Arte, Arquitectura E Arqueologia Portuguesa

Primeira e mais numerosa escola de escultura, que temos tido no Reino, a Aula de Escultura de Mafra nasce da necessidade de substituição dos painéis pintados das capelas da basílica, encomendados na década de trinta do século XVIII, por outros em baixo -relevo de mármore. Esta intervenção de grande envergadura, desde logo obrigava à implementação de uma hierarquia sólida e de um trabalho disciplinado. A nova Aula forma -se, a partir de então, paulatinamente.

A presente tese de Doutoramento aborda o fenómeno de implementação da figura do Arquitecto e suas repercussões na prática arquitectónica em Portugal no período cronológico 1521-1557. Trata, pois, do momento de viragem das concepções artísticas tardo-góticas para as renascentistas, em que o tratado latino De Architectura de Vitrúvio (séc. I a. C.), em reavaliação pelo movimento cultural nascido na Itália do Quattrocento designado por Vitruvianismo, afectou a confecção dos conceitos modernos de Arquitectura e de Arquitecto.

""Franciscan buildings of the Origins for the Portuguese Strictest Observance communities in the 16th century: the lesson from Vitruvius"

"The Franciscan church of Bom Jesus de Valverde (Évora) is one of the highest accomplishments of the Portuguese architecture inspired by Renaissance treatises during the early 16th century. It contrasts with other contemporary buildings erected for the Strictest Observance (for instance, the convents of Arrábida or Santa Cruz de Sintra), opposing its erudite geometry to a raw use of poor materials assembled in organic, haphazard plans.
Considering that no significant differences of spiritual or cultural context assisted the formulation of both types of architecture, this paper aims at inquiring the possible theoretical agreement between them. This agreement is found in the treatise "De Architectura" by Vitruvius, namely in the main narrative on the Origins of Architecture. The lesson from Vitruvius is suggested to have been learned both from his historical approach to the development of the art of building, and the formulation of the disciplinary object under an epistemological perspective. The implications of some of the Vitruvian fundamental terms – "distributio", "symmetria", and "decor" – are also taken into account to clarify how the Vitruvian text could possibly have been understood in the light of the Strictest Observant lifestyle and spiritual ideals.""

É Tavira cidade marítima muito bem assentada (…), constata Frei João de São José em 1577, aludindo com justeza à situação geográfica da urbe e ao peso que as gentes e actividades ligadas ao mar sempre tiveram na sua história. Pescadores e mareantes de toda a espécie aqui atracaram e dinamizaram a cidade e o seu porto, especialmente nos séculos XV e XVI, quando o movimento de pessoas e mercadorias era vultuoso pelos tratos das praças africanas, pelo apoio às operações de corso e contra-corso, pela descarga do rico produto das fainas piscatórias e pela muito proveitosa inserção de Tavira nas rotas do comércio marítimo europeu, o que naturalmente beneficiou a cidade e a projectou em destinos longínquos.

"André de Resende as a new Alberti?: an ideologist between the ‘princeps’ and the ‘architectus’ in the requalification of the Roman ‘Vrbs’ of Évora (Portugal 1531-1537)”

In  1531-37,  when  the  Portuguese  court  moved  temporarily  from  Lisbon  to  Évora,  this city became the stage of bold urban and architectural renovations. King John III (1521-57) commissioned there a series of improvements to host the court, which reorganized and clarified the Roman urban tissue of the city while restoring some of its ancient monuments. His plan, full of symbolic meaning, used the rhetorical power of the Roman ruins to support the increasing absolutism of his political agenda – accordingly to Alberti’s ideas about the power of the ancient remains as instruments to the ruler.
The activity of the humanist André the Resende (1500-73) as an expert on antiquities and archaeology is noticeable during this period, as he informs us to have been the responsible for the monarch’s decision to restore the supposed Roman aqueduct of Água de Prata. Moreover, one can suspect him to have guided all the royal urbanistic and architectural program in some way, as he also tells us that the King commissioned him the translation of the “De re aedificatoria” by Leon Battista Alberti (1404-72) just after having finished two other books on aqueducts at his request.

Our approach goes deeper into this conjecture analysing a narrative that Resende wrote about the history of the city of Évora, focused on its antiquities: the “Historia da Antiguidade da Cidade de Évora” (Évora: André de Burgos, 1552). In this text, we find enough potential inspiration to set the guidelines that transformed the city. The idea gets its strength when noticing some thematic and methodological similarities that exist between the “Historia” and its literary models found in the writings of Flavio Biondo da Forlì (1392-1463). This author, also a humanist and archaeologist, was responsible – together with Alberti and others – for setting up the humanistic program of the “instauratio imperii” of Rome, and for inciting the subsequent “renovatio urbis” that took place during the pontificate of Nicholas V (1447-1455). It is possible thus to find striking parallels, both textual and material, between the royal plan designed for Évora as revealed by Resende’s “Historia” and the former papal plan intended to restore the ancient grandeur of the Roman “vrbs” as described by Giannozzo Manetti (1396-1459). They set forth the idea that Resende acted in Évora as a counsellor to King John III, advising him about the redesign of the city’s public spaces while taking the modern city of Rome as a model. But could this translator of the “De re aedificatoria” have acted in Évora as a new Alberti, i. e., as the mediator between the “princeps” and the “architectus” – both counsellor to pope Nicholas V and a mentor to the papal architect Bernardo Rosselino? If so, Resende would probably be following the example of Alberti in Rome during the “Quattrocento” as an expert on antiquities and urbanism/architecture, helping to transform the city of Évora into the new capital of the realm."

The Fountain of Manga (1528-34) was built during the spiritual reform of the Augustinian monastery of Santa Cruz de Coimbra led by Fr. Brás de Barros. The present work shows how the fountain’s architecture and its carvings were conceived as a surprising translation of the book “Spiegel der Volcomenheyt” (1501) written by the mystic Franciscan Hendrik Herp. It was based on this book that Fr. Brás outlined the spiritual reform of the monastery. In particular, the Fountain of Manga was designed according to both the medieval tradition and the Renaissance aesthetics. It is also in the spirit of the “Devotio Moderna” that its architectural form creates an ingenious allegory with an educational purpose, having the Franciscan mysticism and asceticism as “Leitmotiv”.

Debates on cultural heritage and collective memory emphasize the contested role of archaeology in national narratives to the exclusion of other parameters. Yet, cultural heritage can be made visible or remain invisible for reasons other than (un)conscious ideological preoccupations. The representation of the Phoenician archaeological record in Portugal is used to demonstrate that, despite its detachment from collective memory, the ancient cultural heritage can transcend its distance from the past, attaining significance within the contemporary social milieu. The Portuguese embrace their links with Phoenician cultural heritage, investing in academic research and cultural heritage. The corresponding ancient culture remains an adjunct of the archaeological evidence, researched and publicized, but not as an extension of the ‘collective self’ of modern society. Shifting this devoid-of-symbolic-meaning archaeological record onto the level of contemporary reality accords it visibility, even as the long-forgotten Phoenician origins of some still practiced traditions remain an unacknowledged, ‘invisible’ heritage.

A Associação de Bombeiros Voluntários da Régua, fundada em 1880, teve, desde cedo, a necessidade imperativa de construção de uma sede própria, de forma a substituir as suas exíguas e inoperacionais instalações, primeiro num prédio do largo dos Aviadores e mais tarde, a partir de 1910, na rua dos Camilos. Porém muitos anos se passaram até a ideia se concretizar, num processo complexo e árduo que se prolongou por mais de duas décadas, desde a cedência do terreno na, então, avenida da Liberdade (hoje Dr. Antão de Carvalho), em 1930 1 , até à inauguração do quartel em 1955. Dois artistas assinam o desenho e execução de tão desejado edifício: o mestre pedreiro Anastácio Inácio Teixeira, reguense e admirável executante, e o arquitecto Francisco Oliveira Ferreira (1884-1957), ligado à cidade por laços familiares 2 mas também profissionais 3 . À data com uma obra extensa, em particular na zona do Porto e Vila Nova de Gaia, Oliveira Ferreira oferece o projecto à Associação, conduzindo à construção daquele que se julga ser um dos primeiros quartéis do país desenhado por um arquitecto e por muitos considerado um dos mais belos de Portugal.

A par da sua invulgaridade arquitetónica, a definição urbana do Mosteiro da Serra do Pilar, fundado em 1538, é de reconhecida qualidade. Contudo, ela tanto é incontestada como o seu conhecimento objetivo é escasso. A sua leitura está dependente de um conjunto vasto de fatores perdidos com o tempo, como o desmembramento dos seus edifícios por entidades diferentes, a dissolução da cerca monástica ou a densificação do tecido urbano envolvente. Outros fatores, de caráter simbólico, extinguiram-se a par da casa religiosa, em 1834. Assim, pretendeu-se que algumas memórias, uma vez reavivadas, conduzissem à sua melhor compreensão e tivessem ainda algum valor operativo, permitindo intervir nos planos arquitetónico e urbano sem perda de identidade ou alienação dos valores culturais que persiste em transmitir.