: regions and bases and Portugal on XTOUR.