Túlio Espanca stated that the church of the Misericórdia of Alcáçovas started in 1551, the year in which, on the 13th of June, a donation was made for the purpose of the houses of Margarida Rodrigues, located in the street known as Rua Direita. However, the author doesn’t mention the document he based this information upon and the corresponding texto is unknown.

The only testimony we have is in the church of Misericórdia itself in a stone inscription where it was recorded: “This house of Santa Misericórdia (Holy Mercy) was built in the era of 1551 on September 10”. Father Joaquim Pedro de Alcântara also mentions this inscription, leaving open the possibility that this date may correspond to the probable foundation of the institution. However, he also notes that "another news report says it was finished" on that date. But he does not mention the source of the information. What was “finished on that date” would be the church but, in fact, it wouldn’t be possible build a church in such a short period of time (between June and September) meaning that, after the donation of the space in June, the works on the church must have started perhaps in early September.

However, the current building has eighteenth-century features, so it must have replaced an earlier church. 

The church's facade has a triangular pediment, with an oculus, a white limestone portal, and three windows: the central one, feigned, and the side windows with iron balustrade. Inside, we find the eso-nartex, under the high choir (from the19th century); the nave; the presbytery and the vestry.

The nave has a rectangular floor plan and a half-canon vault, decorated with sgraffiti, simulating discs intertwined with six-petaled marigolds, which seems to be from the second half of the 18th century. In it is the pulpit, in marble and with a wooden surplice, this one apparently of a more recent period, which is on the Gospel side. On the Epistle side are the Mercy clerks' chairs, dated from the first half of the 18th century, where the administrator's chair stands out.

The presbytery, accessed by four steps and bordered by a wrought iron balustrade, consists of three altars. The main altar, in the center, surrounded by an arch, has an altarpiece of gilded and polychrome carving in the Baroque style, composed of four Solomonic columns, decorated with branches and fruits and supported by "atlantes". In the center is an oil painted panel of gilded wood with the theme of the "Visitation of St. Elizabeth", painting of a certain quality, but by an anonymous author. The whole set is likely to be from the mid-18th century.

On the side arms of the presbytery are two altars opened by apilast arches.  Both altars have thrones with gilded carved woodwork, with motifs of branches and scallops, from the neoclassical art of the mid-18th or early 19th century. One is dedicated to Nossa Senhora do Socorro (Our Lady of Relief) and the other to the Crucified Lord.

Polychrome tile panels, applied in the late eighteenth or early nineteenth century, decorate the side sills of the staircase leading to the chancel, with elliptical medallions topped by angel heads, garlands, and flower wreaths.

In the vestry, a marble washbasin stands out, with an urn decorated with an angel's head and a bronze dolphin.

REFERENCES:
ALCÂNTARA, Joaquim Pedro de, Breves Memórias da Villa das Alcáçovas, Évora, Minerva Eborense, 1890.
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, Tomo IX, Vol. 1, 1978.