[1] Together with the São Miguel-o-Anjo Lighthouse (completed in 1527 a few hundred meters away from the fort), they were the first manifestations of Renaissance architecture in Northern Portugal).

[1] Construction of the fort began during the reign of King Sebastian (1557–1578), in 1570, and took eight years, under the supervision of João Gomes da Silva, a diplomat and trusted man of the Court and designed by the master of fortifications Simão de Rouen, son of Jean de Rouen, it consisted of a simple bastioned structure, surrounding the old medieval structures of the hospice, monastery, and the church of the Benedictines of Santo Tirso.

With the appointment of Martim Gonçalves da Câmara, as a replacement for Pinto de Matos (May 1646), work finally started, with the demolition of the Old Church in the same year.

The chancel and nave of the church, with the involvement of the bastioned structure and the dismantling of the cover, functioned as the fort's courtyard.

[1] After being abandoned for a few years, in the first half of the 1990s, the monument underwent archaeological intervention under the responsibility of the Urban Archeology Office of the Museum and Historical and Artistic Heritage Division of the Porto city council.

The old church, inserted in the military area, was demolished, the central part of the facade was torn down, the towers were opened, the slabs of the graves on its floor were removed to be reused in the masonry and the vault (the first in Renaissance style in the country) was dismantled.