The scope of his ambition was staggering: to divert through Lisbon the trade in lucrative spices from the Orient to Europe. At that time the spices, used by Europeans in cooking and by apothecaries for medicines, came overland to Alexandria and then by sea to Venice, from where they were sold across Europe. This audacious Portuguese monarch wanted to cut out the middle man and bring them from India straight to Lisbon by ship.
And he did. Dreaming big paid off, in a big way. By virtually cornering the European market in goods from the East and Africa, the Portuguese kingdom became cash-rich.
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With that steep mark-up, Lisbon prospered and a degree of euphoria took hold. The city dilated, in buildings and population. Plague, drought and hunger drained the countryside, and peasants converged on the capital in hope that the wealth might trickle down. The population swelled from around 70, in to some , by the end of that century. It was a time of plenty for the Catholic Church, too.
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By the second half of the sixteenth century, Lisbon had more than a dozen substantial convents and monasteries. Caravels went out to meet Gama in the mouth of the Tagus and escorted his two surviving, battered carracks into port. King Manuel and Gama, side-by-side, went on horseback up to the castle as people crowded along the streets and waved from houses. The castle was their destination, but the king had something else on his mind—something that would change Lisbon forever. He had already set his master plan in motion, clearing land by the river from onwards.
The move added momentum to the reshaping of the city by shifting its center of gravity from the hilltop down to the river. The Portuguese monarch went from being a crusading warrior king who had conquered the castle to a trade king who had conquered international commerce. With its overseas triumphs Lisbon grew in confidence and burst out of its medieval defensive boundaries, spilling into surrounding land.
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Not everyone was impressed, however. The building was rectangular, at a right angle to the river and had a stone bulwark over the water. The opulent rooms were on three floors, with arcades at street level. Over the coming years the palace was improved and stocked with sumptuous riches, including rare jewels, great tapestries, works of art by old Masters, a royal library containing some 70, books, and an elaborate royal chapel. The huge space cleared along the riverfront, in addition to the simultaneous landfill operation that reclaimed land from the Tagus in a major engineering operation, was intended for more than just a big new palace.
The palace was destroyed in the calamitous earthquake, which razed much of downtown Lisbon. The area around the palace came to include the India House, the royal mint, the royal armory, royal warehouses and royal shipyards. King Manuel could admire from his window the evidence of his power. It bore comparison with the Arsenal of Venice, regarded as the most significant centralized production complex of pre-industrial Europe. King Manuel could watch from his palace the loading and unloading of the ships after he built the Cais de Pedra, a stone quay jutting out into the river from the vast courtyard.
It was set up on the ground floor of the palace and was in charge of the administration and management of trade throughout the empire. In Renaissance Lisbon, you had to be seen to be wealthy, and the monarch was no exception. The showiness and pageantry of the royal entourage was legendary. The first elephants seen in Europe since Roman times were unloaded in the Portuguese capital in the early sixteenth century. These gifts from India for King Manuel performed tricks, bowing on command and blowing water, and delighted the courtiers and the inhabitants of Lisbon.
Other arrivals were an African rhinoceros, gazelles, antelopes, monkeys, parrots and a jaguar. The king fancied seeing a fight between an elephant and a rhino, so the two were brought together in an interior patio, with members of the court hanging out of the windows to watch the whimsical spectacle. The entertainment was brief, however. The elephant soon turned and ran, smashing through a door and running into the street, eventually reaching Rossio Square several hundred meters away before it came to a halt.
King Manuel wanted the rest of the continent to know about his affluence. In a flamboyant gesture, in he sent to Rome a white Indian elephant as a gift for the new pope, Leo X.
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An elephant was a fitting symbol for Portugal and the pontiff, possessing power, longevity and stoutness. The animal certainly made a splash in Renaissance Europe, hungry for novelties. Transported by ship from Lisbon, it took several weeks for the elephant to be led from the Italian coast to Rome, because so many people crowded around to see it. The password you have entered is incorrect. Enter your Agoda password to link Facebook with this account.
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