Lisbon
Like Rome, Lisbon is a city built on seven hills. Those hills overlook the River Tagus, for Lisbon is also an ancient seaport. Known to the Phoenicians, Lisbon was used by the Romans to control their western province of Lusitania. It was a younger son of the fifteenth-century monarch King John who was destined to open a new chapter in Portugal's maritime history. That younger son was Prince Henry, known to this day as "The Navigator," although his achievements had more to do with planning than executing the remarkable series of voyages of exploration that was to transform his country from a provincial Atlantic outpost to a powerhouse of trade and empire. It was Prince Henry who insisted on accurate charts of the Azores, grasping their significance as a staging post for Atlantic exploration. In the course of the fifteenth century, Portuguese explorers edged south along the coast of western Africa, with Bernal Diaz rounding the Cape of Good Hope in 1487. Ten years later, Vasco da Gama crossed the Indian Ocean from Malindi to Calicut, opening up the Indian continent (and subsequently the coast of China) for Portuguese trade. By 1500, Fernando Alvares Cabral had discovered the tropical world of Brazil.
The effect on the Portuguese imagination of contact with these hitherto unfamiliar parts of the globe was dramatic. Intoxicated with exoticism, a new artistic style was born that bears the name of King John's successor, King Manuel. The Manueline style, at its best in the Jeronimoes Monastery—a building that miraculously survived the 1755 Lisbon earthquake—luxuriates in spiral rope-work and trailing foliage, anchors and elephants, the latter supporting the altars of the transept chapels. Vasco da Gama is buried in the monastery church along with Camoes, the Portuguese national poet whose work draws inspiration from the Portuguese voyages of the discovery. The celebrated monastery cloister uses creamy limestone to further refine this distinctive Manueline style.
In front of the monastery, at the edge of the river in the city's ancient inner harbor stands a Monument to the Discovers, headed by Prince Henry. A surrounding plaza incorporates a marbled map of the Portuguese world stretching from Brazil in the west to Macau in the east. Today's Lisbon, understandably, is a cosmopolitan city, with a mixed population drawn from all over the Portuguese world. In perfect weather, we today had a chance to sample some of the delights of this ancient city, with a morning visit to the Jeronimoes Monastery and the Monument to the Discovers. More importantly, we connected with the city's proud maritime tradition by arriving and departing by sea, along the banks of the Tagus.
Like Rome, Lisbon is a city built on seven hills. Those hills overlook the River Tagus, for Lisbon is also an ancient seaport. Known to the Phoenicians, Lisbon was used by the Romans to control their western province of Lusitania. It was a younger son of the fifteenth-century monarch King John who was destined to open a new chapter in Portugal's maritime history. That younger son was Prince Henry, known to this day as "The Navigator," although his achievements had more to do with planning than executing the remarkable series of voyages of exploration that was to transform his country from a provincial Atlantic outpost to a powerhouse of trade and empire. It was Prince Henry who insisted on accurate charts of the Azores, grasping their significance as a staging post for Atlantic exploration. In the course of the fifteenth century, Portuguese explorers edged south along the coast of western Africa, with Bernal Diaz rounding the Cape of Good Hope in 1487. Ten years later, Vasco da Gama crossed the Indian Ocean from Malindi to Calicut, opening up the Indian continent (and subsequently the coast of China) for Portuguese trade. By 1500, Fernando Alvares Cabral had discovered the tropical world of Brazil.
The effect on the Portuguese imagination of contact with these hitherto unfamiliar parts of the globe was dramatic. Intoxicated with exoticism, a new artistic style was born that bears the name of King John's successor, King Manuel. The Manueline style, at its best in the Jeronimoes Monastery—a building that miraculously survived the 1755 Lisbon earthquake—luxuriates in spiral rope-work and trailing foliage, anchors and elephants, the latter supporting the altars of the transept chapels. Vasco da Gama is buried in the monastery church along with Camoes, the Portuguese national poet whose work draws inspiration from the Portuguese voyages of the discovery. The celebrated monastery cloister uses creamy limestone to further refine this distinctive Manueline style.
In front of the monastery, at the edge of the river in the city's ancient inner harbor stands a Monument to the Discovers, headed by Prince Henry. A surrounding plaza incorporates a marbled map of the Portuguese world stretching from Brazil in the west to Macau in the east. Today's Lisbon, understandably, is a cosmopolitan city, with a mixed population drawn from all over the Portuguese world. In perfect weather, we today had a chance to sample some of the delights of this ancient city, with a morning visit to the Jeronimoes Monastery and the Monument to the Discovers. More importantly, we connected with the city's proud maritime tradition by arriving and departing by sea, along the banks of the Tagus.
