1730
The construction of the Palace-Convent led to the concentration of Mafra of a large number of workers village (bricklayers, stonemasons, masons, carpenters, blacksmiths, among others) in the village, and came from all over the country. Ascending to about 45,000 workers who in 1731 had decreased to 15470 workers in the Royal Construction, among 6124 soldiers were soldiers, settled mostly to the northeast, where several vast wooden barracks were built in northern Portugal for workshops and lodging, where a true settlement was born that became known as Madeira Island (also due to the large pile of wood that was destined for construction and was kept there). On this island were sheds for the stables, mason houses for accommodation of specialized personnel and officers, and a wooden chapel for divine rites. In the housing grounds, numerous pasture houses were opened for the service of the workers, who fed at the expense of their salary, coming from the pine forests of Leiria and the boaundaries of Lisbon and Torres Vedras the wood, which was used for domestic consumption.
Image – Construction of the Convent of Mafra (Roque Gameiro, 1917)
1730
The Trancão River was a fundamental river route for those who moved from Lisbon to the northern part of the city boundaries, namely the Loures lowlands region or the Trancão River. During Mafra’s royal construction the river was used as a means of transporting raw materials, building materials and even works of art from Lisbon. Documentary sources from the mid-18th century (testimony of the parish priest of Santo Antão do Tojal, Félix Dantas Barbosa, in 1760 in Memórias Paroquias), mention the transport of the bells to the carillon of the Convent of Mafra, from Lisbon to Santo Antão do Tojal, opening, for this purpose – in 1730 – a canal, called Esteiro da Princessa. Also, the sculptures imported from Italy to Mafra and the Mitra Palace in Tojal, came by boat from Ribeira das Naus in Lisbon. The vessels had a flat bottom appropriate to this type of navigation, which depended on the tide.
(image – Lisbon Municipal Archives)
16/10/1730
Following the etiquette of the time, King D. João V had dinner in the tribunal house, only in the presence of the Duke of Cadaval, D. Jaime Pereira de Melo, estribeiro-mor (chief stables groom). The Duke later had dinner in the previous room, with the King’s confessor, Father Martinho de Barros (or Basto) of the Congregation of the Oratory. In another room of the Mitra Palace of Santo Antão do Tojal, other figures who accompanied the King on this trip, the Prior of S. Nicolau, João Antunes Monteiro, the aforementioned Master-Chapel and the SM Footman, with assistance from the Footmen and Porters of D. Thomas. In another room dined the King’s surgeon, Manuel Vieira, the curtain guard and most officers of the royal house, attended by the young men standing by D. Thomas and D. Thomas had dinner with his relatives who were in Santo Antão. The Master of the Chapel made it known to the King that the relatives of D. Tomás de Almeida knew how to sing various songs in different voices and gallantry, they were called to the presence of the King to repeat the songs. Around three in the afternoon the King was informed that because of the tide the vessels carrying the bells destined for Mafra, which were many and of great calibre, would only arrive in Santo Antão do Tojal around midnight. For their transport they had to occupy the officers of the mastery of Ribeira das Naus, but also the soldiers who were in Santo Antão do Tojal by order of the King and also the the young servants of D. Tomás. That night the weather was particularly harsh, very rainy with thunder and lightning, but did not nullify the ceremony of the blessing of the bells, which took place in a tent set up for the event, having ended at two or three o’clock in the morning.
12/05/1731
Considering that the funds collected by the tax already allowed for the beginning of the construction work, King D. João V boosted the work and appointed the Italian architect Cannevari as director of the project. His appointment can only have surprised some of the technicians who participated in the preparatory works for the project and especially Manuel da Maia, given that the Italian architect had always been a great non-believer in the possibility of the nearby springs being able to supplying Lisbon. In the set of documentation elaborated, the Considerations of Manuel da Maia were the most complete supply plan that emerged throughout the project, making the author a potential competitor to the position held by the Italian. Soon the opinions of the two technicians contradicted, the environment was anything but consensual leading to the isolation of the Italian architect from the Portuguese, who wore out and asked permission to return to Italy. With Cannevari put to one side, three engineers emerge naturally, including Manuel da Maia, and were appointed to the direction of the project. But individual positions, again, become extreme and the King was forced to choose a project with a clear direction. In 1736 the architect Custódio Vieira was appointed to the position of director, and whose period of validity will allow the development of the project to run at a good pace for the first time (in less than two years Lisbon saw the completion of the main section of the Aqueduct) and was only slowed down by the construction of the monumental crossing of the Alcântara valley that occupied the final part of Custodio Vieira’s life. Soon after his death, in 1744 the first voices disagreeing with the large and risky option that the architect had chosen for the transposition of Ribeira de Alcântara were made know, and for a brief period there was a return to the chaotic situation of the beginning of the project, until it is proceeded with the name of Carlos Mardel who is a decisive voice of power in the technical aspect of the project. The risk of the gallery of arches being next to the reservoir of Amoreiras, including the triumphal arch, as well as the great reservoir of Amoreiras, a magnificent Temple of Water as it was once called, was entirely his.
(image – Lisbon Municipal Archives).
Carnival of 1733
Francisco António de Almeida, a Portuguese composer, was one of the first young men sent to Rome between 1717 and 1720 at the expense of the court of King D. João V, to improve and expand the study in the art of Italian music. Whilst there, he received lessons from Alessandro Scarlatti, father of Domenico Scarlatti, whose style assimilated and professed with flattering notoriety. When returning to Portugal in 1726, he stood out as a composer of palace opera in Italian libretto. After the premiere in 1733, La pacienza di Socrate was repeated the following year at the Paço da Ribeira (a sign that he had pleased them very much) and in 1735 the opera La Finta Pazza premieres. At the carnival of 1739, again in Paço da Ribeira, the comic opera in 3 acts La Spinalba ovvero Il Vecchio Matto (The Spinalba or the Crazy Old Man) is premiered as a true masterpiece. The composer’s last piece is entitled L’Ippolito, a six-voice serenade sung at Paço da Ribeira in 1752.