Paper short abstract:

This paper deals with the perceived connections between ancient imperial Rome and Lisbon, with the rhetorical and literary strategies behind this link, and with the actual connections between both cities as Catholic centres of power and recipients of splendid architectural interventions.

Paper long abstract:

The eulogy pronounced after the death of D. João V of Portugal in 1751 highlighted the efforts of the deceased monarch in the "foundation of this new Rome". The argument obviously mixed imaginary referents located in the ancient past with actual connections to Rome and its architectural programme. The phrase worked well both within a Christian and a imperial context, and it also updated a way of describing Lisbon that had already been put into motion two centuries earlier. Lisbon had been characterized as a new Rome by authors like Camões, who wrote that "heaven was determined to make Lisbon a new Rome", Nunes do Leão, Coelho Gasco, Faria e Sousa, etc. Descriptions of the actual city mingled with imagined comparisons to the imperial capital and Latin poets and historians provided the words to speak of Lisbon as "imperial princess" or "common fatherland".

Some of this episodes have received scholarly attention, but the general story that lies behind the topic of Lisbon as a new Rome still awaits to be unfolded. This paper will trace such a general overview to reflect on the political and social uses of the perceived connections between Rome and Lisbon. I will analyse the rhetorical strategies and literary contexts within which the imperial past was received and transformed. I will also show how the received image of an imperial capital was projected into a concrete urban space and altered the perceptions and expectations of those who contemplated it and lived in it.