Carreira da Índia

Prince Henry, still only nineteen, was assigned the task of building a fleet up north in Oporto. After two years’ preparation, the Crusade against Ceuta was launched in an aura of miracles and omens. A monk near Oporto had a vision of the Virgin Mary handing a glittering sword to King John. There was an eclipse of the sun. Then Queen Philippa, after a long and ill-advised religious fast, fell mortally ill. Summoning the King and her three eldest sons, she gave each a fragment of the True Cross to wear in holy battle. To each prince she also gave a knightly sword, and with her expiring breath she blessed the expedition against Ceuta. A papal bull, solicited for the occasion, offered all the spiritual benefits of a Crusade to those who died in this effort.

“The Portuguese Discoverers”, from “The Discoverers”, Daniel J. Boorstin, The National Board for the Celebration of Portuguese Discoveries, Lisbon, 1987

To celebrate his formal treaty of friendship with Castile in 1411, King John followed the chivalric custom of the age by planning a tournament, to last a full year. Knights were to be invited from all over Europe, and the jousts would give the King’s three eldest sons who had just reached manhood the opportunity to earn their knighthoods by public acts of chivalry. But the three princes, reinforced by the King’s treasurer, dissuaded King John from this expensive panoply. They urged him instead to offer them opportunity for deeds of Christian valor by launching a Crusade against Ceuta, a Muslim stronghold and trading center of the African side opposite Gibraltar. There, too, the King could atone for the Christian bloodshed in his earlier campaigns by “washing his hands in the blood of the infidel.” Young Prince Henry helped Plan this expedition, which, in a number of unexpected ways, was to shape his life.

“The Portuguese Discoverers”, from “The Discoverers”, Daniel J. Boorstin, The National Board for the Celebration of Portuguese Discoveries, Lisbon, 1987

The traits of personality that made this lone adventure possible were not all attractive. Henry the Navigator compared himself with Saint Louis, but he was a much less engaging person. He lived like a monk, his biographers observe, and it is said that he died a virgin. At his death he was found to be wearing a hair shirt. All his life he was torn between crusading and exploring. His father, King John I, whose alternative sobriquets were the Bastard or the Great, founder of the Aviz dynasty, had seized the Portuguese throne in 1385. At the decisive battle of Aljubarrota, with the aid of English archers, John defeated the King of Castile and so secured the independence and the unity of Portugal. King John cemented his English alliance by marrying the devout and strong-willed Philippa of Lancaster, daughter of John of Gaunt, but he still kept his mistress in the palace to which she came as queen. “She found the Court a sink of immorality” a pious and optimistic latter-day Portuguese historian observes, “she left it as chaste as a nunnery.” And she bore the King six sons, the third of whom, Henry, was born in 1394.

“The Portuguese Discoverers”, from “The Discoverers”, Daniel J. Boorstin, The National Board for the Celebration of Portuguese Discoveries, Lisbon, 1987

Still, to exploit its many advantages, Portugal needed a leader – someone to draw people together, to organize resources, to point the direction. Without such a leader all other advantages would have been nothing. Prince Henry the Navigator was a curious combination of a bold heroic mind and an outreaching imagination, with an ascetic stay-at-home temperament. Frigid to individuals, he was passionate for grand ideals. His talent of obstinacy and his power to organize proved essential for the first great enterprise of modern discovery.

In the perspective of history, it is not so surprising that the pioneer of modern exploration never himself went out on an exploring expedition. The great medieval adventure in Europe – crusading – called for risk of life and limb against the infidel. Modern exploration had to be an adventure of the mind, a thrust of someone’s imagination, before it became a worldwide adventure of seafaring. The great modern adventure – exploring – first had to be undertaken in the brain. The pioneer explorer was one lonely man thinking.

“The Portuguese Discoverers”, from “The Discoverers”, Daniel J. Boorstin, The National Board for the Celebration of Portuguese Discoveries, Lisbon, 1987

Concurso “Sete maravilhas de origem portuguesa no Mundo” arranca dia 10 de Dezembro
ANA VITÓRIA

São 22 os monumentos de origem portuguesa espalhados por África, Ásia e América do Sul, que estão classificados pela UNESCO. Este legado concorre agora ao título de Sete Maravilhas de Origem Portuguesa no Mundo. A eleição começa dia 10 de Dezembro.

É todo um vasto património (igrejas, construções religiosas, fortes, cidadelas e centros históricos) que carrega uma inimitável marca portuguesa. Este legado, que pode ser entendido como “a primeira experiência de globalização” e que já é Património da Humanidade, concorre agora a uma nova modalidade através da qual se pretende potenciar a sua divulgação e o seu conhecimento.

“Todos esses 22 monumentos lançam luz sobre a importância do contributo dos portugueses na construção do mundo contemporâneo “, afirmou ontem, em conferência de Imprensa, António Vitorino, o comissário da iniciativa.

“Cavalgar no que foi e é o sucesso da presença portuguesa no Mundo, divulgar o conhecimento legado pelos portugueses à escala planetária” é, pois, um dos objectivos do concurso que pretende relançar um olhar mais atento “por esses monumentos que exprimem a nossa vocação pelo diálogo com o outro e que evocam a nossa história e elevam a nossa auto-estima”, disse ainda o comissário.

“Trata-se de testemunhos fundamentais da História e da Cultura portuguesas, mas também constituem expressão da forma ímpar como nos soubemos inserir em terras e comunidades muito diversificadas”, justifica, por seu turno, Luís Segadães, responsável da empresa Sete Maravilhas, a mesma que, no ano passado, promoveu o concurso das “Sete maravilhas portuguesas”.

A iniciativa da empresa New 7 Wonders Portuglal, que tem como parceiro, entre outros, o “Jornal de Notícias”, conta com o apoio de várias entidades públicas (nomeadamente o Ministério da Cultura) e privadas.

“A nossa identidade não existe apenas em torno da língua (a quinta mais falada em todo o Mundo), mas também através da linguagem arquitectónica”, defendeu, a propósito, o ministro da Cultura, José António Pinto Ribeiro. O ministro apelou à promotora da iniciativa para que tudo faça, “e o faça com paixão”, no sentido de deixar “uma cicatriz no Mundo, ajudando a reconstruir, a divulgar e a tornar conhecido todo este património que também faz parte da nossa identidade”.

O ministro disse ainda que este projecto “deve contaminar as populações” tanto em Portugal como no seio da Comunidade dos Países de Língua Oficial Portuguesa (CPLP) e das geografias onde se inscreve esse património.

Também Andreia Galvão, subdirectora do IGESPAR (Instituto de Gestão do Património Arquitectónico e Arqueológico), manifestou-se convicta do “impacto mediático e da visibilidade pública” da iniciativa que conduzirão “a um olhar global sobre esta parte do legado português no Mundo”.

A mesma responsável realçou ainda “a importância das parcerias com diversas entidades” e “a necessidade de agir em rede”.

A eleição destas novas sete maravilhas de origem portuguesa, que começa dia 10 de Dezembro, é em tudo semelhante às suas antecessoras: a das Novas Sete Maravilhas do Mundo, que decorreu à escala mundial, e a das Sete Maravilhas de Portugal.

O processo de votação decorrerá através da Internet ou por SMS, a exemplo do que já foi aplicado aquando da eleição das 7 Maravilhas de Portugal, que mobilizou a participação de 350 mil pessoas.

Cada participante é obrigado a votar em sete monumentos, o que evita o voto condicionado.

Os resultados deste novo concurso serão revelados no dia 10 de Junho de 2009, Dia de Portugal.

(via Jornal de Notícias)

For most countries of Western Europe the fifteenth century – the epoch of the Hundred Years War and the Wars of the Roses – was a time of civil strife and/or fears of invasion. The Turks, who captured Constantinople in 1453, menaced the whole Levant and the Balkans, Spain, the only country that shares some of Portugal’s peninsular advantage (thought diluted by the competition of her prosperous Mediterranean ports), was torn by civil strife that for most of the century kept her near anarchy. Portugal, in sharp contrast to all these others, was a united kingdom for the whole of the fifteenth century and was hardly touched by civil disturbance.

“The Portuguese Discoverers”, from “The Discoverers”, Daniel J. Boorstin, The National Board for the Celebration of Portuguese Discoveries, Lisbon, 1987

A Faculdade de Arquitectura da Universidade Técnica de Lisboa vai criar um doutoramento em Património urbano de origem portuguesa no mundo, disse à Lusa o responsável pela instituição.

Manuel Teixeira pretende que o doutoramento se torne num fórum de discussão do tema, também porque professores e alunos devem vir de todo o mundo.

“A última coisa que se deseja é que este seja um curso de portugueses a falar para portugueses”, sublinhou, porque este doutoramento será também um “veículo para implementar estas trocas”.

A Faculdade de Arquitectura realiza até sexta-feira um colóquio internacional sobre o tema do património urbano e arquitectónico dos países de língua portuguesa, acompanhado de uma exposição de cartografia sobre várias cidades espalhadas pelo mundo.

Segundo Manuel Teixeira, o objectivo do encontro é “fazer uma panorâmica sobre o estado da arte da investigação do património urbano e arquitectónico de origem portuguesa em cada um dos países e regiões presentes”.

O professor de arquitectura e investigador deposita grandes esperanças no doutoramento que a sua faculdade vai implementar: “Espero que tudo se comece a articular numa rede que se vá solidificando”.

A exposição “O Urbanismo Português no Mundo”, composta por 32 reproduções – em grande formato, 1.50 x 2.40 metros – de cartografia de núcleos urbanos de origem portuguesa construídos em Portugal, África, Brasil, Índia e Oriente, ficará patente para além do colóquio.

“A grande dimensão destas imagens vai ajudar a chamar a atenção para este tema”, garante Manuel Teixeira.

A participação no colóquio, que decorre nas instalações da faculdade, no Pólo Universitário da Ajuda, em Lisboa, bem como a exposição, é aberta ao público.

CMJ.

(Lusa/RTP)

The ability to come home again was essential if a people were to enrich, embellish, and enlighten themselves from far-off places. In a later age this would be called feedback. It was crucial to the discoverer, and helps explain why going to sea, why the opening of the oceans, would mark a grand epoch for humankind. In one after another human enterprise, the act without the feedback was of little consequence. The capacity to enjoy and profit from feedback was a prime human power. Seafaring ventures, and even their one-way success, were themselves of small consequence and left little record in history. Getting there was not enough. The internourishment of the peoples of the earth required the ability to get back, to return to the voyaging source and transform the stay-at-homes by the commodities and knowledge that the voyagers had found over there. Fourth-century coins made in Carthage have been found in the Azores, and ancient Roman coins seem to have been left in Venezuela by vagrant wind-driven vessels. Vikings from Norway and Iceland appear to have touched North America from time to time in the Middle Ages. In 1291 the Vivaldi brothers from Genoa set out to round Africa by sea, but they disappeared. It is possible, too, that in pre-Columbian times a Chinese or Japanese junk may have been driven off course all the way to the shores of America. But these acts and accidents that produced no feedback spoke only to the wind.

“The Portuguese Discoverers”, from “The Discoverers”, Daniel J. Boorstin, The National Board for the Celebration of Portuguese Discoveries, Lisbon, 1987

Namíbia – Nau portuguesa revela-se 500 anos depois
(Fotografias de Francisco Alves e Miguel Aleluia)

(via Público)

The adventure, too, was more plural and far wider. Water passages were no longer merely familiar well-marked roads within a closed sea, a Mediterranean. The new highways led across the open seas, and they led everywhere.

Separated only by a tiny strait from Africa, the Portuguese were remarkably free of racial prejudice or provincialism. Their ancestors were Celts, Iberians, and Englishmen. They intermarried with Africans and Asians. Portugal became a small proto-America, a place for the mixing of people – Christians, Jews, and Muslims. A Muslim occupation had left his mark on institutions. The divers physical, mental, temperamental, traditional, aesthetic, and literary resources enriched one another, providing the varied energies and the motley knowledge required to reach out to the open ocean and come back home again.

“The Portuguese Discoverers”, from “The Discoverers”, Daniel J. Boorstin, The National Board for the Celebration of Portuguese Discoveries, Lisbon, 1987