Beautiful Madeira Islands near Portugal

Madeira (under blue spot), Portugal and Morocco

Wiki

Madeira’s written history started in 1418. It was then the navigators led by João Gonçalves Zarco sighted, after days afloat on the high seas, a small island that saved them from tragedy, a safe harbour they named Porto Santo Island. Next year, 1419, they reached Madeira Island.

Navigators Tristão Vaz Teixeira, Bartolomeu Perestrelo & João Gonçalves Zarco became the first settlers. Portuguese King John I (1357–1433) ordered the colonisation process in 1425 with people of modest means, ex-prisoners of Portugal and some lower nobility. Other settlers were peasant farmers and fishermen hoping for better prospects after the bubonic plagues ravaging Europe. To develop agriculture, settlers cleared parts of the dense forest with long lasting fires.

King John I statue in Lisbon

Wiki

Madeira's settlement history showed its clear potential. The islands were in a perfect geographical location, quickly making it an international point of connection, with fertile volcanic soils & subtropical climate all year. During colonis-ation, some crops were introduced that became central to Madeira's history. Sugar cane brought great economic wealth to the region. Madeira began planting sugarcane, a rare spice then, in c1450 and quickly became a large exporter of sugarcane and a popular sugar stop for European traders. From C16th, the islands were established as one of the most famous sugar producers in the world: White Gold. The use of slave labour in sugar cultivation was launched on a small production model in Madeira in 1452, the earliest place to use slave labour for sugar. This was due to its proximity to Africa’s coast, 400 km to the Canary Islands and c520 km to Morocco; but c1000 km from Portugal!

The cultivation of sugarcane continued until most production moved to Brasil. Then fishing & vegetables were the main products for Madeirans. But in order to develop Madeira's agriculture, it was essential to thin out the dense forest and to build many levadas-aqueducts. They brought water from the island’s wet north to the dry parts in the south. Today there are 2,170 km+ of levadas still used for water transport, hydroelectric power & popular walking trails with great views. Already in 17th & C18ths, Madeira's history was marked by a new culture that boosted the economy.

Madeira was marginally involved in both world wars. There were a handful of German attacks in WW1, during which Germany declared war on Portugal on Mar 1916. In WW2, Portugal was neutral but did agree to take in Gibraltarian humanitarian refugees, until the war’s end.

Madeira gained political autonomy in 1976 after the 1974 Carnation Revolution, when a military coup ended Portugal’s endless dictatorship. Today Madeira’s population = c256,000 people, the majority of whom live on Madeira island and 5,000 people living on Porto Santo island. Of those on Madeira, almost half (105,795) live in the capital, Funchal. The population is almost entirely Catholic (96%) and tourism makes up c30% of the Madeiran GDP.

Old Town Funchal

Museum of Wine and Vine, tasting room

 

With 600+ years of history, this Atlantic archipelago protects a vast collection of monuments, churches, museums and other cultural spaces. Madeira's heritage stands out for its undeniable historical relevance. Walking in the streets of Madeira's towns and cities means enjoying direct contact with that heritage. It is a journey into the past through different architectural styles, historic spaces or artworks from the eras. Among Madeira's heritage, see King Manuel I late Gothic relics, military or modern architecture. And valuable paintings, photos, sculptures, jewellery, furniture and porcelain found in the chapels, churches, cathedrals, forts, palaces, old estates, museums or cultural centres.

The capital city, Funchal, is central to Madeira's cultural heritage. Wander down the streets of this European city to enjoy its rich heritage eg art pieces from 7 museums. These artefacts were chosen for their history and their relationship with Madeira. All the museums are ideal for exploring the archipelago's history, identity and traditions but also for discovering the region's natural wealth. 

Madeira Island vineyards

The special wine produced is globally acclaimed still, and although Madeira is mostly made with red grapes, white grapes are also common. Since C17th, Madeira’s main export has been wine, used in many traditional Portuguese dishes. In Santana municipality on Madeira’s north coast, the Museum of Wine and Vine is housed in an old restored cellar, examining wine’s complex production process. Three wine presses have been restored in the cellar, offering visitors the chance to inspect these traditional spaces and utensils used in viticulture. Additionally the Museum also has an explanatory section on the cycles of the vine. Note the Museum includes a shop for buying traditional products!

The Solar do Aposento is a traditional, wealthy house preserved in the Madeiran architectural tradition. Built mid C18th in Ponta Delgada, this agricultural property’s building came with out-buildings; the ground floor was occupied by wine stores, next to a wine press. So visiting Solar do Aposento means witnessing island life in 18th & C19ths.  Recently the site gained a small chapel and extensions near the kitchen. The interior explores various decorative styles. Most of the furniture are of C19th Madeiran origin, with pieces in mahogany and chestnut wood, like contemporary English furniture. And also Portuguese furniture from the late 18th and C19ths. And see important paintings and sculptures eg the C17th oil painting of Our Lady with Child and a polychrome, gilded upholstered wooden sculpture of St Anthony (mid-C17th). Also see a carved and gilded wooden mirror from Queen Donna Maria I (1734–1816).

Funchal family houses and beach rental houses

The Madeira Story Centre explains the archipelago’s rich history. Situated near the cable car station in central Funchal, the Centre teaches via an exhibition of authentic historical objects and interactive multi-media equipment. The Museum’s halls are organised in themes: Volcanic Origins; Legends of Discovery; Discovery of Madeira; Turmoil and Trade; Strategic Island; Madeira Development; After Navigation; and Exploring Madeira. From volcanic genesis to pirate attacks, going through the Centre suits the entire family. See the panoramic terrace, to scan Funchal city and to taste the local cuisine.

Madeira Flower Festival

each year in April-May

Beyond Madeira

The paradisal nature of the two Atlantic islands became famous around the world. Some of the European aristocracy, attracted by the therapeutic properties of this Eden, began to take up temporary residence here. Madeira flourished with tourism, and still does today.

Jewish Salonika - great cultural centre

Thessaloniki was once the largest Jewish city in the world. Alexander the Great granted legal equality to Jews in 331 BC and this new freedom drew many Jews to Hellenistic cities. Sephardi Jews migrated in very large numbers when they were expelled from Spain in 1492. Thessaloniki’s community influenced Sephardim around the world, both culturally and economically. The Great Fire of 1917 that raged over the city damaged half the Jewish districts, 45 synagogues, schools, shops and businesses. c50,000 were made homeless and many Jewish sites were greatly harmed. But until WW2, Thessaloniki had a key Jewish community, the only important European city with a Jewish majority. 

Jewish Museum of Thessaloniki

1. Jewish Museum of Thessaloniki is in the central city. Built in 1904-6, the building hosted commercial sites owned by Jewish merchants, a fine example of urban architecture that survived the 1917 fire. Luckily the renovations were carried out with respect for its architectural identity, now a Heritage Listed site.

Once housing the Bank of Athens and a French-language Jewish newspaper, the Jewish Museum opened mid 2001. It’s permanent & temporary displays highlight the community’s history via photos, documents, domestic objects & cultural artefacts. And archives of Holocaust records.

Monasterioton Synagogue, 1927

 

2. Atop Syngrou St, Monasterioton Synagogue is the only surviving pre-war synagogue in a city that once had 40-50 synagogues. It was built in 1927 by Jews from Monastir in Macedonia. The site was saved in WW2 because it was requisitioned as a Red Cross warehouse and although damaged by the 1978 earthquake, it was restored by the Greek government. And there are other small prayer houses.

3. In late 1930s, new laws were passed so Jews were slowly segregated and made 2nd-class citizens. With Nazis arriving, many Jews joined the Greek resistance & others went into hiding. In the Black Shabbat July 1942, all Jewish men in town aged 18-45 were rounded up in Central Liberty Sq., waiting to go. This made anti-Semitism legal, forcing many Jews to flee. Holocaust Memorial in Liberty Sq recalls 50,000 Greek Jews killed. The memorial is a bronze 7-branch menorah, wrapped in flames and corpses.

 Ancient Jewish cemetery

Photo from before the marble was stolen in 2019

4. The ancient Jewish cemetery was razed by the Nazis, and the new campus of the Aristotle Uni of Thessaloniki was built on the site. Recently the university unveiled a Jewish Memorial to the graveyard destroyed by the Nazis. The monument is a series of gravestones in a bed of green grass next to a broken menorah that became a significant historical marker. Yet in Jan 2019 vandals smashed the campus monument, days before International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

And Aristotelean Uni of Thessaloniki has reestablished its Jewish Studies Centre, 80+ years after it was abolished by Greek dictator Ioannis Metaxas in 1935. The decision to reestablish it was made with the city’s Jewish community, which agreed to help fund the programme. The programme began 2014-5, offering undergraduate and graduate studies.

Originally an Ottoman hamam

Later Bath of the Jews

5 Hamam/Bath of the Jews is an early C16th Ottoman-era bath house, not originally built by the Jewish community. It stands on the corner of Vasileos Irakleiou & Frangini Sts, this area being settled by Sephardim.

6. In 1878-1914, flour mills, hotels, cafés, brick factories, breweries, silk-worm nurseries, carpet & shoe factories, soap works and large tobacco workshops were established, mainly by Jews, many working class. So the Workers’ Union, formed by Jewish workers, became the key workers’ organisation in the Ottoman Empire in 1909. The sheltered Modiano Market was designed by Modiano family in 1922-5 as a central food market, with a glass roof and 4 galleries.

Stoa Saul, 

bonflaneur 

7. Built by famous banker Saul Modiano in 1867-1871, Stoa Saul is a commercial complex built in 1867-71. The arcade served architect Eli Modiano, as was the Modiano Mortgage Bank. A section was destroyed in the 1917 fire then rebuilt in 1929, as a tribute to the important Saul Modiano family.

Le Banque de Salonique, 1907

Now Malakopi shopping gallery

8. La Banque de Salonique, founded by talented Italian-Jewish Allatini family, is now Malakopi Arcade. Designed in 1907 by noted architect Vitaliano Poselli and built on Stock Exchange Squ. The clock on the façade stopped when a major earthquake hit in 1978, ruining buildings and killing 45 people. Today it’s a fine shopping gallery.

9. Queen Olga Avenue is lined with fin de siècle villas, some now wasting away. This was once the most elegant and richest areas of the city, and the home of many ruling families in the late C19th. Some villas are galleries, others house cultural and historical institutions. Many retain the colourful decorations and classy C19th furniture while other villas are still awaiting renewal. Emmanuel Salem (1859-1940) became one of the most prominent jurists in International Law, then was the first Gen. Sec. of the Bar Association. He was involved in founding companies for: water, gas, trams, electricity and Banque du Salonique.

Salem Mansion was designed in 1878 for the wealthy Jeborga merchant family. It was bought in 1894 by Emmanuel Salem and remained in his family for 20+ years. After WW1, Salem was involved in negotiating the Lausanne Treaty in 1923. 

This 3-storey mansion’s architectural styles were Classicism, Renaissance or Baroque. When the family left, the villa was the Austro-Hungarian Empire Consulate. It was bought by Italy in 1924 and served as Italian Consulate for 50+ years until damaged.  The Heritage Listed house is still empty.

10. A Great Tragedy happened at the Old Railway Station, early 1943. Jews were shoved into cattle carriages and sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau & Bergen-Belsen camps, 46,000+ in 19 rail convoys in 1943. In all, 96% of Salonika’s Jewish community had been murdered by 1945. The Jewish cemetery was pulled down by vandals, and most of the surviving Jewish culture of the city were destroyed. In 1951, the Old Railway Station became a goods station. An C19th railway administrative building has a monument with historic details of the Baron Hirsch Jewish district. Other reminders of Jewish life were lost with the city’s post-war renewal which peaked in the 1960s, and then with the earthquake in 1978. Only 1,200 Jews live in Thessaloniki now.

Hirsch Hospital, opened 1908

now Hippocrateon Hospital

11. Thessaloniki’s biggest and most modern hospital today, Hirsch Hospital, was built between 1905-8, designed by architect Pierro Arrigoni. Built as a hospital for the Jewish community, the costs were covered by Baroness Clara de Hirsch, wife of Austrian-Jewish philanthropist Maurice de Hirsch. In the inter-war era, Hirsch was used as a military hospital by French and British. Post-WW2 it served British military bases, so then the Jewish Community transferred ownership to the Greek State.

Amsterd Antwerp Sth Africa Brasil N.Y TAviv diamonds

When the Jew­s were expelled from Portugal from 1497, the specialist jewellers and others fled North and ended up in Ant­werp­. Antwerp was still un­der Spanish rule but it had a milder form of the religious opp­res­­sion than that found the Iberian Peninsula. At first, Antwerp seemed a safe place for Jews to settle down and con­tinue their jewell­ery art. Alas religious intolerance reached Antwerp a few years later and another home was needed.

diamonds
displayed by The Diamond Trading Co., Amsterdam

In time the refugees reached the Republic of the Neth­erlands which had rebelled against Spain in the 1570s, won its freedom and gave its citizens considerable freedom. The Netherlands was then the most tolerant country in Europe, so a large part of the Jewish population moved there. With them came the specialist know­ledge and craftsmanship of diamond cutting and polishing.

At the time, Jews and Conversos were creating a trading network that tied together ports in Portugal, Netherlands and Brasil. This network became the chief Dutch commercial circuit in the early C17th and offered support to Jews etc. This circuit enabled Brasilian Conversos to return to Judaism in Am­st­er­dam, and Ams­terdam Jews to establish a port in Brasil. In the process, the Jews of Recife Brasil and in Amst­er­dam remained closely con­n­ect­ed, especially after war closed off acc­ess to the network's Portuguese ports . 

Amsterdam Jews arrived in force in Recife during the 1630s, but travelled back to Amst­er­dam in 1645-54, since the Dutch colony in Brasil was shrinking and event­ually captured by Portuguese troops. Jews had contributed commerc­ially and militarily to this brief colony.

In 1725 diamond fields were discovered in Brasil, and Amst­er­dam gained the monopoly on diamond imports. From then on, Amsterdam became the City of Dia­monds! When the diamond fields of Brasil began to dry up, unempl­oy­ment hit the industry and many diamond cutting/pol­ishing factories went bankrupt. Thankfully diamond supplies were discovered in South Africa. Perfect timing!

Cape Town Diamond Museum
Mapping history of the South African diamond industry back to 1897

After Belgium won independence in 1830 several diamond pol­ish­ers from Amsterdam settled there, maintaining a limited level of market activity. Jewish immigration from Eastern Europe after the pogroms of the early 1880s, a policy of industrial encourage­ment adopted by the Antwerp municipal government and the crisis in Holland brought about a reawakening in the Belgian diamond industry.

In 1890, Dutch King William III approved legislation for the Fair Society for Diamond Trade. Thus the wor­ld’s first Diamond Exchange could open in Amsterdam. In fact until WW2, Amsterdam remained a world centre for the trade.

The first dia­mond in South Africa was found in early 1867 on the land of a poor Boer farmer - on the Orange River in the Cape of Good Hope Colony where thous­ands of Dutch and English settlers trav­elled, to farm and raise livestock. The farmer’s family collected pretty stones, show­ing one to the civil commissioner in Colesberg. He pron­oun­ced it a 21.25 carat diamond, which was purchased for £500 by Sir Phillip Wodehouse, Cape Colony Governor!

In 1870 diamond workers in Amsterdam were receiving good wages. But the in­cr­easingly high customs duties were said to threaten Amsterdam’s position as leader of the diam­ond industry. Amster­d­am’s diamond cutters and polishers increasingly looked abroad. 

This discovery prompted Boer farmers on the rivers to look carefully for stones. Small parties of prospectors moved into the region to search. Over the following months, additional diamonds continued to be found, and by 1869 these river diggings had yielded hundreds of diamonds. Soon thousands of people laid claim to land, exploring for diam­onds over the Cape Colony. Rich deposits were found, la­t­er becom­ing the famous diamond mines of South Africa. And bec­ause of the special relationship which existed between Holland and South Africa, Amst­er­dam was the heart of the diamond trade

De Beers Group was founded in 1888 by British busin­essman Cecil Rhod­es, financed by a South African diamond magnate and the London-based Rothschild Bank. This international cor­poration spec­ial­is­ed in diamond exploration, diamond min­ing, diamond retail, diam­ond trading and industrial diamond manu­fact­ur­ing sectors.

Royal Coster Diamonds,
opened 1840, Amsterdam

Estab­lish­ing factories & importing workers from Netherlands by the hund­reds, the Dutch exodus to the USA transformed New York. Within a few years, the new entrepot had super­seded that of Ams­terdam to become the dia­mond market of the world. Centred in down­town Manhattan, the emerg­ing diamond trade of the late C19th added another thriving centre of jewellery making and distribution

In 1926 Ernest Oppen­heimer (1880–1957), a German-South African who had ear­lier founded mining company Anglo Amer­ic­an with American fin­ancier JP Morgan, was elected to the board of De Beers. Oppen­heimer con­solidated De Beers until his death. By the early C21st, De Beers control­led 80-85% of rough diamond dist­rib­ution in 35 count­ries incl Bot­swana, Namibia, South Africa, Canada, India, Israel and Austral­ia. Competition has since dis­mant­led any monopoly, though De Beers still sells c35% of the world's rough diamond product­ion globally via The Diamond Trading Co.

We buy gold and diamonds, jewellers cashing in on gold's rally, 

Diamond District New York, 

Wall St Journal

Towards the late C19th and early in the C20th, art­icles about the US diamond trade frequently appeared in the Amer­ic­an press, incl­uding Scientific American and Ladies’ Home Journal. The published articles noted the very large numbers of Dutchmen in the industry, both as businessmen and as workers. Historians were pleased to fin a complex, dynamic and global Jewish economy that bound Cape Town and London, Amsterdam and New York together.

By the early 1920s, more diamond merch­ants began to con­t­emplate a move uptown, to midtown Manhattan. The prospect of in­hab­iting up-to-date quarters was one incen­tive; Grand Central Station’s prox­imity was another. Plus the downtown jewellery trade was incr­eas­ingly pushed out by the growing financial services industry.

Israel World Diamond Centre

Wiki

In Israel, the diamond industry began in 1937 when a quality polishing plant was opened by WW2 refugees from the Netherlands. In 1938 the 15% import duty on imported rough stones was removed and within a few years the diamond industry employed 3,300 skilled workers. It is the world's largest trading centre for buying, selling, cutting and polishing large diamonds.

stolen art WW2: Cassirers, Camille Pissarro

 

Camille Pissarro, 1897

Rue St Honoré, Après-Midi, Effet de Pluie

Wiki

Millions of European Jews were forced to quickly sell their hom­es and businesses with WW2, their assets being confiscated by the Nazis. Works of art often seemed very significant to war heirs; they represented a last cultural conn­ect­­ion to their dead families. I particularly thank Marilyn Henry.

Sadly there had been an intentional campaign of con­fis­cation and destruction of European cultural prop­er­ty. Post-war, Allied Forces uncovered cac­h­es of looted goods and the U.S military returned mill­ions of art objects to the countries of the works’ origin. But those nat­ions were responsible for locating the actual heirs. Did they find them?

Once the Nazis sold the objects, the works entered the art market and were dispersed. Both the pre-war owner and the current owner may have had moral claims to the works, but legal ownership varied. Most Western legal sys­t­ems couldn’t deal with losses from other decades, and from oth­er coun­tries. Claims could be barred because Statutes of Lim­it­at­ion expired. Or claims and the rights of a curr­ent possessor were con­fused when art crossed borders. Add­ition­ally most nations had laws that protected good-faith pur­ch­as­ers. And who could define a forced sale? Only Germany recog­nis­ed some sales under duress.

In the U.S, most museums are private so ownership disputes were and are civil matters. The New York State Banking Dept estab­lish­ed its Hol­ocaust Claims Processing Office in 1997, to resolve claims without litigation. Since then, it accepted 142 art claims covering 25,000 objects. But the small staff of lawyers, linguists and hist­orians only secured the VERY slow return of 12 art works!

Camille Pissarro, 1897, Wiki

Boulevard Montmartre, Morning, Cloudy Weather

NGV Melbourne

Also in the U.S, the Nazi-Era Provenance Internet Portal created a database linked to American museums, identifying thousands of items that had been in Europe from 1933-45. But while the portal could be searched by an artist’s name, country of origin and a painting’s name, it could not be searched by the family own­er.

An artwork’s ownership chain was often patchy. There WAS a res­ponsibility to participate in provenance research, but it was exp­ensive. The paper trail about prov­enance history was often deposited in: multi-national settings, private family memorabilia, govern­mental or museum arch­iv­es.

Some museums did no additional research to clarify the history, until a claimant came forward. Others eg North Carolina Museum of Art, took the initiative. Artworks with uncertain gaps of war-time ownership were reviewed by prof­essional provenance research­ers.

Museums and collectors are more willing to acknowledge legitimate claims than they were a decade ago, and to settle them without lit­ig­ation. But of course museums and collectors still dispute ten­uous claims. Most museums have put their entire collections on Web sites so now the assertion of claims is much easier than it was.

The size of wartime art thefts will never be known. The size of their return, through some heroic post-war efforts, was very great. But those efforts were eventually seen as incon­sistent with foreign policy, or reflecting cold war ten­s­ions by the 1960s. Only West Germany paid partial com­p­en­sation to some claim­ants; read Nazi Confiscated Art Issues.

Camille Pissarro, 1897

Boulevard Montmartre Spring
Courtauld Institute of Art

These days attention to war-era ownership is emerging in the art wor­ld. Major auction houses and museums have provenance re­search­ers, so sellers and buyers routinely check objects with the Art Loss Reg­is­ter - an international database of lost and stolen art formed in 1991 by auction houses and art traders. Un­for­t­unately this did not happen 50 years ago.. when scrutiny could have helped.

As more artwork is identified and located, other nations are quest­ioning the ownership of their holdings. A number of European count­ries eg Austria and Britain have enacted restitut­ion policies or established independent panels to review claims. However these re­view processes didn’t ensure the recovery of loot­ed art, even with clear evidence. Many claimants, especially the children whose parents died in the Holocaust, continued to be frustrated at the expense and time required to pursue a work.   

The same Pissarro painting in Lilly Cassirer’s Berlin flat, c1930.

artnet news

There were 15 Camille Pissarros (1830–1903) that were painted from his Paris hotel room window. One version was called Boulevard Mont­martre, spring morning,  moved through the hands of two of my favourite art dealers: Galerie Durand-Ruel in Paris who acq­uired it from the art­ist in June 1898; and Paul Cassirer in Berl­in who acquired it from Durand-Ruel in Oct 1902.

Now consider Lilly Cassirer and her second husband Otto Neubauer, who swapped a beautiful Camille Pissarro impressionist painting for their free­d­om. A Nazi-appointed appraiser forced her to sell Rue St Honoré, Après-Midi, Effet de Pluie for $360 then. But when the coup­le fled Munich in 1939, they could not take the funds. Lil­ly’s first husb­and Fritz Cassirer, from the prom­inent German Jewish family of publishers and art dealers, had bought the painting from Pissarro’s agent in 1900.

Although the post-war German government voided the sale, Lilly nev­er re­covered the Pissarro. It was sold multiple times. In 1993, the Sp­anish government paid $350 million for the col­lection of industr­ialist-Nazi supp­ort­er Baron Hans Heinrich Thyssen-Bornemisza and placed in their Museum.

In 2001 in the US, grandson Claude Cassirer (1921-2010) found the painting after years of searching and spent five years trying to recover the Pissarro through diplomatic channels. Finally Claude filed a federal lawsuit in California against Spain and against Thyssen-Bornemisza Foundation to recover the paint­ing, now worth $40mill.   

Lilly Cassirer Neubauer and her beloved heir grandson Claude, born Berlin 1921

Claude's mother died flu 1921; Claude's grandmother loved and raised the child

itsartlaw

Claude Cassirer learned the painting was at the Thyssen-Bornemisza in 2000 and petitioned Spain and the museum to return it. See the legal proceedings: the District Court case was in 2006, the first appeal was 2009-10, the second appeal was 2013, the Spanish Law case was 2015 and a last decision was in 2019. Whose law should app­ly, Spain’s or the USA’s? In 2024 the U.S Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit awarded the painting to the Spanish museum; it was legally bound to decide the case using Spanish law because the thefts occurred there. The Cassirers appealed the 9th Circuit ruling to the Supreme Court which vacated the Circuit Court of Appeals decision. It will now have to reconsider the case in light of the new California law on holocaust survivors' right to reclaim looted art.

Catholics killed heretics; Protestants killed witches

Heresies

Catholic Answers

The Inquisition was set up in the Catholic Church to root out & punish heresy. In 1184 Pope Lucius III sent bishops to southern France to track down Cathar heretics. In 1231 Pope Gregory officially charged the Dominican & Franciscan Orders with hunting heretics. Then in the C14th, the church pursued the Waldensians in Germany and Northern Italy.

Inquisitors moved into a town and announced their arrival, giving citizens a chance to admit to heresy. Those who confessed were forced to testify and received a punishment. If the heretic did not confess, torture and execution were inescapable. Heretics weren’t allowed to face accusers and received no counsel. The Inquisitors, on the other hand, were supported with a manual called “Conduct of the Inquisition into Heretical Depravity”.

Nonetheless there were many abuses of power. In 1307 Inquisitors were involved in the mass arrest and tortures of 15,000 Knights Templar in France, resulting in many executions. Joan of Arc was also burned at the stake in 1431 by this Inquisition.

In the late C15th, King Ferdinand II and Queen Isabella of Spain believed corruption in the Spanish Catholic Church was caused by Jews who, to survive increasing anti-Semitism, converted to Christianity. These Conversos were viewed with suspicion and were blamed for plagues, accused of poisoning peoples’ water and abducting Christian children.

Auto de fé, final, public stage for punishing religious heretics.
Jan Hus at the stake, 1485
FreeSpeechHistory

The 2 monarchs believed Conversos were secretly practising their old religion;  and that Christian support would be crucial for their upcoming crusade in Muslim Granada. King Ferdinand felt an Inquisition was the best way to fund that crusade, by seizing the wealth of heretic Conversos.

In 1478, urged by clergyman Tomas de Torquemada, the two monarchs created the Tribunal of Castile to investigate heresy among Conversos. The effort at first focused on stronger Catholic education for Conversos, but by 1480, Jews in Castile were forced into isolated and locked up ghettos. The Inquisition expanded to Seville and a mass exodus of Conversos followed. In 1481, 20,000 Conversos confessed to heresy, hoping to avoid execution. But by the year’s end, hundreds of Conversos were burned at the stake.

Hearing the complaints of Conversos who had fled to Rome, Pope Sextus stated that the Spanish Inquisition was wrongly accusing Conversos. In 1482 Sextus appointed a council to take command of the Inquisition, but the same Torquemada was named Inquisitor Gen­eral and established courts across Spain. Torture became systemised and routinely used to elicit confessions. Sent­encing of confessed heretics was done in a public event called the Auto-da-Fe. Torque­mada’s downfall came only when he investigated members of the clergy for heresy. Diego de Deza took over as Inquisitor General, escalating the hunt for heresy within cities and rounding up scores of accused heretics, including members of the nobility and local governments. Some were able to bribe their way out of imprisonment.

After Isabella’s death in 1504, Ferdinand promoted Cardinal Gonzalo Ximenes de Cisneros, head of the Spanish Catholic Church, to In­qu­is­itor General. Ximenes had previously been successful in pers­ecuting Islamic Moors in in Granada. As Inquisitor General, Ximenes pursued Muslims into North Africa, encouraging the king to take military action and to establish the Inquisition there.

The Protestant Reformation

Martin Luther published his 95 Theses in 1517 and the Reformation began.  Rome renewed its own Inquisition in 1542 when Pope Paul III created the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Roman Inquisition to combat Protestant heresy!! And in 1545, the Spanish Index was created, a list of heretical European books forbidden in Spain, based on the Roman Inquisition’s own index.

The popul­at­ion of Spanish Protestants increased, particularly in the 1550s. In 1556, King Philip II ascended the Spanish throne - he had previously brought the Roman Inquisition to the Netherlands, where Lutherans had been hunted and burned at the stake. Although origin­al­ly organised to deal only with Jews and Moors, The Spanish Inquisition now had to widen out to include Protestant heretics.

As Spain expanded into the Americas, so did the New World Inquis­it­ion; it was established in Mexico in 1570 and in 1574 in Peru. In 1580 Spain conquered Portugal, and began rounding up and kill­ing Jews and Protestants who had fled Spain. Philip II also renewed hostilities against the Moors, selling them into slavery. 

A late witch trial in Protestant Europe in Paisley, near Glasgow, 1697.
Amusing Planet

Witch-hunts were completely different. They started only after the Reformation in majority-Protestant countries, with the num­ber of cases increasing in the later C16th. At the very same time in Catholic countries in southern Europe, there were almost no witch trials because they were banned by the Catholic Church. As a result the Spanish killed only a handful of witches, the Portuguese just one and the Italians none at all. 

So the witch-craze focused on Protestant northern Europe, in countries like Germany, France and Scotland. Presumably in those countries witchcraft was seen as a remnant of ignorant Catholic beliefs that needed to be eradicated. 

Witchcraft and heresy were thus inversely related: as witchcraft trials were on the rise in Protestant countries, large-scale heresy trials rapidly decreased. In Scotland there were large-scale witch-hunts in 1590, 1597, the 1620s and 1649. Was witchcraft merely an alternative way of accusing heretics, without calling it heresy? 

Even in majority Protestant populations, there were regional differences. In places like Russia and Estonia the majority of executed witches were men (68%), not women (32%). In Germany the vast majority of executed witches were women (82%).  Did Eastern Europe communities have different views of women? And witch prosecutions in the Protestant Low Countries had almost ended by 1578, many decades before they died out in Germany and Scotland. 

Where the Catholic Church was strong (Spain, Portugal, Italy), the Reformation was definitely the first time that the church had to cope with a large-scale threat to its existence and legitimacy. The Spanish Inquisition was so busy executing c32,000 religious heretics in 200+ years that they didn’t have the time or the need to go after witches. 

In 150 years in Protestant countries, c80,000 people were tried for witch­craft and c40,000 of them were executed. Only after 1700 did witch trials disappear, almost completely, in Protestant communities. 

Gertrude Stein & friends: life in art.

Gertrude Stein at her salon, 1920

Invaluable

Baby Gertrude Stein (1874-1946) and the family moved to Vienna and Paris, so Gertrude spoke German, French and English well. Her father moved them back to USA in 1879 but died in 1891, so older brother Michael supported them. Brother Leo moved back to Europe, immersing himself in art and in 1903 Gertrude also returned to Paris, sharing a left bank art studio. Michael sent money each month, making their bohemian life-style sustainable.

Thus Rue de Fleurus became the first permanent home for the Steins, with Gertrude remaining there for 40 years. They provided the informal focal point for contemporary art in Paris, inspiring, supporting and buying art. Their home became a salon, where art works by Picasso, Renoir, Gauguin and Cezanne shone. Saturday evenings enabled young, impoverished artists to examine the family’s notable art collection in their salon.

Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas

 1923 

How did Leo & Gertrude become so learned about art? Art scholar Bernard Berenson introduced Leo to Paul Cézanne and helped Leo buy a work from Ambroise Vollard's gallery. In 1904 Berenson welcomed and taught the Steins in Florence. In 1905 the siblings saw the Manet Retrospective in Paris and bought Portrait of a Woman with a Hat by Henri Matisse. This purchase encouraged Matisse, just when avant-garde artists were being criticised by the press.

In 1905 Pablo Picasso met the Steins at Clovis Sagot’s informal art gallery. The first Picasso oil paintings that Leo bought was Nude on a Red Background! Then they bought some Renoirs, 2 Gauguins, a Daumier, a Delacroix, an El Greco and Cézanne water colours. The friendship with Matisse cooled only when Gertrude developed a greater interest in Picasso. Fortunately Michael Stein continued to collect Matisse.

Etta and Claribel Cone were wealthy, elegant, educated Baltimoreans who inherited vast wealth in their 20s. The Steins and Cones travelled to Florence in 1905 where Berenson introduced the Cones to Matisse, Derain and Vlaminck’s art. The Steins took Etta to Picasso’s studio while he was doing Gertrude's portrait, and she urged Etta to buy Picasso drawings.

The Steins were introducing artist to artist, patron to artist, patron to patron. In 1905-6, Leo and Gertrude invited Picasso and Matisse to their studio to meet each for the first time. In Jan 1906, Michael and Sarah Stein took Etta and Claribel to meet Matisse at his Seine flat, and both sisters bought as many works as they could. Gertrude also sold the Cones some of her prized pictures including Delacroix, Cézanne and a Stein salon group portrait by Marie Laurencin.

In the US, Harriet Lane Levy (1867–1950) had been a popular journalist in San Francisco. She’d already visited Paris before, the first being with her friends Michael and Sarah Stein. But this time she sailed to Paris with friend Alice B Toklas. They arrived in Paris in 1907, living together until Toklas met Gertrude Stein.

Toklas was invited to a weekend party at Steins’. She was besotted, soon becoming a regular visitor and going to the galleries with Gertrude. In 1910 Alice moved into rue de Fleurus home and became Gertrude's right hand woman, reader, critic, typist and publication handler! She was Stein’s lover & assistant for ever!

By 1909, photographer/gallery owner Alfred Stieglitz was introduced to the Steins. By then Stieglitz knew the works of Matisse, Picasso and Cezanne well, and began to negotiate with Leo and Gertrude to exhibit their huge collection. Other young modernist painters joined in eg Georges Braque, Fernand Léger, Francis Picabia, Robert Delaunay and Guillaume Apollinaire.

New Eastern Europe Jewish artists arrived in Paris from 1904 on. Starving in their Paris garrets, Steins’ salons filled with food-drink were much appreciated. The Americans were all secularist Jews, but they wanted to help the Jewish artists, especially Max Weber, sculptor Jacques Lipchitz, Chaim Soutine, Sonia Delauney and Italian Amedeo Modigliani. The fact that the Steins, Cone sisters, Alfred Stieglitz, Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler and Alice B Toklas spoke Yiddish or German from home must have helped the lads integrate.

Levy returned to the US in 1910, at 43, and lived her life collecting and art philanthropy. We know which artists Harriet patronised in Paris and which paintings she bought in the USA, because she became a very important benefactor at San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. See Derain’s Paysage du midi 1906; Matisse’s Corsican Landscape 1899 and La Table au café c1899; and Pablo Picasso’s Scène de rue 1900.

Readers will love Paris Portraits: Stories of Picasso, Matisse, Gertrude Stein and Their Circle by Harriet Lane Levy, 2011.

Gertrude understood the radical implications of Cubism and was keen to link her status with it. Spanish cubist Juan Gris visited in 1910s, finding Stein accepted the more radical art styles that others quickly rejected. But a family rupture followed. Leo was a dedicated Matisse patron, not a Cubist fan. Gertrude and Alice visited Picasso’s studio where he was at work on Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, the work that marked the end of Leo's support for Picasso. In 1912 Leo took the Renoirs and many of the Cézannes to Italy, permanently! NB the Steins had established the first Museum of Modern Art at rue de Fleurus but the salon wound down with Leo leaving and war breaking out in 1914.

On her return to Baltimore in 1921, Claribel Cone rented a large flat in Etta’s building and arranged it as a private museum for their growing collection. This excellent Cone collection entered the Baltimore Museum of Art when Claribel died in 1929.

27 Rue de Fleurus, Paris

Note the plaque, next to the door

Leo Stein died in 1947, Gertrude Stein died in 1946 and Alice B Toklas in 1967. Gertrude and Alice B Toklas were both buried in Père-Lachaise Cemetery in Paris.

The Stein collection had been constantly divided among relatives, friends, dealers and collectors, making it difficult to track. American collectors John Quinn and Albert Barnes both had access to the Stein collection and acquired significant paintings from them. In 1913, Gertrude traded large, early Picassos to dealer Kahnweiler in exchange for other paintings she wanted. Thus I’m sure the Steins were hugely successful as salonieres and patrons, more so than collectors. The 2012 San Francisco Museum of Modern Art's exhibition brought together important paintings for the first time since pre-WW1 Paris.

Gertrude Stein: An Afterlife by Francesca Wade, 2025. Wade wanted to uncover the woman behind the celebrity, as cultivated by Stein herself. But it was this very celebrity that eclipse her work. Wade found new archive material to shed more light on Stein’s relationship with Alice B. Toklas, and on the origins of her undeniably radical writing.

Wade examined the creation of the Stein myth eg posing for Picasso's portrait; central to Bohemian Parisian life hosting people eg Matisse & Hemingway; racing through the French countryside with Alice Toklas; dazzling American crowds on her sell-out tour for her sensational Autobiography. But admirers called her a genius, sceptics a charlatan.

Yet Stein hoped to be remembered not for her personality but for her work. From her deathbed, she begged Toklas to secure her place in literary history. Using unseen material, Wade uncovered the origins of Stein's radical writing, the real Gertrude Stein as she was when alone.

Medieval travellers were quite like us

 Our perception of medieval Europe is of a confined world in which people rarely travelled beyond their own locality, and when they did it was for religious reasons. But Paul Oldfield asked us to consider Southern Italy and Sic­ily. Due to its central Mediterranean location, the region began to at­tract more European visitors for three main reasons:

Canterbury Tales

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Firstly various factors converged to boost the popularity of distant pilgrimage. After the crus­ading movement started in 1095, Europe experienced its golden era of devotional trav­el to Jerusalem. Pilgrimage offered the best med­ieval equiv­al­ent of the modern tourist trade, even though some pilgrims travelled not solely for pious motivations eg a crusade might have cloaked political and economic agendas.

Secondly South­ern Italy and Sicily were conquered by bands of Normans who unified a region which had previously been polit­ically frag­ment­ed (eg Greek Christians, Latin Christians, Jews and Mus­lims). By 1130 the Normans had created a powerful new mon­archy which had been domin­at­ed by Muslim sea-power.

Thirdly Europe underwent a cultural renaissance so learn­ed ind­ividuals travelled to seek clas­sical traditions. South­ern Italy and Sicily, with clas­sical history and with a Greek and Islamic past, attracted both an­cient & eastern learning.

The result of these three combined strands saw an influx of visit­ors who could properly be called tour­ists. High numbers of people regularly travelled both short and long distances, and some of this move­ment was driven by modern motivations: renewal, leisure and thrill-seeking.

While the pilgrims were travelling across foreign lands, they were encouraged to imitate Christ, to feel hardship and to focus on salvation. At many shrines en route, pil­g­rims could stay near a holy tomb, to receive cures or divine rev­el­ations. Even pilgrims were exper­ient­ial travellers.

South Italy possessed one of medieval Europe’s more sophist­ic­ated travel infrastruc­tures. Being so close to the heart of the former Roman empire, it still boasted functioning Roman roads which linked into the main route - it brought travel­l­ers from western Europe across the Alps to Rome. Via Appia helped travellers to move across the south Italian Ap­en­nines to the coastal ports of Apulia, while another road went via Calabria towards the bustling Messina port.

South Italian ports hosted fleets of local ships as well as those of the emerging commercial powers of Genoa, Pisa and Venice. So the pilgrim had secure, effic­ient and direct connections. At the same time, new hospitals, inns, bridges and monasteries emerged along It­aly’s main pilgrim routes, or near shrines for foreign vis­it­ors. The major Apulian and Sicilian ports often hosted pilgrim hospit­als belonging to Holy Land military monastic orders, Templars and Hospitallers. Mes­s­ina was a particularly hectic port.

 

Pilgrim badge bought at

shrine at Saint-Josse-sur-Mer, France

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Most of the surviving evidence focuses on elite travellers – nobles and bishops. But travel, and pilgrimage in particular, was also undertaken by the very poorest. Monastic rules out­lined their monks’ duty to offer free hospitality to all trav­ellers. It was also good advertising for shrine centres to be seen to cater for all backgrounds. After all, foreign visit­ors spent money on local serv­ices and on profitable tolls. The guardians of southern Italy’s shrine centres actively competed for travellers.

Many pilgrims suffered from debilitating conditions, and struggled to cope with travelling demands. Many died. One chronicler of the First Crusade saw the drowning of 400 pilgrims in Brindisi harbour but, he said, dying as a pilgrim brought the hope of salvation. Of course threats of robbery, shipwreck and dis­ease remained - no wonder pilgrims travelled in groups. It makes sense that the word travel comes from ancient word travail, meaning hardship.

Southern Italy’s landscape drew wonder and fear. Its seas in the busy Straits of Mess­ina were full of tidal rips. Muslim travellers suffered a near-fatal shipwreck in the Straits in the 1180s. The famous 1280 map, Hereford Mappa Mundi, por­t­rayed two sea monsters lurking in Sicilian waters.

Erupt­ions at Vesuvius and Etna were a regul­ar feature: one struck at Catania Sicily in 1169 killing 15,000 people. The region’s volcanoes had even greater potency, connecting them to Hell’s Entrance and showing God’s disapproval.

In c1170 a Spanish Jewish traveller and author, Benjamin of Tudela, pas­s­ed near Naples and marvelled at the sight of an ancient city submerged just off the coast. Like many travellers, he came there to access cutting-edge medical knowl­ed­ge, a fusion of Arabic and ancient Greek learning that had been a specialty in Salerno.

To prove that travellers had been to the distant city they had aimed for, each would buy a badge to show off back at home. Typically made of lead alloy, the badges were sold as souven­irs at Christian pilgrimage sites and related to the part­ic­ular saint ven­er­ated there. The shrine at Saint-Josse-sur-Mer in France was named after a hermit, St Jos, in a monastery. His hermitage became a popular site for late C14th English pilgrims on the way to more distant shrines.

In the most appealing and popular sites across Europe (Jerusalem in Is­rael, Compost­ela in Spain, Canterbury in Eng­land, Cologne in Germany etc) the badges tended to be standardised eg St Thomas Becket was the most popular sub­ject in Canberbury and a shell was sold most frequently in Compostela.

Hereford Mappa Mundi

map created in 1280.

Media Storehouse

Conclusion 
Medieval travellers displayed traits that reflected aspects of our modern understanding of tourism. Southern Italy was an alluring travel hotspot - it had devel­oped travel and serv­ice structures, it catered for those seek­ing spiritual salvat­ion, it provided learning and tested those who sought chall­enges. Those challenges were often sought as ends in them­selves.

Churchmen sparked Lisbon's pogrom in 1506

Jews had inhabited Iberia for centuries. By the 1400s, Old Jews were thriving in Portugal’s best trading, commercial and intell­ectual cen­tres. It was only when Spain’s Queen Isabella & King Ferdinand decreed the Spanish Inquisition in 1492, some 100,000 Jews fled to neighbouring Port­ugal.

St. Dominic's Church, Lisbon

facing Rossio Square

Portugal’s King Manuel I came to the throne in 1495 and set about establishing himself as one of the great patrons of the Portuguese Renaissance. However things changed when Manuel begged to marry King Ferdinand’s daught­er. The Spanish monarch would approve, providing Por­tugal expel­led its Jews! In Dec 1496, Manuel promptly complied. He dec­reed that all Jews must convert to Catholicism or leave the count­ry, in order to placate his future in-laws, Spain’s Catholic Mon­ar­chs. 

King Manuel issued two decrees: 

A] in 1496, edict of expul­sion from Portugal (when the lucky Jews escaped to Amsterdam, Germany, Italy, France, Morocco, Constantinople, Brasil and Peru) and 

B] in 1497, the forced conversion edict. The 1497 Edict blocked Port­ug­uese Jews from emigrating and were they too were forcibly converted to Christ­ian­ity. The Portuguese Jews who’d been forcibly baptised in the 1497 mass con­ver­sion were called New Christians or Conversos. 

In the early 1500s, drought and plague swept through Portugal, food prices inevitably soared and the Church accused the Jewish merch­ants. Because Easter and Passover over­lap­ped, the Jews who were preparing Passover foods “caused” the deadly plague and drought.

During the worst of the drought in Ap 1506, the Dominican Convent attracted large crowds who were praying for relief. A light that seemed to be em­an­ating from a crucifix over the chapel altar was de­scribed as a divine sign. One New Christian asked “How can a piece of wood work wonders?” The crowd was enraged, calling his remark blasphemous, and beat him to death. His body was dismembered and burned in the square in front of the Con­vent. His protective brother was similarly killed.

 Contemporary image of the massacres by fire in Lisbon

                  

This began a 4-day massacre and burning of 2,000-4,000 Conversos. Mobs of cit­iz­ens who roamed through Lisbon, killing Jews, were in­cited by Dominican friars. They preached sermons against the Jews, shouting Death to the Jews! and Death to the Heret­ics! Other friars yelled “Destroy this abominable people!” Who did they mean, the old Jews or the New Christians?

Citizens followed the fanatical chur­ch­men through the city streets and soon murdered every New Christ­ian they could find. Their bodies were dragged to the main Rossio Square and burnt in huge bonfires in front of the Domin­ican church. Not even in­fants survived the slaugh­t­er.

The next day, sailors from foreign merchant ships joined the locals in the pogroms, presumably for the purpose of robbery and not because they were angry about true Christianity.

During the massacre, royals, courtiers and aristocrats left town, if they could. The Lisbon massacre had sign­al­led a failure of King Man­uel’s policy of integration. Most of the New Christians, convert­ed to Cathol­ic­ism against their will, had remained Jewish in their homes and souls.

Upon King Manuel's return to Lisbon, he arr­ested the two Dominicans who had led the riot and had them execut­ed, along with 40-50 other conspirators. He then gave consent to all New Christians to leave Portugal, countermanding his 1497 order that forbade Conversos from emigrating. 

Ending the madness, King Manuel gave New Christians a grace period of 30 years, without persecution, to cease all Jewish practices or emigrate. King Manuel also abolished legal discrimin­at­ion against them. After that, the lives and the property of the Con­versos who stayed in Lisbon were never endangered, at least until after his death in 1521. Then the persecutions resumed.

There were 3 main contemporary sources about the pogrom:
1. The massacre sent shockwaves throughout Europe and acc­ounts of it appeared in Portuguese, Jewish, Spanish and German doc­um­ents. An anonymous German, who had been present in Lisbon and witnessed the tragedy, wrote a vivid account that was printed in several German editions: The Massacre of the New Christ­ians of Lisbon, 1506.

2 The Spanish chroniclers Andrés Bernáldez and Alonso de Santa Cruz both devoted a chapter in their works to the 1506 crisis.

3 The New Christian Isaac Ibn Faradj was present in Lisbon during the massacre. He survived and later escaped from Portugal to Otto­man Salonica where he reverted to Judaism. He wrote: ‘It happened on a Christian holiday. It was while the King and the Queen were absent from Lisbon on account of the plague which raged there at that time, that a priest with a cross stood up. Wicked men with him, murderers and scoundrels, they killed more than 1,400 New Christians, and burned their bodies, men and women, pregnant women and children. They burnt them in the streets of the city for three days on end, till the bodies were consumed and became ashes. I stole from the fire one half of the burned head of a dear friend of mine, and I hid it, kept it, brought it to Valona, and buried it in a Jew­ish cemetery. When King Manuel heard of the great wrong done to the Jews he came to Lisbon, and the priest was burnt at the stake and forty murderers hanged”.

A memorial stone was placed in Rossio Square in 2006,  

the exact site where the Jewish bodies were thrown onto bonfires.

A memorial to the victims of the Lisbon Massacre was sponsored by the Jewish community of Portugal, and erected in 2006, the 500th anniversary. A round travertine stone was bisected and a bronze Star of David was shaped into the flat surface. Translated it read: “In memory of the thousands of Jews who were victimised by intolerance and religious fanat­ic­ism, killed in the massacre that started on 19th April 1506, in this Square”. And the base had a Biblical verse.

Modern visitors to this memorial need to reflect about the death and des­truction caused by intolerance. Or perhaps read Paulo Mendes Pinto & Susana Bastos Mateus’ book The Mas­s­acre of the Jews in Lisbon, 2014. Thank you to  Lisbon LPS for the photos. 

Lisbon's beautiful palace - Ajuda

When the old royal resid­ence in what is now Praça do Comércio on Lisbon's waterfront was destroyed by an earthquake in 1755, the Portuguese king decided that it was safer to live on a hill. The chosen location was Ajuda which had been less affected by the dis­aster. The palace's rebuilding was an expen­s­ive series of experiments. The 1755 quake dest­r­oyed most of Lisbon, incl­ud­ing the royal palace. So alth­ough the royal fam­ily survived, King José I decided that the new palace should be built on a hill in the Ajuda district of Lisbon.

Main entrance of Ajuda Palace

 

Visitors can visit this Palácio Nacional da Ajuda, the second home of the Port­ug­uese royal family. It was built as the Paço de Madeira/wood. But in 1794 a fire destroyed this second palace and the vast majority of its treasures. Whereas the original stone mat­er­ial of the palace was deadly in an earthquake, the wood of the new palace made it suscep­t­ible to fire. Construction of a stone palace began in 1796.

When Napoleon’s army invaded Portugal in 1807, the royal family fled to Brazil, reigning from that Portuguese colony for some years. They left Palácio Nacional da Ajuda to the best art­is­ts and sculptors then, to work on it in their absence. But when the royals returned to Lisb­on in 1821, the work was in­com­plete and many prefer­red that the country become a republic.

Thus the royal palace was no longer royal, and the neo-classical building was turned into a museum; it also occas­ion­ally hosted off­ic­ial cer­emon­ies, but generally open to the public. It has quite a sumptuous interior, with elaborate décor in several magnificent rooms. The high­lights are the a] Audience Room; b] Throne Room with its ceiling painted in 1825 representing a heavenly temple; c] Banquet Room for official di­n­n­ers; and d] King João IV Room covered with 1823 paint­ings, including a ceiling. The rooms incl­ude a great collect­ion of clocks and an intact dinner service.

Amidst political turmoil in 1833, building stopped! It was only in 1861 that construction works began again, vigorous­ly. The in­terior was renovated as the royal home in 1862, the year Port­ug­uese King Luís I married Princess Maria Pia of Savoy. Soon the palace was where the royals lived AND it was also where diplomatic banquets were held.

Visitors see a music room, stunning dining room, office, games room and an indoor garden room which once housed ex­otic birds and plants. Maria Pia was a very gifted artist and her works are displayed at the Palace. But at King Luís I’s death in 1889 the royal family became div­ided. The con­tinuing building of the palace was no longer a pr­iority. With the overthrow of the Portuguese monarchy and the declaration of the Portug­u­ese Republic in 1910, the pal­ace was shut down and for dec­ades was cl­osed to the public.

In 1996 some of the rooms were restored to their original glory: fine chandeliers, painted ceilings, carved furniture, his­toric portraits, ornate doors, price­less sculptures and luxur­ious tap­e­stries.

Today’s Palace is only a third of the size of the original plans; the entrance used today was actually designed as a side entrance. The in­tended main entrance was supposed to face the river so that passengers arriving to Lisbon by ship would see an enorm­ous palace with a grand entrance atop of Ajuda hill. Such a project would have completely ch­anged Lis­bon’s city­scape. It was meant to be one of the larg­est palaces in Europe, with gardens cascading down to the river.

The Music Room is on the ground floor, the private flats on the second while State Rooms occupy the upper floor. There are 1000+ treasur­es, spread over 11 small sections, on 3 levels. The high­lights are the wor­ld's second biggest gold nugg­et, a magnificent dinner set by famed sil­versmith François-Thomas Germain, a 1790s diamond-covered badge, and golden roses from Pope Gregory XVI (1842). As a museum, it gathers imp­or­t­ant collections of C18th-19th decorative arts: gold-silver works, textiles, furniture, ceramics, paintings, sculptures and photographs.

Im­portant State ceremonies held by the Rep­ub­lic’s President still occur. There are two museums, 1]Royal Treasure and 2] the Pal­ace itself. Both have unique pieces of Portuguese hist­ory, great paint­ings, furniture, tapestries, jew­el­lery, porcelains. There is inform­at­ion around the palace, telling the Portuguese royal fam­­il­y’s his­tory. The old ruined west­ern wing was completed in 2021 in modern st­yle to house the Royal Treasure Museum. After €31 mill­, it op­ened to the public June 2022, displaying precious crown jewels.

Audience Hall

Banquet Room

Throne Room

Ajuda Botanical Garden, designed by an Italian botanist, was laid out in 1768. It was Portugal’s first botanical garden, and while it has since lost many of its 5000 species of plants in the 1808 French invasion, the 1993 restorat­ion recr­ea­ted the original gar­d­en. It’s a shame that this fine building and art collection still need more Government investment.

Today the garden is a wonderful place to relax after exiting the Pa­l­ace. From all levels there’s a view of the river and 25 de Abril Bridge, including ancient shady trees and roaming pea­cocks. Some of the trees surround a beautiful C18th fountain adorned with myt­hol­og­ical figures, serpents and seahorses. Visit the garden indep­end­ent­ly from the palace.

Botanical Gardens

Read the very attractive blog: A Portuguese Affair.