In the words of several authors, the sanctuary is an "architectural model of reference, in the context of Alentejo’s History of Art in the 18^th century", "one of the five 18^th century churches that best documents the general tendencies of the Alentejo provincial architecture" associated with "the «cycle» of Mafra and the international Baroque eclecticism".
Site of ancient human presence - documented by the remains found there, at least from the Roman Period - and of frequent passage of travellers, the construction of a shrine preceding the current one and the origin of the image of the Lady venerated in the altar are enveloped in two overly spread legends: one told by Frei Agostinho de Santa Maria in his work Santuario Mariano and another transmitted by oral tradition.
This sanctuary replaced a primitive construction of the 16^th century, which was demolished in 1743 to begin the works of the new building. The foundation of the primitive temple’s origin in the 16^th century is made through two elements: on the one hand, the fact that the record of the first miracles attributed to Nossa Senhora de Aires (Our Lady of Aires) goes back to 1582, inserting itself in the Marian fervour of the Counter-Reformation; on the other hand, the existence in Viana, in that century, of individuals with the surname Vaqueiro, who integrated Viana’s nobility, which conforms to the legendary attribution to Martim Vaqueiro of the determination of constructing the old church.
For Raquel Seixas, it is probable that the Filipino rule contributed to the affirmation and development of the cult of Senhora de Aires, for at that time a series of miraculous narratives were produced in various places, which intended to prove the protection of the Virgin to the Portuguese people, immediately after the formation of the Kingdom. The account of a new miracle encouraged the people to resist and fight the Castilians, symbolizing Virgin Mary's preference for the Portuguese over the Spaniards.
The 16^th century chronology of the primitive sanctuary, and the coinciding time of the making of the image of Senhora de Aires, which might be from the 15^th or 16^th century, as well as the fact that it is actually a Nossa Senhora da Piedade (Our Lady of Piety) image (representation of Our Lady with the body of Christ on her lap, after the crucifixion), lead this author to question whether the emergence of the cult of Senhora de Aires was not related to the veneration of the old convent of Nossa Senhora da Piedade (or of São Francisco) of Viana do Alentejo. Based on George Cardoso, the author claims that the convent had sisters until 1544, but they left the house shortly after, leaving it abandoned until 1580, when it received the friars of the Third Order of San Francisco. Raquel Seixas understands, therefore, in a merely hypothetical way, that the cult of Senhora de Aires in the place where it is may have had origin in a solution for the interruption of the cult of Senhora da Piedade, caused by the convent’s abandonment. "In this way, the image of the Virgem da Piedade would have been taken to the estate of Paredes and sacralised there, thus re-establishing a suspended cult". And, in fact, other than this there is no other sculpture dedicated to Senhora da Piedade in Viana do Alentejo. Nevertheless, Espanca and Pinho Leal affirm that the transfer of the nuns only occurred in 1578-1580 and that, at the same time, the Franciscan friars have entered the property. The Rector of the Parish Church, author of the Memórias Paroquiais of 1758, indicates the same succession of events. Facts that, if proven, did not allow the existence of a prolonged period of absence of worship. Until confrontation of coeval documental sources, the pertinent hypothesis of Raquel Seixas remains in the uncertainty.
What is true is that the increase in the number of pilgrims and the desire to exhibit the splendour and exuberance of the confraternity that managed the worship and goods of Nossa Senhora de Aires led to the demolition of the first temple and to the construction of a new and larger space for worship, according to the opulence and taste of baroque times, as it happened in other places of the country.
The current building, in Baroque style, began being built  in 1743 and was completed around 1792, and it was at the end of the 18^th century and in the course of the 19^th that the interior of the temple received the nave’s and the main chapel’s pictorial decoration and the ornamental work of stuccoes.
The first mass was said in the main chapel in 1760, but a new consecration of the temple was noted, after considering the definitive conclusion of the works, in 1804, by the erudite friar Manuel do Cenáculo Vilas Boas, then archbishop of Évora.
The author of the design of the new church was the Oratorian priest João Baptista, of the Congregation of the Oratory of Saint Philip Neri of Estremoz; the master builder was Manuel Gomes, who controlled the construction of Évora’s Cathedral (Sé), and the carver of the altarpiece/baldachin was João de Almeida Negrão, from Évora.
 The new undertaking needed large investments and was only possible due to the sources of income of the Confraternity, the personal wealth of its confreres and alms of the faithful.
There is a relation between the construction of the new temple and the increase of worship, shown by the painted ex-votos that perpetuated the Virgin's intervening power, being the oldest subsisting today dated from 1735, and we lament the loss of many that existed. As time went by, however, the old painted ex-votos were supplanted by the countless photographs and other artefacts that cover the corridors around the sanctuary, placed there in recognition of the granted graces.
The interior of the shrine combines the Latin cross with the central main chapel. This one is flanked by opulent columns of green marble, surmounted by an octagonal dome and has, in the middle, a magnificent baldachin carved in gilded woodcarving. This imposing altarpiece structure, in rococo style, was commissioned in 1757.
Raquel Seixas describes the process by which the baroque aesthetic of Frederico Ludovice that came from the palace-convent of Mafra and the Cathedral of Évora, was transferred to Viana’s shrine, in the preference given to the marbles of the presbytery, while unifying and structuring elements of the internal space, and in the lantern tower. In fact, the influence of Mafra and Ludovice in the reception of the baroque grammar and in the consequent artistic renewal of Alentejo is consensual among historians of art. João Frederico Ludovice was a well-known German architect and goldsmith who worked in Portugal in the 18^th century for the kings D. Pedro II and D. João V, and was the author of the Mafra palace plan and the main chapel of the Cathedral of Évora. In Évora’s Cathedral, the author of the design of the Aires sanctuary, who might have worked there, and the master builder of the same monument, who worked there, were influenced by the same aesthetic.
In the surroundings of the shrine are the old houses of pilgrims and the old Alameda dos Romeiros (Pilgrins avenue), today quite disfigured, but it is still possibly to see the fence, the hermit's old house, the old dormitories and the old stables. A few meters away is the fountain of Nossa Senhora de Aires.
In the 18^th century several pilgrimages were made to Senhora de Aires, at different times, of pilgrims coming from several localities in Alentejo. Évora’s pilgrims went there on the 4^th Sunday of September, whose festivity lasted for three days. The great influx of people naturally attracted to the sanctuary’s compound several merchants, who came to sell their products. This fact determined that D. José instituted, by Charter dated from 27^th September 1751, signed by the minister Sebastião Carvalho e Melo (Marquês de Pombal), the annual fair that is still held today.
About 200 meters from the shrine is the hermitage of Senhor Jesus do Cruzeiro (Lord Jesus of the Cross), which associates the Christological cult with the Marian one, an association that took place in Portugal in the 17th and 18th centuries.
Currently, in addition to the fair that continues to be held on the 4^th Sunday of September, there also takes place a celebration on the 4^th weekend of April in honour of Nossa Senhora de Aires, which for some years coincides with the pilgrimage on horseback between Moita and Viana do Alentejo.
 

Protection: National Monument, Decree n.º 31-J/2012, DR, 1.ª série, n.º 252 de 31 de dezembro de 2012. 

REFERENCES
ARQUIVO NACIONAL/TORRE DO TOMBO, Memórias Paroquiais, Vol. 39, nº 150, pp. 891-910. Disponível on-line em http://portugal1758.di.uevora.pt/index.php/lista-memorias/78-viana-do-alentejo/3420-viana-do-alentejo-viana-do-alentejo. 
BILOU, Maria Manuela Tira-Picos Neves, Aspectos sociais da iconografia votiva do Santuário de N. Sra. d'Aires, Évora, Universidade de Évora, 1997 (Seminário de Licenciatura em Sociologia). 
COSTA, António Carvalho da, Corografia portugueza, e descripçam topografica do famoso reyno de Portugal…., Lisboa, Na Officina de Valentim da Costa Deslandes, 1707, tomo II.
ESPANCA, Túlio, Inventário Artístico de Portugal: Distrito de Évora: Concelhos de Alandroal, Borba, Mourão, Portel, Redondo, Reguengos de Monsaraz, Viana do Alentejo e Vila Viçosa, Lisboa, Academia Nacional de Belas-Artes, 1978,Tomo IX, Vol. 1.
SANTA MARIA, Fr. Agostinho de, Santuario Mariano E Historia da Imagens milagrosas de N. Senhora E das milagrosamente aparecidas, que se venerão em o Arcebispado de Evora, & nos Bispados do Algarve, & Elvas seus suffraganeos, Tomo Sexto, Titulo LXXXV, Lisboa, 1718.
SEIXAS, Raquel, O Santuário de Nossa de Aires: arquitectura e devoção (1743-1792), Lisboa, Universidade Nova, 2013 (Tese de Mestrado policopiada).
PEREIRA, José Fernandes, Arquitectura Barroca em Portugal, 2ª ed., Lisboa, 1992 e “O barroco do século XVIII”, História da Arte Portuguesa, PEREIRA, Paulo (dir.), vol. 3, Lisboa, 1995.  
VARELA GOMES, Paulo, A cultura arquitectónica e artística em Portugal no séc. XVIII, Lisboa, 1988.
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