Rossio

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View of the Rossio with the Teatro Dona Maria II , the bronze fountain and the statue of Pedro IV (seen from the Elevador de Santa Justa )

The Rossio , [ʀu'siw] , officially Praça de D. Pedro IV , ['prasɐ də dõ' pɛdro 'kwartu] , is next to the Praça da Figueira and the Praça do Comércio one of the three most important inner-city squares in the Portuguese capital Lisbon . It is located in the Baixa Pombalina and has been the main center of the city center since the Middle Ages. It was the scene of numerous celebrations and revolutions, today it is primarily a popular meeting place for both Lisbon residents and tourists. Within Lisbon, the Rossio is an important traffic junction between the green line ( Linha Verde ) of the Lisbon Metro ( Rossio underground station ) and the terminus of the Portuguese railways of the same name , usually referred to as Terminal do Rossio .

The current official name Praça de D. Pedro IV reminds of the Portuguese King Pedro IV , the later Brazilian Emperor Pedro I. A bronze statue of the king is on a column in the middle of the square.

history

Origins

The Rossio only became important from around the 13th and 14th centuries. At the time, Lisbon expanded further to the banks of the Tagus , more and more residents now lived around the mountain of the Castelo de São Jorge . The name Rossio means something like "field without inhabitants" in old Portuguese.

16th century drawing of Rossio. The square is bordered by the Paço dos Estaus (left corner) and the large Royal All Saints Hospital (right). You can also see the outer city walls and the Convento do Carmo, which was destroyed in 1755 .

Around 1450, the Portuguese King Afonso V had the Paço dos Estaus built as a guest house on the northern side of the Rossio. After the Inquisition also moved into Portugal, it resided in the centrally located Paço dos Estaus . The first Autodafé took place around 1540.

In 1492 João II ordered the construction of one of the most important civil and charitable buildings in old Lisbon, the Royal All Saints Hospital ( Hospital Real de Todos os Santos ). Construction work on the hospital was completed in 1504 under the reign of Manuel I , and the building now encompassed the entire eastern side of the square. The hospital is said to have had a long gallery and a portico in the Manueline style .

The Palácio das Almadas had been in the northeast corner of the square since the 18th century at the latest . In 1640 this was mainly a meeting place for the Portuguese nobility to plan a resistance against Spanish rule, which in turn ended in the War of Restoration . Because of this, the building is called Palácio da Independência ("Palace of Independence").

A Dominican convent was located on Rossio from the 13th century . The Dominican church was badly damaged by the earthquake of 1755, the order then rebuilt the church in the baroque style.

The 1755 earthquake and reconstruction

Two French bronze fountains have adorned the Rossio since the 19th century. In the background blooming jacarandas , above the ruins of the Convento do Carmo and on the left the Elevador de Santa Justa

The great earthquake in Lisbon in 1755 destroyed a large part of Lisbon's inner city, so that a major reconstruction program was carried out under Sebastião José de Carvalho e Mello , who later became the Marquês de Pombal. Almost all buildings on Rossio were destroyed, with the exception of the Independence Palace. The architects Eugénios dos Santos and Carlos Mardel tackled the reconstruction of Rossio in the second half of the 18th century, both of whom represented the style of Pombalinism that is present today .

The Arco do Bandeira flag arch, a large archway with a baroque gable that connects the Rossio with the Rua dos Sapateiros , dates from the time of the Pombaline reconstruction . Due to the checkerboard pattern of the newly built inner city, the Rossio received a direct connection to the other important, inner-city square Praça do Comércio on the banks of the Tagus via Rua Augusta and Rua Áurea .

Column with the bronze statue of Pedro IV and wave pattern of the Calçada à portuguesa

In 1836, after a great fire broke out, the Palácio das Almadas , the Independence Palace , was destroyed. Thanks to a large donation from the Portuguese writer and poet Almeida Garrett , the decision was made to build a theater there. The Teatro Nacional D. Maria II , built in the 1840s, was designed by the Italian Fortunato Lodi in the classicist style. A statue of the Portuguese playwright Gil Vicente still stands on the gable of the theater to this day. Irony of fate that the Inquisition, which was previously located there, had censored some plays by Vicente in the 16th century.

In the 19th century, the Rossio received a typical Portuguese floor mosaic ( Calçada à portuguesa ) made of wavy gray and white paving stones , and two French fountains with bronze sculptures were installed. In 1874 the new statue of the Portuguese King Pedro IV was erected on the square. At the same time, the square was renamed to its current name, which, however, is hardly accepted by the population.

Rossio terminus, designed in 1886 by José Luís Monteiro

Between 1886 and 1887, the Rossio received another building that is still influential today, the Rossio train station . José Luís Monteiro designed the new station in neo-Manueline style for the route to Sintra , where the royal summer palace Palácio Nacional da Pena was located.

Web links

Commons : Praça de D. Pedro IV  - Collection of images, videos and audio files


Coordinates: 38 ° 42 ′ 49.7 "  N , 9 ° 8 ′ 21.8"  W.