MUSEU DOS BISCAINHOS
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MUSEU DOS BISCAINHOS
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The Museu dos Biscainhos is housed
in a distinguished property that
consists of a building and its gardens
constructed and enlarged during the
7th and 8th centuries making it a
significant testimony to the Baroque
period and improved during the first
half of the 9th. It therefore allows us a
continued and synthesizing insight into
the society and culture of the era for
the whole period in question.
From the middle of the nineteen
eighties, the museum opted to place
the chief emphasis of its museological
work on researching and disseminating
information about daily life during the
ancien rgime, an era of remarkable
importance for Portuguese history.
This decision stemmed from a
considered assessment of several factors:
the relevant importance of the
Baroque period for the Minho region
and in particular for the city of Braga,
the site of notable growth due to
archiepiscopal power, in terms of a
desired interrelationship between the
museum and its surroundings;
introduction
LEFT
Casa dos Biscainhos.Ink and wash drawing on paper. From Mappa das Ruas de Braga (Map of the Streets of Braga). 1750. Arquivo Distrital de Braga.
the preservation of the original
structure of the palace and gardens
and the characterisation of this
heritage, which extends artistically
from the Baroque to the neoclassical
and Empire;
consistency in the articulation of
the above points with the museums
collections, namely, decorative arts,
painting, sculpture and engravings
dating from the centuries in question.
The current contents of the museum
are presented as an examination of the
7th to early 9th centuries as reflected
in the inner world and domestic privacy
of a seigneurial house.
Within the scope of the museums
overall objective, the present guide
provides a contextualized tour through
the tastes, traditions, emotions, art,
thought and life of Portuguese society
during the period under analysis.
Museu dos Biscainhos, 004.
Teresa de Almeida dEa
FoLLoWING PAGE
MAPPA/(D)A/CIDADE/DE/BRAGA PRI/MAS. Circa 1755. Andr Ribeiro Soares da Silva (attrib.). IPPAR/Biblioteca da Ajuda.
MUSEU DOS BISCAINHOS
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MUSEU DOS BISCAINHOS
The Museum, history and collectionsThe contextfrom Roman empire to archiepiscopal fiefdom
The city of Braga, whose roots lie deep
in time, has a history going back two
thousand years and predates the
founding of the nation. It grew out of
settlements inhabited by the Bracari
who, at the end of the rd century BC,
were subjugated by the power of the
Roman Empire.
Bracara Augusta, the Roman city,
was elevated to the status of capital of
the Roman province of Galecia in the
rd century AD.
Since that distant time, Christianity
has woven the spiritual fabric of the
city, whose first bishop was consecrat-
ed in the year 400.
There followed a string of invasions,
by the Suevi, Visigoths and Arabs, the
latter arriving at the beginning of the
eighth century.
In reaction to these successive
attacks, efforts were made to revive
Braga in the th century. In the
following century, the Count and
Countess Dom Henrique and Dona
Teresa, in gratitude for the assistance
provided during the struggle to found
the nation, handed control of the city
and its surroundings to the archbish-
ops, who governed with absolute rule.
Over the centuries, several notable
figures have stood out for their role in
influencing the shape of the city,
particularly Archbishop Dom Diogo de
Sousa, who, in the 6th century,
imposed a new scale on the city that
was simultaneously humanist and
grandiose, instigating the beginning of
a process of growth that has been
continuous ever since.
In national terms, the 8th century
represented a period of substantial
economic prosperity stemming from
the gold, diamonds and agricultural
goods brought from the Brazilian
colony. In addition, the expansion of
corn maize cultivation in Portugal
afforded significant growth, especially
in the northwest. In the mid-seventeen
hundreds, Braga had a population of
around 7,000, robust trade and
significant industry, producing bells,
sails, silk and damask, pieces of
goldsmithery, tinsmithery and tanning.
Cabinet-making, sculpture, carving and
painting workshops proliferated.
In the heart of the Minho, and Braga
in particular, favourable conditions
existed for the special development of
art. Stimulated by the desire to serve
God, the archbishops, wielders of great
power, intensively fomented the
different expressions that enlarged
the city structure.
The prelates favoured buildings of a
religious nature, to which were added
several seigneurial houses belonging to
the northern nobility, giving the city a
monumental character that the 7th
and 8th centuries, the golden age of
the Baroque, consolidated in richness
and opulence.
In 750, the cathedral chapter, in order
to organise its vast built heritage,
which included a significant part of
Braga, conducted a series of surveys
that today constitute, in global terms,
a rare resource for understanding and
interpreting life in an 8th century Eu-
ropean city: the ndice dos Prazos das
Casas do Cabido (Index of the Leases
of the Houses in the Chapter) and the
Mappa das Ruas de Braga (Map of
the Streets of Braga) the latter of
incalculable value for the study of soci-
ology, urbanism, architecture and the
history of art1 which documents the
design of the facades of 4,064 houses
existing at the time.
Dating from around 755 is an-
other document of great interest, the
MAPPA (D)A CIDADE DE BRAGA PRI-
MAS (MAP OF THE CITY OF BRAGA
PRIMAS), attributed to Andr Soares.
This is a highly detailed record of the
urban layout and respective place
names that identifies thirty places of
worship, among them churches, chap-
els, convents and seminaries, as well as
public and private buildings.
