Religious Freedom, civic rights and magical heritage: The case of Sintra, Portugal

• Autor(a) principal: Saraiva, Clara
• Data de Publicação: 2023
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10451/62860

Sintra is a charming village situated circa 30 km away from the Lisbon city centre, used since the Middle Ages (and even before, during the Muslim period), as a second residence by the nobility and the royal family. But Sintra is much more than the village itself: it encompasses a large area of mountain, with forests, lagoons and waterfalls, private parks and large estates with magnificent villas, palaces, chapels. Known to have a micro-climate, much fresher in the summer than the capital, it became, in the eighteenth centuries and nineteenth, a trendy place for the high bourgeoisie and the aristocracy. From being a refuge from summer heat and plagues for the Portuguese court, and a renowned hunting ground, the fame of Sintra grew. In the 19th century both the village and the mountain became part of the European Grand Tour. Ferdinand II, came to Portugal to marry Queen Mary II, fell in love with the place, and had a fairytale palace built at the top of the hill, over the ruins of the ancient Hieronymite monastery. Following the Romantic taste of the epoch, he surrounded the palace with a magnificent park, full of exotic plant species, mixed with local species, and he reforested the Sintra mountain.