A CIDADE BRANCA

LAND+CITY+URBAN+SCAPE | 781 | TARANTO | ITALY | GOOGLE EARTH

LAND+CITY+URBAN+SCAPE | 730 | FLORENCE | ITALY | GOOGLE EARTH

LAND+CITY+URBAN+SCAPE | 714 | VILA REAL DE SANTO ANTÓNIO | PORTUGAL | GOOGLE EARTH

Vila Real de Santo António (Portuguese pronunciation: [ˈvilɐ ʁiˈaɫ ðɨ ˈsɐ̃tu ɐ̃ˈtɔniu], often run together as[ˈvilɐ ʁiˈaɫ dɨ sɐ̃tɐ̃ˈtɔnju]) is a city, civil parish, and municipality in the Algarve, Portugal.^[1] It is one of the few municipalities in Portugal without territorial continuity: its territory comprehends two parts, with the municipal seat located in the eastern part. Both the city and the municipality are the southeasternmost of Portugal. Vila Real de Santo António was founded after the 1755 Lisbon earthquake, and largely expanded in 1774 using the same architectural and construction techniques employed in the reconstruction of Lisbon after the disaster.

The city is situated next to the Guadiana river. Before the construction of the Guadiana International Bridge (in its neighboring upstream municipality of Castro Marim) it used to be the easiest access to Portugal from Andalusia (via ferry from the Spanish city of Ayamonte across the river). Nevertheless, international movement of people and goods is still intense and much visible in the city.

LAND+CITY+URBAN+SCAPE | 713 | VILA REAL DE SANTO ANTÓNIO | PORTUGAL | GOOGLE EARTH

The history of settlement in the region pre-dates the Pombalinan community of the 18th century. The coastline area of Vila Real was inhabited by Megalithic tribes who constructed beehive tombs in the around Nora, near Cacela. The Romans, and much later the Arabs, made the settlement of Cacela an important village during their occupation of the territory, constructing fortifications to protect them from invading bands.

In 1240, Paio Peres Correia, master of the military Order of Santiago established Cacela as his point of departure for the reconquest of the Algarve, during theReconquista. Small settlements were eventually established near the Cacela, including many medieval fishing villages, such as Santo António de Arenilha along the coast.

In the 17th century, the vila (town) of Santo António was an important frontier outpost, controlling commerce and developing the lucrative fishing grounds, there establishing canning and conservation industry. Vila Real de Santo António was a relatively recent community; the region was sparsely populated prior to its foundation and Cacela was the municipal seat of the existing municipality. For centuries, Castro Marim was the only large town guarding the border with Spain, and the settlements in the region were small and undefended. On 30 December 1773, during the reign of Joseph I, a royal decree ordering the creation of a new town at the tip of the Algarve. The impetus for this decision is unclear, but there was several justifications for enhancing the settlement of the region, which included: increasing the human presence near the Spanish border, to prevent any incursions; to better control duties charged on cross-border activity; to be better defend the region from a full scale attack; or to provoke Spain with a modern settlement that was easily seen from Ayamonte; or to simply rebuild the nearby town fishing village of Santo António de Arenilha and resettle its population. Santo António de Arenilha was destroyed by the same tsunami that was triggered by the devastating 1755 Lisbon earthquake.

Regardless, the settlement was erected at great speed for the time (in only two years) and completed in 1776 using the latest technologies. The Marquis of Pombal was responsible for its planning, designing the town in a Pombaline orthogonal grid, which he also used during the reconstruction of Lisbon. In a pioneering technique, entire buildings were prefabricated in areas outside the town, and then transported to their final destination to be assembled, which permitted a fast and methodical construction of the town. Along the river, the customhouses (Portuguese: Alfândega), was one of the first buildings to be completed during the Pombaline reconstruction, to house the offices of the Sociedades das Pescarias (fishing associations/societies), and dividing the settlement in two. Vila Real de Santo António thrived on the growth of the fishing industry, which included the processing of species of tunaand sardine.

The new “Royal Town” of Santo António (Portuguese: Vila Real de Santo António) soon became the seat of the municipality, stripping the once important town of Cacela from this status. Cacela had, in the intervening years, gone into a steady decline as a result of the 1755 earthquake and attacks fromEnglish pirates and privateers.

In 1886, it became the first city in the Algarve to have gas lighting installed.

As the fishing industry went into decline (around the 1960s), tourism quickly took over as the principal economic livelihood for many of its residents. The extensive stretches of sandy beaches attracted both national and international tourists, especially during the warm season. Monte Gordo is particularly visitor-oriented, counting with many hotels, bars and a casino.

LAND+CITY+URBAN+SCAPE | 712 | VILA REAL DE SANTO ANTÓNIO | PORTUGAL | GOOGLE EARTH

LAND+CITY+URBAN+SCAPE | 711 | VERSAILLES | FRANCE | GOOGLE EARTH

The earliest mention of the name of Versailles is in a document dated 1038, relating to the village of Versailles. In 1575, the seigneury of Versailles was bought by Albert de Gondi, a naturalized Florentine, who invited Louis XIII on several hunting trips in the forests surrounding Versailles. Pleased with the location, Louis ordered the construction of a hunting lodge in 1624. Eight years later, Louis obtained the seigneury of Versailles from the Gondi family and began to make enlargements to the château. This structure would become the core of the new palace.^[2] Louis XIII’s successor, Louis XIV, had it expanded into one of the largest palaces in the world.^[3] Following the Treaties of Nijmegen in 1678, he began to gradually move the court to Versailles. The court was officially established there on 6 May 1682.^[4]

After the disgrace of Nicolas Fouquet in 1661, Louis confiscated Fouquet’s state and employed the talents of Le Vau, Le Nôtre, and Le Brun, who all had worked on Fouquet’s grand château Vaux-le-Vicomte, for his building campaigns at Versailles and elsewhere. For Versailles, there were four distinct building campaigns.^[5]

LAND+CITY+URBAN+SCAPE | 710 | VERSAILLES | FRANCE | GOOGLE EARTH

The first building campaign (1664–1668) commenced with the Plaisirs de l’Île enchantée of 1664, a fête that was held between 7 and 13 May 1664. The first building campaign (1664–1668) involved alterations in the château and gardens to accommodate the 600 guests invited to the party. (Nolhac, 1899, 1901; Marie, 1968; Verlet, 1985)

The second building campaign (1669–1672) was inaugurated with the signing of the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, which ended the War of Devolution. During this campaign, the château began to assume some of the appearance that it has today. The most important modification of the château was Le Vau’s envelope of Louis XIII’s hunting lodge. (Nolhac, 1901; Marie, 1972; Verlet, 1985) Significant to the design and construction of the grands appartements is that the rooms of both apartments are of the same configuration and dimensions – a hitherto unprecedented feature in French palace design. Both thegrand appartement du roi and the grand appartement de la reine formed a suite of seven enfilade rooms. The decoration of the rooms, which was conducted under Le Brun’s direction, depicted the “heroic actions of the king” and were represented in allegorical form by the actions of historical figures from the antique past (Alexander the Great, Augustus, Cyrus, etc.). (Berger, 1986; Félibien, 1674; Verlet, 1985)

With the signing of the Treaty of Nijmegen in 1678, which ended the Dutch War, the third building campaign at Versailles began (1678–1684). Under the direction of the architect, Jules Hardouin-Mansart, the Palace of Versailles acquired much of the look that it has today. In addition to the Hall of Mirrors, Hardouin-Mansart designed the north and south wings and the Orangerie. Le Brun was occupied not only with the interior decoration of the new additions of the palace, but also collaborated with Le Nôtre’s in landscaping the palace gardens (Berger, 1985; Thompson, 2006; Verlet, 1985).

Soon after the defeat of the War of the League of Augsburg (1688–1697), Louis XIV undertook his last building campaign at Versailles. The fourth building campaign (1699–1710) concentrated almost exclusively on construction of the royal chapel designed by Hardouin-Mansart and finished by Robert de Cotte. There were also some modifications in the appartement du roi, namely the construction of the Salon de l’Œil de Bœuf and the King’s Bedchamber. With the completion of the chapel in 1710, virtually all construction at Versailles ceased; building would not be resumed at Versailles until some twenty one years later during the reign of Louis XV (Nolhac, 1911; Marie, 1976, 1984; Verlet, 1985).

LAND+CITY+URBAN+SCAPE | 709 | VERSAILLES | FRANCE | GOOGLE EARTH

During the reign of Louis XV, Versailles underwent transformation, but not on the scale that had been seen during the reign of Louis XIV. The first project in 1722 was the completion of the Salon d’Hercule. Significant among Louis XV’s contributions to Versailles were the petit appartement du roi; theappartements de Mesdames, the appartement du dauphin, and the appartement de la dauphine on the ground floor; and the two private apartments of Louis XV – petit appartement du roi au deuxième étage (later transformed into the appartement de Madame du Barry) and the petit appartement du roi au troisième étage – on the second and third floors of the palace. The crowning achievements of Louis XV’s reign were the construction of the Opéra and the Petit Trianon (Verlet, 1985). Equally significant was the destruction of the Escalier des Ambassadeurs (Ambassadors’ Stair), the only fitting approach to the State Apartments, which Louis XV undertook to make way for apartments for his daughters.

The gardens remained largely unchanged from the time of Louis XIV; the completion of the Bassin de Neptune between 1738 and 1741 was the only important legacy Louis XV made to the gardens (Marie 1984; Thompson, 2006; Verlet 1985). Towards the end of his reign, Louis XV, under the advice ofAnge-Jacques Gabriel, began to remodel the courtyard facades of the palace. With the objective revetting the entrance of the palace with classical facades, Louis XV began a project that was continued during the reign of Louis XVI, but which did not see completion until the 20th century (Verlet, 1985).

Much of Louis XVI’s contributions to Versailles were largely dictated by the unfinished projects left to him by his grandfather. Shortly after his ascension, Louis XVI ordered a complete replanting of the gardens with the intention of transforming the jardins français to an English-style garden, which had become popular during the late 18th century (Verlet, 1985). In the palace, the library and the salon des jeux in the petit appartement du roi and the decoration of thepetit appartement de la reine for Marie-Antoinette are among the finest examples of the style Louis XVI (Verlet, 1945; 1985)

LAND+CITY+URBAN+SCAPE | 708 | VERSAILLE | FRANCE | GOOGLE EARTH

On 6 October 1789, the royal family had to leave Versailles and move to the Tuileries Palace in Paris, as a result of the Women’s March on Versailles.^[6]During the early years of the French Revolution, preservation of the palace was largely in the hands of the citizens of Versailles. In October 1790, Louis XVI ordered the palace to be emptied of its furniture, requesting that most be sent to the Tuileries Palace. In response to the order, the mayor of Versailles and the municipal council met to draft a letter to Louis XVI in which they stated that if the furniture was removed, it would certainly precipitate economic ruin on the city (Gatin, 1908).^[7] A deputation from Versailles met with the king on 12 October after which Louis XVI, touched by the sentiments of the residents of Versailles, rescinded the order. However, eight months later, the fate of Versailles was sealed.

On 21 June 1791, Louis XVI was arrested at Varennes after which the Assemblée nationale constituante accordingly declared that all possessions of the royal family had been abandoned. To safeguard the palace, the Assemblée nationale constituante ordered the palace of Versailles to be sealed. On 20 October 1792 a letter was read before the National Convention in which Jean-Marie Roland de la Platière, interior minister, proposed that the furnishings of the palace and those of the residences in Versailles that had been abandoned be sold and that the palace be either sold or rented. The sale of furniture transpired at auctions held between 23 August 1793 and 30 nivôse an III (19 January 1795). Only items of particular artistic or intellectual merit were exempt from the sale. These items were consigned to be part of the collection of a museum, which had been planned at the time of the sale of the palace furnishings.

In 1793, Charles-François Delacroix deputy to the Convention and father of the painter Eugène Delacroix proposed that the metal statuary in the gardens of Versailles be confiscated and sent to the foundry to be made into cannon (Gatin, 1908). The proposal was debated but eventually it was tabled. On 28 floréal an II (5 May 1794) the Convention decreed that the château and gardens of Versailles, as well as other former royal residences in the environs, would not be sold but placed under the care of the Republic for the public good (Fromegot, 1903). Following this decree, the château became a repository for art work seized from churches and princely homes. As a result of Versailles serving as a repository for confiscated art works, collections were amassed that eventually became part of the proposed museum (Fromegot, 1903).

Among the items found at Versailles at this time a collection of natural curiosities that has been assembled by the sieur Fayolle during his voyages in America. The collection was sold to the comte d’Artois and was later confiscated by the state. Fayolle, who had been nominated to the Commission des arts, became guardian of the collection and was later, in June 1794, nominated by the Convention to be the first directeur du Conservatoire du Muséum national de Versailles (Fromageot, 1903). The next year, André Dumont the people’s representative, became administrator for the department of the Seine-et-Oise. Upon assuming his administrative duties, Dumont was struck with the deplorable state into which the palace and gardens had sunk. He quickly assumed administrative duties of the château and assembled a team of conservators to oversee the various collections of the museum (Fromageot, 1903).

One of Dumont’s first appointments was that of Huges Lagarde (10 messidor an III (28 June 1795), a wealthy soap merchant from Marseille with strong political connections, as bibliographer of the museum. With the abandonment of the palace, there remained no less than 104 libraries which contained in excess of 200,000 printed volumes and manuscripts. Lagarde, with his political connections and his association with Dumont, became the driving force behind Versailles as a museum at this time. Lagarde was able to assemble a team of curators including sieur Fayolle for natural history and, Louis Jean-Jacques Durameau, the painter responsible for the ceiling painting in the Opéra, was appointed as curator for painting (Fromageot, 1903).

Owing largely to political vicissitudes that occurred in France during the 1790s, Versailles succumbed to further degradations. Mirrors were assigned by the finance ministry for payment of debts of the Republic and draperies, upholstery, and fringes were confiscated and sent to the mint to recoup the gold and silver used in their manufacture. Despite its designation as a museum, Versailles served as an annex to the Hôtel des Invalides pursuant to the decree of 7 frimaire an VIII (28 November 1799), which commandeered part of the palace and which had wounded soldiers being housed in the petit appartement du roi (Gatin, 1908)

In 1797, the Muséum national was reorganised and renamed Musée spécial de l’École française (Dutilleux, 1887). The grands appartements were used as galleries in which the morceaux de réception submitted by artists seeking admission to the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture during the 17th and 18th centuries, the series The Life of Saint Bruno by Eustache Le Sueur and the Life of Marie de Médicis by Peter Paul Rubens were placed on display. The museum, which included the sculptures in the garden, became the finest museum of classic French art that had existed (Verlet, 1985).

LAND+CITY+URBAN+SCAPE | 707 | VERSAILLE | FRANCE | GOOGLE EARTH

With the advent of Napoléon and the First Empire, the status of Versailles changed. Paintings and art work that had previously been assigned to Muséum national and the Musée spécial de l’École française were systematically dispersed to other locations and eventually the museum was closed. In accordance to provisions of the 1804 Constitution, Versailles was designated as an imperial palace for the department of the Seine-et-Oise.^[8]

While Napoléon did not reside in the château, apartments were, however, arranged and decorated for the use of the empress Marie-Louise. The emperor chose to reside at the Grand Trianon.

The château continued to serve, however, as an annex of the Hôtel des Invalides (Mauguin, 1940–1942; Pradel, 1937; Verlet, 1985). Nevertheless, on 3 January 1805, Pope Pius VII, who came to France to officiate at Napoléon’s coronation, visited the palace and blessed the throng of people gathered on the parterre d’eaufrom the balcony of the Hall of Mirrors (Mauguin, 1940–1942).

The Bourbon Restoration saw little activity at Versailles. Areas of the gardens were replanted but no significant restoration and modifications of the interiors were undertaken, despite the fact that Louis XVIII would often visit the palace and walk through the vacant rooms (Manse, 2004; Thompson, 2006). Charles X chose the Tuileries Palace over Versailles and rarely visited his former home (Castelot, 2001).

With the Revolution of 1830 and the establishment of the July Monarchy, the status of Versailles changed. In March 1832, the Loi de la Liste civile was promulgated, which designated Versailles as a crown dependency. Like Napoléon before him, Louis-Philippe chose to live at the Grand Trianon; however, unlike Napoléon, Louis-Philippe did have a grand design for Versailles.

In 1833, Louis-Philippe proposed the establishment of a museum dedicated to “all the glories of France,” which included the Orléans dynasty and the Revolution of 1830 that put Louis-Philippe on the throne of France. For the next decade, under the direction of Eugène-Charles-Frédéric Nepveu and Pierre-François-Léonard Fontaine, the château underwent irreversible alterations (Constans, 1985; 1987; Mauguin, 1937; Verlet, 1985). The museum was officially inaugurated on 10 June 1837 as part of the festivities that surrounded the marriage of the Prince royal, Ferdinand-Philippe d’Orléans with princess Hélène of Mecklenburg-Schwerin and represented one of the most ambitious and costly undertakings of Louis-Philippe’s reign. Over, the emperor at the king’s home – Napoléon at Louis XIV’s; in a word, it is having given to this magnificent book that is called French history this magnificent binding that is called Versailles (Victor Hugo).^[9]

The aile du Midi, was given over to the galerie des Balles, which necessitated the demolition of most of the apartments of the Princes of the Blood who lived in this part of the palace during the Ancien Régime. Thegalerie des Batailles was an epigone of the Grande galerie of the Louvre and was intended to glorify French military history from the Battle of Tolbiac (traditionally dated 495) to the Battle of Wagram (5–6 July 1809). While a number of the paintings displayed in the galerie des Batailles were of questionable quality, a few masterpieces, such as the Battle of Taillebourg by Eugène Delacroix, were displayed here. Part of the aile du Nord was converted for the Salle des Croisades, a room dedicated to famous knights of the Crusades and decorated with their names and coats of arms. The apartments of the dauphin and the dauphine as well as those of Louis XV’s daughters on the ground floor of the corps de logis were transformed into portrait galleries. To accommodate the displays, some of the boiseries were removed and either put into storage or sold. During the Prussian occupation of the palace in 1871, the boiseries in storage were burned as firewood (Constans, 1985; 1987; Mauguin, 1937; Verlet,1985).

LAND+CITY+URBAN+SCAPE | 706 | VERSAILLE | FRANCE | GOOGLE EARTH

Pierre de Nolhac arrived at the Palace of Versailles in 1887 and was appointed curator of the museum in 1892.^[10] Nolhac began to restore the palace to its appearance before the Revolution.^[11] Nolhac also organized events aimed at raising the awareness of potential donors to the Palace. The development of private donations led to the creation of the Friends of Versailles in June 1907.

Under the aegis of Gérald van der Kemp, chief conservator of the museum from 1952 to 1980, the Palace witnessed some of its most ambitious conservation and restoration projects: new roofing for the galerie des glaces; restoration of the chambre de la reine; restoration of the chambre de Louis XIV; restoration of the Opéra (Lemoine, 1976). At this time, the ground floor of the aile du Nord was converted into a gallery of French history from the 17th century to the 19th century. (Kemp, 1976; Meyer, 1985)

LAND+CITY+URBAN+SCAPE | 705 | VALENCIA | SPAIN | GOOGLE EARTH

LAND+CITY+URBAN+SCAPE | 704 | TOLEDO | SPAIN | GOOGLE EARTH

LAND+CITY+URBAN+SCAPE | 703 | SEVILLE | SPAIN | GOOGLE EARTH

LAND+CITY+URBAN+SCAPE | 702 | SEVILLE | SPAIN | GOOGLE EARTH