The chapel was opened to the public on September 15, 1697, with mass presided over by the Commissary Visitor Friar Jerônimo da Ressurreição, although it was not yet entirely finished, remaining the works until 1724.

Its name derives from the great quantity of gold used in the covering of the exuberant wood that fills practically all the spaces of the walls, altars and ceiling.

Along the side walls there is a series of panels of azulejos, smaller altars with important statues, of which stand out the one of St. Elizabeth of Portugal, the christ Cristo atado à coluna, and that of the Lord of the Steps (With a life-size rock image with inlays of rubies), and dozens of painted panels depicting saints and personifications of the Faith, Hope, Charity and Constance.

We only know that these paintings were executed between the years 1699 and 1700 and the panels of the lining between 1701 and 1702, according to the book of Receita e Despesa (excerpt taken from the Book of the Historian Fernando Pio, Former Minister of the Third Order of Saint Francis who wrote all about the Golden Chapel with research done in the collection of the Venerable Third Order of the Glorious Patriarch Saint Francis of Assisi of Recife).

From 1776 to 1777 he suffered the lining of the chapel serious repair, without prejudice to the coffins, supported by careful hands, being worthy of greater attention two, large, next to the benches, representing the arrest and death of the Franciscans, whose tormentors, curiously, had their faces erased and scratched, in date unknown, by the indignation of some devotee.