Rio’s São Bento Monastery · The Monastery on the Hill

Rio’s São Bento Monastery stands on a hilltop and has been home to Benedictine monks for more than four hundred years from the seventeenth century on. It is one of the best-preserved colonial buildings in Brazil: carved wooden altars, cloisters tiled in blue and white, a scriptorium and shelves of books.

The monastery supports itself with a bakery and rented property, separated from the city outside by a gate on the hill. Visitors mostly see walls and cloisters; the monks keep the daily offices in the same compound.

The bell on the hill rings as usual each day. The monastery’s own line is: this is not a tourist site, it is our home.

Historical Mysteries / Rio de Janeiro · Brazil / 1586