Queen of the Sea: A History of Lisbon

Technical ingenuity, geopolitical guile and daring ambition drove the empire. The Portuguese were full of élan.

Lisbon’s special appeal lies elsewhere. Its secret is in the mix. There is an afterglow of Lisbon’s imperial history, when the city was the nerve centre for Portugal’s extensive colonial possessions in Africa, South America and the Orient. That cosmopolitan legacy endows Lisbon with an intriguing, exotic flavour that is unique in Europe. Lisbon, for all its loss, still engages the imagination.

More than that: going up to St George’s Castle and standing on top of its Ulysses Tower is the best way to figure out the why and the how of Lisbon. The view from the battlements is not only thrilling. It also provides a vivid sense of why a city took root on this spot. The site ticks three important boxes: a high, steep-sided hill for defence; a broad and bountiful river; and a large natural harbour on the Atlantic coast.

Phoenicians fortified a settlement here in the seventh century BC, when it was already a lively port, and over the following centuries Romans, Barbarians, Moors (Muslims of North African descent) and newly minted Portuguese followed suit.

The Alfama district captures the flavour of Lisbon’s more recent past. In Moorish times, when its distinctive labyrinthine layout took shape, this south-facing hillside was an aristocratic area. It had a pretty view of the river and was rendered safe by stout city walls. Alfama, the city’s oldest bairro or neighbourhood,

Aqui começa o caminho (“Here begins the Way”),

Bombay, from Bom Bahia or “Good Bay” in old Portuguese.

The conjecture that the city was founded by Ulysses after the Trojan War, when he lost his way in the Mediterranean, is not so much mythical as whimsical.

The Romans used Olisipo, which under the Moors became Al-Uxbuna. The Christian conquest brought Lixboa.

Like elsewhere in the bygone empire, vestiges of Roman rule have mostly sunk deep below the surface of the city streets.

After the Roman conquest of Britain, Lisbon’s status surged once more because it was a stopover on the Atlantic shipping route from the Mediterranean to northern Europe. Olisipo became a hub of Roman trade and industry. The fertile upstream plains provided farm produce and, as Strabo noted, the river was teeming with fish. That made it ideal for brewing and exporting garum, the smelly fish sauce used by Romans

Lisbon, the letter to Osbert notes, was “very rich and prosperous”. That cannot have failed to bring a glint to the eye of the warriors bent on collecting booty as well as spreading the faith.

It was also cheap to put on—all you needed was an acoustic guitar and a singer. The oft-mentioned similarities with the Blues are clear. Fado, meaning fate or destiny, speaks of life’s trials and torments, but with passion. It can come across as a chafing, woe-is-me lament but, like the Blues, it is lyrical, heartfelt, and sometimes funny.

To help police the realm and its long coastline, King Dinis needed to reorganize the Portuguese fleet. To achieve this he picked a skilled Genoese seafarer called Manuel Pessanha, who in 1317 established one of the world’s first permanent naval fleets at the service of the Crown and laid the foundations for Portugal’s later naval might.

“set in motion a world revolution” by leading Europe out of the Mediterranean and into the Atlantic and beyond, creating new horizons. Portugal connected continents, bringing “new worlds to the world,”

Small and boxed into a remote corner of south-west Europe by its burly rival Castile, Portugal was trapped, so to speak, between the devil and the deep blue sea. The Portuguese chose, faute de mieux, to get wet.

The ornate and elaborate Manueline style was inspired by Portugal’s associations with the sea. It is intricate and busy—like the times that gave birth to it. Maritime motifs in stone capture, Medusa-like, the paraphernalia of the adventures, featuring ropes and knots, anchors and navigational equipment, as well as religious flourishes.

But, on the whole, Lisbon was a filthy city. The majestic palace and elegant churches rubbed shoulders with misery and squalor.

But by nightfall on Lisbon’s darkest day, authorities had begun work on a disaster response that was remarkable for its swiftness and efficiency, even by twenty-first-century standards. Some regard it as the first modern, centralized state response to catastrophe. Certainly, the prompt action saved lives.

Portugal was a fortress of the Counter-Reformation, and its burning of supposed heretics at the stake was viewed as barbaric by the northern European countries that traded with Portugal.

Panic was not far from the surface. The pressure-cooker atmosphere was understandable: Napoleon’s army was bearing down, unopposed, on the Portuguese capital.

The historical enormity of the occasion was not to be underestimated. The enterprise was dizzying and unprecedented in its scale. In essence, the idea was to uproot Portugal and replant it 8,000 kilometres to the south, in Brazil.

Portugal was to be the next victim of Napoleon’s imperial ambitions. The emperor had already co-opted Spain into his Portuguese adventure through secret clauses in the Treaty of Fontainebleau, signed on 27 October 1807. The treaty’s ultimate and confidential goal was the conquest of Portugal.

Queen Maria I became the first European sovereign to enter the southern hemisphere.

The French invasion set the tone for what would, on the whole, be a wretched century. Over the course of the 1800s, Lisbon not only witnessed the flight of the royal family and ruling class, the loss of its status as capital city, and occupation by a foreign army, but it would also be tormented by five coups, two revolutions, two military rebellions, a civil war, and national bankruptcy. The nineteenth century’s identifying feature was turmoil.

The French occupation left scars so deep that they entered the Portuguese language as figures of speech that are still widely used.

Napoleon’s orders to his general were succinct: “Concede nothing to the Prince of Brazil, even if he promises to declare war on England. Go into Lisbon, seize the ships and occupy the ports.” Subjugation was the goal.