Lisbon [antikvár]

A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE CITY THE CITY'S ORIGINS According to an existing legend Lisbon vrai founded by Ulysses during his wanderings, and indeed for a long lime the city was known as Ulyssipona. Historians, on the other hand, claim that city's origins go back to 1200 B.C. when it was a Phoenician colony called Alis Ubo, literally " quiet port ". Conquered first by Greece and later by Carthage, in 205 B.C. Lisbon became a Roman city and was renamed Felicitas Julia in honor of Julius Caesar. Thereafter it was invaded by barbarians who reinforced the city walls. In 711 the city fell into the hands of the Arabs and remained under Arab rule for four hundred years. With the name o/'Lissabona it blossomed into a splendid commercial center. Then during a terrible storm in the summer of 1147 several ships carrying Crusaders of the Second Crusade on their way to the Holy Land were forced to anchor along the coast near the city of Porto. The Crusaders, of Flemish, German, and English nationalities, offered their services to King Afonso Henriques I who wished to drive the Arab conquerors out of the city. After a four month long siege, the Arabs were defeated and in 1255 Afonso III set up his court in Lisbon, whereby Lisbon was chosen as the capital of the Kingdom. THE GOLDEN AGE Lisbon's vertiginous rise began under Joao I the Great, founder of the Aviz dynasty. In no time at all, it became the wealthiest city in the whole Western world. On July 8, 1497 Vasco da Gama, commanding a fleet of four ships, set sad from Lisbon on his way to the Indies. Sailing around the Cape of Good Hope by way of Mozambique, Ite reached Calicut, and thus the sea route to India was cleared! Soon afterwards in 1500 Pedro Alvares Cabral made another thrilling discovery: Brazd. And it was Camoes, Portugal's greatest poet, who so splendidly extolled these exciting discoveries. With the advent of the Manuelian style typified by the use of motifs representing waves, corals, exotic animals, sea knots, and sea shells applied to the Gothic style, even architecture bowed to Lisbon's supremacy on the high seas. The ivory, silver, silks, spices, and gems flooding Lisbon's market-places found their way into the city's private homes, within the reach of one and all. THE GREAT EARTHQUAKE For two hundred years, during the 16th and 17th centuries, Lisbon, as well as the rest of Portugal, had been the greatest sea power in all of Europe: in fact, it was Lisbon itself which had caused the eclipse of mighty Genoa and Venice. Then, without warning, fate struck a cruel blow. On November 1, 1755 everyone was in church attending services as Solemn High Masses ii ej-i-being celebrated throughout the city for All Saints Day. All of a sudden a violent rumble shook the earth so hard that it actually rose up and was torn asunder a number of times. Churches, palaces, and monuments crumbled, burying everyone beneath the rubble. At the .same time, the lit candles in the churches set fire to the hangings and furnishings inside and soon the whole city was aflame. People desperately seeking shelter along the banks of the Tagus River were instead greeted by death and destruction: a huge tidal wave broke the riverbanks and flooded the lower city swallowing in its wake not only the population, but also the wealth that had been Lisbon's glory for two centuries long. The king, José I, was unharmed only because he and his court were then lodged in Belém. Luckily, the man who would forge the tormented and destroyed city's triumphant rebirth was also part of the king's retinue: the royal minister and future Marquis of Pombal. POMBAL'S LISBON In the chaos which inevitably followed the catastrophe, Pombal did exactly what the situation called for: he brought aid to the wounded, had the dead buried, and ordered that the " vultures " caught preying on the population by robbing and sacking be punished with the death penalty. At the same time, working in collaboration with Manuel de Maia, a civd engineer, and Eugenia dos Santos, an architect, he drew up a plan to rebuild the city. Pombal's plan entailed razing the old houses and alleys of the lower city in order to carry out an urban renewal projet extremely modern for his times. The project included broad streets intersecting at right angles, flanked by buddings with harmoniously similar façades and mansard roofs embellished by wrought-iron balconies and lanterns. Moreover, the city would spread along the riverside. In remembrance of the terrible earthquake, one budding, the Church of Carmo, was purposely left just as it looked on the fateful holiday morning: its lofty vaulting, ogival arches, and ample but gaping windows dominate the lovely square known as Rossio as living witness to that far-off day of tragedy. LISBON TODAY During the 19th century Li.'ibon was somewhat cut off front the rest of Europe, but this relative isolation lasted only a short while. In 1940 a world's fair held along the banks of the Tagus thrust the city once more into the world limelight. Today Lisbon's airport is one of the most important air links connecting Europe and America and its port, with docks spread over more than 30 kilometers along that banks of the Tagus, is one of the biggest harbors in the world. New buildings, entire neighborhoods and a flne university have sprung up. Lastly, in 1967, the AprU 25 Bridge, Europe's longest suspension bridge, was triumphantly completed, thus Unking the banks of the Tagus.