On 7 July 2019, the Royal Building of Mafra – Palace, Basilica, Convent, Cerco Garden and Hunting Park (Tapada) was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The construction was funded in large part from the proceeds of Colonial Brazil, where gold and then diamonds were mined in vast quantities.

[3] This vast complex, largely built of Lioz stone, is among the most sumptuous Baroque buildings in Portugal and at 40,000 m², one of the largest royal palaces.

Designed by the German architect Johann Friedrich Ludwig, the palace was built symmetrically from a central axis, occupied by the basilica, and continues lengthwise through the main façade until two major towers.

Construction began by the laying of the first stone on November 17, 1717, with a grand ceremony in the presence of the king, his entire court and the Cardinal Patriarch of Lisbon.

However, when the flow of gold and diamonds from the Portuguese colony of Brazil started to arrive in Lisbon in abundance, the King changed his plans and announced the construction of a sumptuous palace[10] along with a much enlarged friary.

The extent of Ludwig's responsibility is unclear, as several other architects were involved in this project: the Milanese builder Carlos Baptista Garbo, Custódio Vieira, Manuel da Maia and even his own son António.

Construction lasted 13 years and mobilized a vast army of workers from the entire country (a daily average of 15,000 but at the end climbing to 30,000 and a maximum of 45,000), under the command of António Ludovice, the son of the architect.

[14][15] When complete the building consisted of a friary capable of sheltering 330 friars, along with a royal palace and a huge library of 30,000 books, embellished with marble, exotic woods and countless artworks taken from France, Flanders and Italy, which included six monumental pipe organs and the two carillons.

Nonetheless, it was a popular destination for the members of the royal family who enjoyed hunting in the nearby game preserve, the Tapada Nacional de Mafra.

However, with the French invasion of Portugal (1807) the royal family fled to Brazil, taking with them some of the best pieces of art and furniture in the building.

[citation needed] The last king of Portugal, Manuel II, following the proclamation of the republic, left on 5 October 1910 from the palace to the nearby coastal village of Ericeira on his way to exile.

The church, built in white marble, is located in the centre of the main façade, symmetrically flanked on both sides by the royal palace.

John V, wishing to rival the splendour of Rome, had sought architectural advice from his ambassador to the Vatican, who sent him small-scale models of important Roman religious buildings.

As King John VI had taken with him some of the best pieces of art and furniture in the building when the royal family fled in 1807 from the advancing French troops to Brazil, most rooms had to be redecorated in the original style.

The vestibule (Galilee porch) contains a group of large sculptures in Carrara marble, representing the patron saints of several monastic orders.

Above the main altar, inserting into the ceiling, is a gigantic jasper crucifix of 4.2 m, flanked by two kneeling angels, made by the School of Mafra.

There were built by Joaquim Peres Fontanes and António Xavier Machado e Cerveira between 1792 and 1807 (when the French troops occupied Mafra).

The largest pipe is 6 m high and has a diameter of 0.28 m. King John V had commissioned liturgical vestments from master embroiderers from Genoa and Milan, such as Giuliano Saturni and Benedetto Salandri, and from France.

They include works by the Italians Agostino Masucci, Corrado Giaquinto, Francesco Trevisani, Pompeo Batoni and some Portuguese students in Rome such as Vieira Lusitano and Inácio de Oliveira Bernardes.

On 10 November 2020, Pope Francis granted a canonical coronation to the image of Our Lady of Solitude of the basilica, guarded by the Confraternity of the Most Blessed Sacrament.

These beautiful finished volumes were bound in the local workshop (Livraria) in the rocaille style (also by Manuel Caetano de Sousa).

A major reference to the construction of the palace is made in the novel Baltasar and Blimunda (Memorial do Convento), written by the Portuguese Nobel laureate José Saramago.