Church of the Third Order of Mount Carmel

The Church of the Third Order of Mount Carmel in Salvador features a facade carved entirely from soft limestone, detailed with elaborate volutes and figures that seem to melt into the stone. Built by a lay brotherhood in the seventeenth century, the church holds a collection of colonial religious art, including a famous statue of Christ wearing a crown of thorns. When the building burned in the early twentieth century, the congregation saved the statue by lowering it through a window into the street below.