THE GLOBAL CITY
on the streets of Renaissance Lisbon
Edited
by Annemarie Jordan Gschwend and K. J. P. Lowe.
London: Paul Holberton
Publishing, 2015
A recente identificação da Rua Nova dos Mercadores – principal
artéria comercial e financeira na Lisboa Renascentista – por Annemarie Jordan
Gschwend e K.J.P. Lowe, em duas pinturas do século XVI, foi o ponto de partida
para o retrato de uma cidade global no início do período moderno…
“Recently identified by the editors as the Rua
Nova dos Mercadores, the principal commercial and financial street in
Renaissance Lisbon, two sixteenth-century paintings, acquired by Dante Gabriel
Rossetti in 1866, form the starting point for this portrait of a global city in
the early modern period. Focusing on unpublished objects, and incorporating
newly discovered documents and inventories that allow novel interpretations of
the Rua Nova and the goods for sale on it, these essays offer a compelling and
original study of a metropolis whose reach once spanned four continents.
The Rua Nova views painted by an anonymous
Flemish artist portray an everyday scene on a recognisable street, with a
diverse global population. This thoroughfare was the meeting point of all kinds
of people, from rich to poor, slave to knight, indigenous Portuguese to Jews
and diasporic black Africans.
The volume highlights the unique status of
Lisbon as an entrepôt for
curiosities, luxury goods and wild animals. As the Portuguese trading empire of
the fifteenth and sixteenth century expanded sea-routes and networks from West
Africa to India and the Far East, non-European cargoes were brought back to
Renaissance Lisbon. Many rarities were earmarked for the Portuguese court, but
simultaneously exclusive items were readily available for sale on the Rua Nova,
the Lisbon equivalent of Bond Street or Fifth Avenue. Specialized shops offered
West African and Ceylonese ivories, raffia and Asian textiles, rock crystals,
Ming porcelain, Chinese and Ryukyuan lacquerware, jewellery, precious stones, naturalia
and exotic animal by-products. Lisbon was also a hub of distribution for
overseas goods to other courts and cities in Europe. The cross-cultural and
artistic influences between Lisbon and Portuguese Africa and Asia at this date
will be re-assessed.
Lisbon was imagined as the head of empire or caput
mundi, while the River Tagus became the aquatic gateway to a globally
connected world. Lisbon evolved into a dynamic Atlantic port city, excelling in
shipbuilding, cartography and the manufacture of naval instruments. The
historian Damião de Góis bragged of the “Tagus reigning over the world”.
Lisbon’s fame depended on its river, an aquatic avenue that competed with the
Rua Nova, providing a means of interaction, trade and communication along
Lisbon’s coastline. Even for the cosmopolitan Góis, who travelled extensively
for the Portuguese crown, Lisbon’s chaotic docks were worth describing. Of all
the European cities he experienced, only Lisbon and her rival Seville could be
“rightfully called Ladies and Queens of the Sea”. Góis contended that they had
opened up the early modern world through circumnavigation.
Lisbon was destroyed in a devastating earthquake
and tsunami in November 1755. These paintings are the only large-scale vistas
of Rua Nova dos Mercadores to have survived, and together with the new objects
and archival sources offer a fresh and original insight into Renaissance Lisbon
and its material culture.”
Índice
Introduction
- “Princess of the seas, queen of empire: configuring
the city and port of Renaissance Lisbon”, Annemarie Jordan Gschwend e Kate Lowe.
The maritime city
- “Foreign descriptions of the global city: Renaissance
Lisbon from the outside”, Kate Lowe.
- “The global population in sixteenth-century Lisbon”,
Kate Lowe.
- Chinese commodities on the India route in the late
sixteenth and early seventeenth century”, Rui Loureiro.
- “Saved from the sea: the shipwreck of the Bom Jesus
(1533) and its material culture”, Bruno Werz.
Bringing a street back to life
· “Aquela grã Rua Nova”: Images of the Rua Nova in
sixteenth-century Portuguese literature”, T.F. Earle.
· “Reconstructing the Rua Nova: the life of a global
street in Renaissance Lisbon”, Annemarie Jordan Gschwend.
· “Global interiors on the Rua Nova in Renaissance
Lisbon”, Hugo Miguel Crespo.
· Olisipo,
emporium nobilissimum: global
consumption on the Rua Nova”, Annemarie Jordan Gschwend.
Material culture: case studies from West Africa,
Brazil and Portuguese Asia
- “Made in Africa: West African luxury goods for
Lisbon’s markets”, Kate Lowe.
- “On the Turkey in Rua Nova dos Mercadores”, Shepard
Krech III.
- “Rock crystal carving in Portuguese Asia: an
archaeometric analysis”, Hugo Miguel Crespo.
- “‘The Three Brothers’: Sixteenth-century Lacquered
Indo-Persian shields or commodities for display? A case study”, Ulrike Körber.
- “Some notes on the production of Christian sculpted
ivories in the Estado da Índia”, Carla Alferes Pinto.
Epilogue
- “The Rua Nova dos Mercadores paintings, Dante Gabriel
Rossetti and the Victorian art dealer George Love: questions of provenance”,
Annemarie
Jordan Gschwend.
Documentary appendices
Vista da Rua Nova dos Mercadores, c. 1570-1619.
Rua Nova I - Rua Nova dos Ferros com a esquina do Largo do Pelourinho Velho;
Rua Nova II - Do Arco dos Barretes ao Arco dos Pregos;
De Autor flamengo desconhecido
Propriedade: Londres, Kelmscott Manor Collection
The Society of Antiquaries of London.
Referência do livro:
GSCHWEND, Annemarie Jordan e Kate K. J. P. Lowe, ed. (2015) The global city: on the streets of Renaissance Lisbon. London: Paul Holberton Publishing. – 240 p.; il. (28x24cm). – Ed. em capa dura, nov. 2015, ISBN 978 1 907372 88 9.
