Sao Fran­cis­co Square, in the town of Sao Cristo­vao, is a quadri­lat­er­al open space sur­round­ed by sub­stan­tial ear­ly build­ings such as Sao Fran­cis­co Church and con­vent, the Church and San­ta Casa da Mis­eri­cor­dia, the Provin­cial Palace and the asso­ci­at­ed hous­es of dif­fer­ent his­tor­i­cal peri­ods sur­round­ing the Square. This mon­u­men­tal ensem­ble, togeth­er with the sur­round­ing 18th- and 19th- cen­tu­ry hous­es, cre­ates an urban land­scape which reflects the his­to­ry of the town since its ori­gin. The Fran­cis­can com­plex is an exam­ple of the typ­i­cal archi­tec­ture of the reli­gious order devel­oped in north-east­­ern Brazil.