Lisbon and Cintra/Chapter 3
CHAPTER III
THE Central Railway Station, a really fine building in which the Manueline architecture veers strongly to Mauresque forms, lies back from the Rocio on a small square called the Praça de Camões, not to be confounded with the Largo of that name on the hill above. Beyond the station is seen a noble monument in clear relief against the sky, and a park-like profusion of leafage; right and left are palms, and rows of Judas trees decorating the gardens of the Praça dos Restauradores. This pretty square is the beginning of the beautiful boulevard of the Avenida da Liberdade.
Restauradores, liberdade—liberty, the restorers—two words very precious to the heart of the Portuguese, who is fond of giving expression in nomenclature of streets or objects to that passion for liberty which has always been one of his strong characteristics. It is that noble sentiment of independence which has enabled this small country to stand apart from absorption into the bigger nation of the peninsula, which has ever spurred them on to break free from thraldom in any shape or form, and which is almost a sure guarantee, that, given time for development of national capabilities after so many stupendous obstacles in the struggle for existence they will still hold their own among the great nations of the world as in their golden age of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Lest they should forget, or lose sight of high aims in the maelstroms of workaday and social life, they set up this pyramidal monument as a perpetual commemoration of the victories which freed the land from Spanish rule, of the forty strong men—dos Restauradores—who dared to create the Portuguese Day of Independence on December 1, 1640. It consists of an obelisk, ninety feet high, mounted upon a massive pedestal which bears on its south face an imposing bronze sculpture representing the Genius of Independence, on the north side a similar figure symbolizing Victory. On the four faces of the obelisk the names of the chief battles of the campaign are engraved in bronze, while sculptured wreaths, laurel leaves, war trophies and other symbols decorate the base.
The Avenida da Liberdade, though now the Champs Elysées of Lisbon, was once the Valverde of olden days, that green valley between the hills down which the country people made their way to the market in the Campo de Valverde, the site of the present Praça dos Restauradores. Under Pombaline administration a public garden was laid out at the lower end, enclosed first of all with a blank wall, and then with iron railings, a change which by inviting entrance to the shady walks and flowers within converted the spot into a favourite promenade of the townsfolk. Then entered the active spirit of progress into the municipal powers of Lisbon, and under the presidency of Rosa Araujo the new streets near the lower town, and the splendid Avenida sprang into being. A writer on All Souls' Day of last year reminded his fellow-citizens of their debt of gratitude to this former president by calling attention to the neglected tomb of one of "Lisbon's most worthy and illustrious public servitors."
Avenues of trees, flowering shrubs, palm trees, and many varieties of sub-tropical plants, with fountains, rockeries, kiosks, flower beds, decorate the continuous gardens which separate the three thoroughfares of the boulevard. For a mile and a half these extend constituting a fascinating promenade even in winter-time, for the exotics with their plumed crests, graceful fronds, or barbed spears, supply the verdure, and the deep blue and sunlight of cloudless skies the atmosphere of summer. In the spring the acacias burst into flower, the rich massed blossom of the Judas trees glow pink and purple overhead, and in their passing away drift into rose-hued carpets covering the paths and trottoirs. When autumn tints burn on the leaf-shedding trees, thousands of small birds, absent during the summer, return to their old haunts. At sunset the united chorus of the tiny songsters darting in myriads from bough to bough has the curious effect to a listener's ear of the prolonged tones of a strong, shrill steam whistle. All day and far into the night the electric cars pass swiftly up the left of the three roads, and descend by the right, while the broad central road is chiefly used by carriages and automobiles.
Some of the houses standing back on either side of the Avenida are as fine as any in Lisbon, but there is a preponderance of blocks of flats, plain, high buildings, with nothing but their balconies and their setting of clear sunlight to redeem them from sheer ugliness. Right and left of the upper end of the Avenida are new avenues laid out with trees, and showing everywhere the energy of the modern building spirit, which seems to be a strong force not yet duly regulated and controlled in the output of the ambitious projects it set out to accomplish, but giving promise of a splendid future. At the extreme end of the Avenida is the Praça de Pombal, a large rotunda, scantily built around, newly laid out with plants and trees, waiting for its central statue of the great Minister and for the time when it will worthily mark the entrance to the new Park of Edward VII into which the rolling wooded ground beyond is to be converted at no distant date. "Made for the heart of new Lisbon, the Lisbon of the co-operative and collectivist period in which those associations aspired, though lacking the power, to establish a prerogative of justice, this Praça ought to be the socialistic Terreiro do Paço of a socialist Lisbon," daringly writes Senhor Fialho d' Almeida, "the appropriate heart of the new civic life as the other praça was of the bureaucratic."
In the vast new suburb of this new Lisbon stretching out to the north-east the Municipal Camara laid out a number of fine avenues, all lined with trees, but again failed to regulate architectural enterprise. Palatial residences stand almost cheek and jowl with small mean-looking tenements which have not the saving grace of age to sanction their intrusion in these spacious roads. The critic must bear in mind, however, that twenty years ago this whole district—a little town in itself—did not exist, that in the ardour of improving and extending the city overbuilding has necessarily occurred. Time will adjust the balance of proportion with future opportunity. From the Praça Saldanha, where the bare pedestal in the centre still lacks the statue of the great General of the Miguelite Campaign, the immense new avenue Ressano Garcia goes in direct line to the Campo Grande, while the old road, taking a wider course to the same point, passes by the Campo Pequeno (little), where the Bull Ring stands. This approach is through a poor district harking back to times when reviews were held on the small common, and English officers played cricket there such times as the fleet was in the Tagus.
A deserted mansion marks the entrance to the Campo Pequeno, the old courtyard showing through the high iron grille, and the deep, leafy gardens behind, suggesting a tragic page of past history in face of the picture of to-day represented in the immense Praça dos Touros. The Bull Ring is a handsome building in the Mudejar style of architecture, solid and imposing, and took the place of the old Circo dos Touros on the Campo Santa Anna, a wooden edifice noted as being the only public building erected in the short reign of Dom Miguel. The present Ring, dating from 1892, accommodates no less than 8,700 spectators. The seats are divided into logares do Sol and logares da Sombra, but, needless to say, the shady seats are considered the most desirable, and above them are private and the royal boxes.
This peculiarly national entertainment, one for which the Portuguese display unwonted enthusiasm, can be witnessed with none of the repugnance experienced by English people at a Spanish bull fight. In Portugal the beasts are not killed, only irritated for about ten minutes or so by wonderfully skilful riders mounted on fine, superbly trained horses. The sport consists in their dexterity in placing barbed darts, decorated with ribbons, into the neck of the bull which when it declines to show fight is allowed to withdraw, and another take its place. Some oxen, peaceable and mild, are driven into the arena, bells jingling at their necks, and the badgered bull finding himself suddenly in their midst calms down, and goes quietly away with them. There are various modes of diversifying the entertainment, and it is worth one's while not to miss the opening scene, called the cortesias, when the cavalleiros as highly picturesque as the Spanish picadors make skilful display of their horsemanship.
The Campo Grande, a mile beyond, is the fashionable corso, the "Bois de Boulogne" of Lisbon society. The ceaseless service of electricos brings crowds of pedestrians, especially on a Sunday afternoon, to watch the stream of carriages and motor cars which pass up and down the bordering boulevards of the Campo under the shadow of trees that were planted a century ago. The whole area between these parallel avenues, which are a mile long, is traversed by winding paths and shady roads, where leaf and gaily-coloured blossoms again lend beauty and perfume to gladden sight and scent. A pretty artificial lake has a floating island on its surface connected with the shore by a rustic bridge, and youths and children paddle round in boats to their hearts' content. At the extreme end of the Campo to the left of the broad way there is a charming little garden which serves as a frame to a fanciful toy house, called the Chalet das Cannas, the whole of the vestibule, tiny rooms, staircase, articles of furniture being made entirely of cork and cane. With these two materials the fancy architect has made pillars, arches and porticoes in the Manueline style. The structure—in its way a little work of art—is worth seeing as a curiosity alone.
The luxuriant greenery of the Botanical Gardens envelops a high knoll behind the Avenida da Liberdade. By way of the pretty Praça da Alegria a steep ascent leads to a gateway which opens into the lower level of the gardens where rare tropical trees and plants flourish with an amazing salubrity. The beautiful Avenue of Palms is renowned. There are palm trees in groups and single palms, palms from every part of the globe where they grow—Australia, Africa, South America, the Azores, to mention but a few—and fine coco palms from Brazil, their giant columns surmounted by plumed crests of superb grace. The boscage of magnolias, and other flowering trees and shrubs discloses one beauty close upon the other as we wander through the leafy lanes and avenues. We come upon a pretty lake overhung by a weeping willow of wonderful growth. By various gradations and flights of steps the high level of the gardens is reached where the white towers of the Observatory emerge from the verdure, large parterres of rare flowers and plants all carefully labelled are spread out, and the buildings of the School of the Polytechnic—Escola Polytechnica—come to view. There are hot-houses in the grounds containing rare specimens of exotic vegetation to delight the botanist heart, and in every nook is evidence of the care which has succeeded in making these Botanical Gardens one of the best in Europe.
The Escola Polytechnica is doubly interesting from being the modern name of the ancient Collegio dos Nobres founded by the Marquis de Pombal in 1761 in order that the sons of the nobility could be trained under special masters. Public instruction was a matter not likely to be neglected by a man as enlightened as he was active. He was of opinion that, whatever the government, education was the chief factor in the prosperity of nations, and when he deprived the Jesuits of their privileges in teaching the youth of the land he established schools of Latin, Greek and Hebrew all over the kingdom, placing the whole under the supervision of a General Director of Instruction.
A few minutes' walk from the principal entrance of the Botanical Gardens on the Rua da Escola Polytechnica is one of the prettiest open squares of Lisbon, that of the Principe Real, profusely laid out with flower beds and trees, and with a large tank in the centre and powerful fountain. The site, one of the highest in the city, is historically interesting from being the spot where King joão V built the magnificent Sé Patriarchal, that was the Cathedral of Lisboa Occidental, as the old Sé of Santa Maria was the Cathedral of Lisboa Oriental. Among the costly ornaments and properties brought to its adornment by kingly order from all parts of the world was a marvellous cross made in Florence and Rome in 1732, after the drawing of Arrighi, of such rare, incomparable workmanship as to exceed in value, three hundred thousand cruzados (in English money about £40,000). The richness of this great church can be estimated in the fabulous weight of the molten silver found in the ruins after the terrible fire following the earthquake; no less than 469 arobas, one aroba being equal to 32lbs. Adverse fate overtook the magnificent temporary edifice put up by D. José the following year. Fire, the work of an incendiary, again destroyed the rare and costly orfèvrerie and whole structure in less than three hours, during which time the King, the Patriarch, all the court, civic and ecclesiastical dignitaries lent every energy to the extinction of the flames. The incendiary, caught on Spanish territory, was dragged through the streets at the tail of a horse as a public warning, then strangled and burnt on the scaffold. The people call the Principe Real by the name of Patriarchal Queimada—burnt patriarchal—to this day.
Yet another tree-shaded promenade opens out lower down on the same highway; the Alameda, or small garden, of S. Pedro d'Alcantara. It is close to the head of the steep Calçada da Gloria which is climbed by a cable elevator transporting the pedestrian in two minutes from the Avenida da Liberdade to this Bairro Alto. Here there is a statue to be observed not so much for any artistic value as its testimony to public recognition of modern thought. The subject is a well-known, clever journalist, Eduardo Coelho, a name once intimately connected with the Diario dos Noticias, which ranks, with the Seculo, as the chief daily paper in Lisbon. As a symbol of the popularization of journalism in Portugal a small street Arab with a bundle of newspapers forms part of the memorial.
A flight of steps leads down to a wide terrace of the Alameda, conspicuous for the peculiar arrangement of busts of celebrities in history, literature, the arts, set up on pedestals in the flower beds and borders of the pretty garden. Beyond the aloes and palm trees which veil the long, ugly roofs of the station sheds exactly beneath the view, is a beautiful outlook over the eastern hills of the city and the valley. The light and colour strike one with new effect. The fashion of colouring the buildings in distinct hues, and of facing part of and sometimes the whole of many houses with porcelain tiles adds to the variety of hues, and intensifies the lustre of the sunlight glittering upon the massed congeries of hill and vale.
The vast block of buildings opposite the point of view is the noted Hospital of S. José, an institution founded in the fifteenth century, and removed to this edifice after the expulsion of the Jesuits who owned it, and after the original infirmary, Todos os Santos, had been demolished by the earthquake. It was named after the King, D. José I. To the left of it rises another fine new building, the Escola Medica or Medical College, erected on the site of the ancient Bull Ring. The whole of that fine Campo Santa Anna is now most delightfully laid out with artistic parterres of flowers, forming one of the most ambrosial, smiling and sunny places of the city. A street leads off the other end of the Campo containing an old palace, now a Military College, with the arms of England over the entrance. Catherine of Braganza, widow of our Charles II, built this palace of Bemposta—the name tells of its fine position—which would then have been in its own grounds, the belfry tower, now on the opposite side of the street, quite near the church which stands with its balcony and curved flights of steps, in the centre of the long, somewhat low building. The name of Quinta Velha—the Old Quinta—is still attached to the exercise ground of the College. Many interesting old mansions are to be seen in that northern quarter of the eastern heights, as well as substantially built modern ones with beautifully decorated and furnished interiors, dwelt in by some of the wealthiest and most respected families of Lisbon.
Close to the garden of S. Pedro d' Alcantara at the head of the Calçada da Gloria stands an ancient pile of buildings with many quaint roofs, chimneys and angles. At this point it is stated that the old City Wall (which we traced from the Citadel rampart) after climbing the western steep turned towards the river by way of the Rua d'Alecrim to the water front. The front of the large building—it is the Casa da Misericordia—is attached to the Church of S. Roque which looks out upon the square of its own name. The Jesuits owned the original edifices and in 1556 built the plain, solid church on the site of an ancient chapel in which D. Manuel allowed the relics of S. Roque to be shown to devout pilgrims. The interior of to-day is remarkable for containing the noted shrine known as the Capella de S. João Baptista, another reliquary of the lavish expenditure of the same King, D. João V, who built the Patriarchal on the Principe Real. Struck one day by the poor appearance of the chapel dedicated to his patron saint, he was smitten with the idea of replacing it by one surpassing in value and rarity all other chapels that had been erected. Every detail of the chapel was ordered and prepared in Rome from the design of the Italian architect Vaneteli, the execution of the whole extending over ten years. When completed, the work was consecrated by the Pope who for D. João's rich gifts to ecclesiastical establishments had already granted him the title of Most Faithful. It was packed up and conveyed to Lisbon, where it was erected in its present position.
The general effect at first sight is one of excessive costliness rather than beauty. On the other hand, as an example of a type and period of church decorative art, the chapel is unique. Mosaics, rare polished stones, marbles, are combined to form walls, roof and pavement. The mosaics, representing pictures after Guido Reni, Raphael and Michael Angelo, are executed with a skill and intricacy that constitute them a marvel of that style of artistic work. The predominating hues of chocolate and deep blue in the extraordinary amalgamation of rare marbles and coloured stones give the small interior a sombre, compressed aspect on a dull day. It should be seen in the morning when the sunshine, pouring through a window across the church, lights up the wonderful mosaics, and the lovely ultramarine of the lapis lazuli pillars, sets the gilded bronze capitals and decorative gold striæ ablaze, and strikes flashing rays on the massive, richly-wrought censors of silver.
The treasures in altar furniture and vestments belonging to this recessed shrine are even more eloquent of the magnificence of King João V. They are so valuable that they are displayed in a room apart of the Misericordia, forming an artistic and interesting museum in themselves. A wonderful altar-front with lavish repoussée ornamentation of lapis lazuli and silver, worked by the artists Corsini and Ludovici, excites great admiration, as also a pair of giant candlesticks, silver-gilt, splendid specimens of the Italian silversmith's art of the period. Their fabulous price of some £12,000 is mentioned with bated breath in conjunction with their weight of 800lbs respectively. The whole collection is considered by the Portuguese as one of their chief artistic possessions.
As an institution of charity the Casa da Misericordia was founded by D. Manuel and his third queen Leonor under the name of Our Lady of Mercy, in the position known as the Conceição Velha (Old Church of the Conception) near the Ríbeira Velha east of the Praça do Commerçio. In 1768 it was removed to the old Jesuit buildings of S. Roque which have in the intervening years been enlarged and renewed. It is a benevolent institution which helps the sick, and undertakes the nurture and training of orphans and foundlings. In addition to excellent endowments and legacies one great source of income is derived from a big lottery carried out under government supervision. A century ago the lottery was in vogue; it took place annually in the Casa, the prizes being distributed in favour of the girl protegées, to provide them with money to start them in life as servants or even brides. To-day the lottery is a widespread, almost national, affair, its tickets not only sold in certain shops but universally hawked in the streets by men, women and children, who gain a penny on every one they sell. The day of the weekly drawing of the lucky numbers attracts a motley crowd to the Largo de S. Roque, for all sorts and conditions of the populace buy tickets, or share of a ticket, and the prizes do not directly benefit the inmates of the Misericordia as formerly, but the individual owners of successful tickets.
A street off the Rua de S. Roque leads down to the ruined church of the Carmo which stands a conspicuous object high above the Baixo. The outer walls and piers and arches of the naves still remain. The chancel and chapels retain their roofs, and thanks to the efforts of the Royal Association of Portuguese Architects and Archæologists the vandalism which once allowed this beautiful relic of Portuguese Gothic to be used for a chemical factory, has been conquered, and an archæological museum established in the precincts. The latest catalogue the guardian could supply bore the date 1892. As numerous additions have since been made to the collection, and the compilers of the book even then pleaded lack of space in convenient disposition of exhibits, the value and interest of the museum are lessened by deficient arrangement. In the roofless naves relics from many ruined ecclesiastical buildings have found a refuge. Many of them merit as specimens of ancient sculpture and decoration to be under cover for their surer preservation from injury. The large buildings of the extinct monastery adjoining have long ago been converted into barracks. The idea occurred to me as I passed from the overcrowded enclosed exhibits to the sky-domed naves that if the same society which rescued the church could procure this old monastery for a national repository of archæological relics, the valuable collections that ably conducted archæological research in Portugal itself could procure, added to those already garnered, would perhaps result in a museum of the same high standing as our South Kensington.
Two interesting stone tanks or fountains stand in the principal nave, both in the Arab style. One came from the extinct monastery of Penha Longa on the Serra of Cintra. The other was brought from Barbary after the conquests in 1462, and given to Prince Henry the Navigator who in his turn presented it to the Sé at Faro for a holy water receptacle. It had been lying neglected in the cemetery there for years before it was rediscovered and removed to this spot. A Roman, marble sarcophagus, the only one yet discovered in the Iberian Peninsula of the fourth-century period deserves notice. When discovered half-buried in mud in a quinta of Estremadura, it was being used as a pigs' trough. There are many escutcheons of stone and marble; among them one from the gateway of the City Walls opening on the Ribeira Velha, of the time of D. Fernando, and another with his royal arms of nine castles and the open crown, dating from 1350. Other sarcophagi, dating back to the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, interesting as specimens of old Portuguese sculpture and historical records, stand in the central chapel. They have all been rescued from religious edifices which had been turned into stables or praças dos touros, and in which these sarcophagi had been used as receptacles for old saddles, for farrier's benches or for drinking troughs.
Relics of the Roman epoch are displayed in the first chapel. In the fourth chapel to the right of the central one the sinister relics of the Inquisition in Lisbon excite peculiar horror. Here, too, is a mausoleum in wood, a copy of the marble one—destroyed in the earthquake—which contained the mortal remains of the great founder of the Carmo, D. Nuno Alvares Pereira, one of the most distinguished names in Portuguese history.
It was to his strong support that the Grand Master of Aviz, D. João, owed his crown, and in great measure the success of the famous Battle of Aljubarrota. D. João I had already created him Constable, by which title he is chiefly known; in fulfilment of a vow made when he commanded the vanguard of the King's army at Aljubarrota he founded the Church of the Carmo. The Constable was endowed with all the property that had belonged to the Conde de Ourem who was stabbed in the Limeiro palace, but later, when the King discovered that his liberality to his partisans had impoverished the crown, he revoked many of his gifts and the Constable, in resentment, quitted the court. King João I must have possessed great personal influence, judging from the results of his diplomacy at home and abroad; he contrived to disarm Pereira's indignation, and received signal services from his generalship in the wars with Spain and later in Africa. The conquest of Ceuta in 1415 was accounted the greatest feat of arms in the reign of D. João I. The great Constable warrior, who with his martial prowess possessed the ascetic tendency of many famous soldiers, took the sudden resolution shortly afterwards of quitting public life. He entered the Carmelite Order in the old monastery under the name of F. Nuno de Santa Maria, and died in that retreat regretted by the nation and especially by the King. In days gone by on the anniversary of the Constable's death it was usual for the populace to visit his tomb in the Carmo church and strew flowers there, singing at the same time verses in praise of his heroism and sanctity.
The ethnological and mineralogical sections of the museum would gain in value if removed to the Royal Academy of Science in the old Jesuit Monastery where there are collections unsurpassed by any in Europe.