Treasures from the Museum of Aveiro in the History of Ancient Spectacles (original) (raw)
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Gestão do patrimônio arqueológico do Museu de Arte Pré-histórica de Mação, Portugal
Revista de Arqueologia
O artigo explora a gestão dos recursos arqueológicos dos vales dos rios Tejo e Ocreza, em Portugal, a partir das experiências de investigação, comunicação e educação desenvolvidas no Museu de Arte Pré-Histórica e do Sagrado do Vale do Tejo, localizado em Mação, Portugal, com ênfase temporal em anos mais recentes, já no século XXI, quando o museu recebeu esse nome e foi bastante reestruturado. Em um primeiro momento, reflete-se sobre as estratégias e guias teóricos utilizados na operação do museu, para, em seguida, adentrar-se na descrição de experiências de pesquisa, pós-graduação, comunicação e educação. Por fim, se faz um balanço geral, seguido de propostas de caminhos futuros para a gestão de bens patrimoniais, cujo centro é a instituição museológica.
HISTORY OF SPECTACLES - PORTUGAL IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY
Insights into Portuguese Medical History, 2022
Spectacles constitute one of the most remarkable and helpful inventions of the Middle Ages, first emerging as convex lenses helping to produce magnified images of objects mainly to correct presbyopia, a condition characterized by gradual loss of the ability of the eyes to focus on nearby objects in people over forty years old. Spectacles appeared mainly in monasteries and were available to members of the clergy and nobility, as well as learned and wealthy people. In the sixteenth century, these costly and valuable objects were manufactured and sold all over Europe. In this essay, I will briefly survey their invention, manufacture, trade and classification, focusing on paintings and reports about their use in Portugal, and presenting an unpublished collection of specimens from the Museum of Aveiro, former Monastary of Jesus from Aveiro (Mosteiro de Jesus de Aveiro), founded in 1458. The Monastery became illustrious when Princess Joanna (1452-1490), daughter to King D. Afonso V (reigned from 1438, being six years old up to 1477 under the regency of his oncle D. Pedro, Duke of Coimbra (1392-1499) and 1477-1481), entered the monastery in 1460, after refusing marriage proposals from European monarchs. Key words History of visual aids; Spectacles; History of Ophthalmology; Monastery of Jesus from Aveiro
Palácio dos Condes de Penafiel: a significant Late-Antique context from Lisbon
Lisbon represents an illustrative case of late antique prominence, counting on several well-documented sites. One of these, the palace of the counts of Penafiel, underwent an excavation in 1992-93, which remains unpublished. From a topographical perspective, the site represents a key area in the city's late imperial and early medieval settlement, between the Roman baths, probably abandoned during the fifth century A.D., and the medieval defensive wall. A sealed context revealed a discarded fragment of a tombstone inscription, along with a ceramic assemblage that contained imports from the Byzantine Empire, North Africa, southern Spain, as well as regional productions, some of which are quite illustrative of new pottery traditions. The variety of types, forms and fabrics retrieved from this context, is most typical of a mid-sixth century assemblage.
Medieval Archaeology has grown significantly in Portugal since 1987. This results mainly from a twofold fact: the increasing number of archaeological excavations in the framework of salvage projects and the development of systematic research projects. Despite the recent appearance of Medieval Archaeology in Portuguese archaeological research, the present synthesis is however preceded by a few others that have been published in the last few years (CATARINO, 1995/97, 2002; FONTES, 2002; GOMES, 2002; FERNANDES, 2005a; FERNANDES, MACIAS, 2011). None of these was— or aimed to be —an exhaustive overview. And, once again, this contribution will not, nor could, approach all the works and publications made in the last 30 years. It is interesting to notice that somehow these syntheses reflect the bifocal tendency that can be observed on the subject. As in Spain, Medieval Archaeology in Portugal emerged and developed within two perspectives: the archaeology of Islamic spaces, where the topics of ceramic studies, urbanism and fortifications were the most relevant; and the archaeology of the Christian communities, that focused on the first built manifestations of Christianity (necropolises and temples) and settlement systems, whose approach is closely connected to the study of rock-cut graves, fortifications, and monasteries and churches dated to the beginnings of Portuguese nationality. In the latter, the research is still marked by studies within the History of Art. In my opinion, 1992 indelibly marks the destiny of Medieval Archaeology in the country. Several scientific and social events took place in that year, a fact that enhanced a greater investment in this domain and encouraged researchers. This year also featured the publication of the first volume of the Portuguese journal Arqueologia Medieval (“Medieval Archaeology”) by Mértola’s Archaeological Field. Again in 1992, the “Fourth Meeting of Peninsular Christian Archaeology” took place in Portugal, with the proceedings being published in 1995. Most of the contributions focused on excavation results from Portuguese sites, including an important collection of data on Paleo-Christian contexts. Indeed, the 1990’s marked an important turning point in Medieval Archaeology in the country. A number of factors can be put forward. One was the increasing number of archaeological fieldworks, mainly salvage excavations in urban contexts but also in the framework of the Alqueva Dam megaproject of salvage archaeology. The creation of the Portuguese Institute for Archaeology in 1997 pushed this tendency even further and allowed the funding of multiannual research projects aiming at the study of diverse topics, such as churches and monasteries, regional settlement systems, necropolises, cities and castles. The topic of Medieval fortifications resulted in many publications and archaeological excavations. Already focused by C. A. Ferreira de Almeida (1979), it was followed by M. J. Barroca, who published several relevant papers on the subject (1990/91, 1996/1997, 2003, 2004, 2008/2009). The increase in number of excavation works in Early Medieval churches and monasteries allowed new insights and interpretations on their architectonic and decorative evolutions, which in turn provided new bases for the enrichment of these monuments’ museological discourse. This growing trend in Medieval Archaeology can also be observed in projects focusing settlement systems of given geographical areas or centred in single archaeological sites. Systematic studies of necropolises and rock-cut graves were also carried out. Despite the fact that many researchers attempted to go further than record field data, the most recent theoretical leap is due to I. Martín Viso, who developed new perspectives on the analysis and interpretation of these Early Medieval funerary structures, that are very abundant in the Portuguese territory (MARTÍN VISO, 2007, 2009, 2014, 2017; TENTE, 2015, 2017a). Regarding material culture studies, a substantial development also took place with the increase of publications and thematic meetings, in particular those focusing pottery collections. Unfortunately, the latter are not always accompanied by complete studies of their assemblages—relevance is often paid to exceptional pieces or partial assemblages, thus preventing systematic, comparative studies. Islamic productions have been retaining most of the researchers’ attention. Another topic with a remarkable growth in the last years has been the archaeology of architectures, mostly of religious buildings and castles. According to official regulations, the participation of bio-anthropologists in the excavation of funerary contexts is mandatory in Portugal since 1999. This legal obligation, which runs in parallel with the increasing number of excavations, decisively boosted bio-anthropological and mortuary studies from archaeological contexts. An important development is also noticeable in the study of subsistence strategies, namely based on palaeobotanic and zooarchaeological data. These, however, are still far from systematic. To a great extent, these studies have been limited by the employed field methodologies that often ignore the scientific value of such type of evidence. More than in the case of macrofaunal remains, the (almost) invisibility of botanic and microfaunal remains lies at the core of their (almost) absence in current research. Studies have been more abundant in the domain of zooarchaeology. Here too a stronger focus on Islamic contexts is noticeable, to some extent related to contrasting taphonomic conditions, that are more favourable to organic preservation in the southern half of the country where the presence of Muslim communities was longer and research has been more intensive. Despite the growing number of publications and scientific meetings in the last 30 years, the countless number of field works was not always accompanied by the respective publications. Some of the main published studies can be found in the Bibliography, where the main references are cited. It is also worth mentioning that syntheses, either general or regional, are still lacking. This fact converges into another limitation, which is the scarcity of theoretical reflection that would allow interpretative models to be put forward and the building of a problematizing historical knowledge. However, the future seems promising and it is hoped that the above limitations may be surpassed in the next decades as, in Portugal, we are presently witnessing an increase of academic training in this specific research area.
A Carne e o Mar: O Matadouro da Praia de Santa Luzia (1777-1853)
Historia Ambiental Latinoamericana y Caribeña (HALAC) revista de la Solcha, 2020
Junto das fábricas, fazendas, laboratórios e zoológicos, os matadouros de animais para o consumo humano de carne foram alguns dos ambientes predominantes nas mediações das relações entre humanos e animais no século XIX e que podem ser analisados com o aparato teórico e epistemológico da história ambiental e da animal-human history. Isto posto, buscaremos tratar no presente artigo da história do matadouro da praia de Santa Luzia, o primeiro matadouro público do Rio de Janeiro, e compreendendo o mesmo enquanto espaço de constantes interações entre mundo biofísico, espécies animais destinadas ao consumo humano e da cidade com seus habitantes. Em 1853, durante as epidemias dos anos 1850, o matadouro foi desativado e depois transformado em Albergue, de modo que as práticas de matanças seriam deslocadas para outro lugar, trocando-se a praia e o mar pelos manguezais da cidade.
In Portugal there is an important set of pieces from the Florentine workshop of the Della Robbia, composed of about a dozen objects. This article intends, through the combination of several primary sources, to analyse the path that these pieces conceived in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries as devotional objects had in the nineteenth century in Portugal, framing them in the art market and in collecting phenomena. The contexts behind the incorporation of these objects into public collections, and their musealisation, will also be taken into account, as a determining factor in the history of the collections of the first Portuguese public museums.
The Faience of the 2nd half of the 16th century at the Episcopal Palace of Coimbra (Portugal)
Proceedings of the First International Conference of Portuguese Faience (16th-19th centuries), 2016
The archaeological actions carried out during the project of enlargement and renovation of the Machado de Castro National Museum (Coimbra, Portugal) enabled the identification, at the southern side of the building, of a set of Early Modern Era materials resulting from discharges of the old Episcopal Palace. These well stratified layers, allow an easy and reliable interpretation and represent four distinct deposition phases (between the 15th and late 16th centuries), as dated by the nearly 400 coins recovered. Amongst these dumping layers we highlight the last one (ranging roughly between 1578 and 1592), it shows an unusually well preserved and abundant variety of ceramic portraying the palace`s table set in use after the middle 16th century. In conjunction with the predominant occurrence of coarse ware red pottery products, as well as minor amounts of imported items, there is a significant assortment of faience. We intend to describe the morphologic, typological and decorative aspects of this collection which we believe may concur to enlighten the discussion concerning the first stanniferous glazed ceramic productions in Portugal, where Coimbra certainly played a relevant role. As intervenções arqueológicas decorrentes do projecto de ampliação e remodelação do Museu Nacional de Machado de Castro (Coimbra, Portugal) permitiram identificar na ala sul do edifício um depósito de materiais modernos, fruto de descarte associado ao antigo Paço Episcopal. Estes contextos estratigráficos, de leitura clara e segura, integram-se em quatro momentos distintos de deposição (entre os séculos XV e XVI) tendo em conta a cronologia oferecida pelos cerca de 400 numismas recolhidos. Entre estes níveis, destaca-se aqui a última fase de despejo (que terá ocorrido entre 1578 e 1592) cuja variedade, invulgar abundância e bom estado de conservação do espólio ceramológico fornecido retrata a baixela cerâmica do Paço, em utilização a partir de meados do século XVI. A par da presença maioritária de produções em barro vermelho de uso comum e mais residual das produções importadas encontra-se um conjunto significante de faiança. Pretende-se neste texto expor os aspectos morfológicos, tipológicos e decorativos desta colecção de faiança que, face ao seu enquadramento cronológico, poderá contribuir para a discussão referente às primeiras produções em esmalte estanífero em Portugal, onde Coimbra teve certamente papel relevante.
The main purpose of this study is to demonstrate the relationship between the affirmation of the cult of the Blessed Sacrament starting at the late twelfth century, and the characteristics of the objects directly related to the Body of Our Lord: chalices and patens, Host boxes, ciboria and monstrances. The privileged sources for this research relate to the Visitations Books conducted between the last quarter of the fifteenth century and about 1571 to the churches under the jurisdiction of the Military Orders of Christ, Avis and Santiago, in Portugal. The results of this study demonstrate the survival of Gothic forms in Portuguese sacred jewellery during the first quarter of the sixteenth century (and even second), despite the introduction of the " Roman-style " decorative elements since the early days of this same century. En el nombre del Señor: la afirmación del culto al Santísimo Sacramento y los objetos litúrgicos de finales de la Edad Media en Portugal Resumen El principal propósito de este estudio es demostrar la relación entre la afirmación del culto a la Eucaristía iniciado a finales del siglo XII y las características de los objetos directamente vinculados con el cuer-po de Cristo: cálices y patenas, porta hostias, copones y custodias. Las fuentes privilegiadas para esta investigación son los Libros de Visitas llevadas a cabo entre el último cuarto del siglo XV y hacia 1571 en las iglesias bajo la jurisdicción de las órdenes militares de Cristo, Avis y Santiago en Portugal. Los resultados de este estudio demuestran la persistencia de las formas góticas en la orfebrería sacra portu-guesa durante el primer cuarto del siglo XVI (e incluso el segundo) pese a la introducción de elementos decorativos " a la romana " desde comienzos de la misma centuria.
Anales de Historia del Arte, 2022
The Monastery of Batalha is one of the most important Gothic monuments in Portugal. In the 19th century, between 1840 and 1900, it underwent extensive restoration work which significantly altered its features, as well as the memories of past monastic experiences. Despite the magnitude of the intervention, the work that transformed the former Dominican monastery into a historical monument of the Nation, was, however, subject to an exemplary, scrupulous and detailed work and management methodology. This was reflected in the production of an unprecedented documentary collection (textual, iconographic, object-based), mainly archived within the monument itself, thus allowing for a highly accurate reconstruction of the work conducted and an understanding of the criteria followed. By means of an integrated perspective, this study seeks to highlight these important historical sources, with particular emphasis on: their unique character in the context of the archives of Portuguese monuments; their role in the study of the restoration work on the Monastery of Batalha and in the history of monument restoration in Portugal in general; and the potential for interdisciplinary research that can be derived thereof, involving the latest technological trends.