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- Convenor:
-
Sidh Losa Mendiratta
(Universidade Lusófona do Porto)
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- Location:
- Bloco 1, Sala 0.06
- Start time:
- 14 July, 2017 at
Time zone: Europe/Lisbon
- Session slots:
- 2
Short Abstract:
At the centre of a vast maritime network, Old Goa functioned as a vital space of encounter and cultural exchanges during the Early Modern period. These exchanges left a wide array of marks upon the city's socio-cultural identities, urban shape, and built-up heritage.
Long Abstract:
During the Early Modern period, the port city of Old Goa became the node of a vast and diverse maritime network, further connected overland to the regional capitals of southern India. The city's society evolved through the encounter of Asian, European and African cultures, negotiating a wide diversity of identities and practices within the colonial and frontier framework of its Portuguese period. These cross-cultural exchanges also influenced Old Goa's cityscape and built-up heritage, as architecture and art in particular assumed a strong visual rhetoric. Compromise and adaptation at various levels permeated experimentations in conversion, stratification and segregation, as the city developed into the gateway and capital of Christian missionary enterprise in Asia. And as Old Goa entered a long period of decline from the early 17th century onwards, eventually leading to its ruin and abandonment, its wanes reflected those of the Estado da Índia in general, as it dealt with the challenges of European and Indian rivals.
This panel welcomes papers that address these issues, focusing on the history and heritage of Old Goa, in its broadest senses, through multidisciplinary perspectives. Of particular relevance are themes relating cultural encounter, exchange and compromise to the city's culture and its built environment, within the context of its maritime network. Themes addressing the city's decline and abandonment process are also welcome, as are those that focus on issues related to the study and conservation of its heritage.
Accepted papers:
Session 1Alice Santiago Faria (CHAM-NOVA FCSH-UAc)
Paper short abstract:
This presentation will look into the history and heritage of the old city of Goa between 1843 and the early 20th century, a period marked by a systematic dismantling of the city but also by attempts to preserve Old Goa monuments.
Paper long abstract:
In 1843 Nova Goa was created and became the capital of the Portuguese Estado da India. It was the end of a long history of hesitations concerning the change of the capital that had started in early 17th century. Yet, this wasn't the end of the history of abandonment and ruin for the old capital of Portuguese India.
This presentation will look into the history and heritage of the old city of Goa between 1843 and the early 20th century, a period marked by a systematic dismantling of the city but also by attempts to preserve Old Goa monuments.
Fernando Velho (Independent Researcher)
Paper short abstract:
Built from 1747 onwards, the church and convent of N. Sra. do Carmo at Chimbel, Goa, has been all but forgotten by architectural historians. Housing the Cloistered Carmelites, an order for Goan clergy of non-Brahmin background, the ruins of the church are a surprising element of Goa's heritage.
Paper long abstract:
This paper addresses the history and architecture of the church and convent of N. Sra. do Carmo, Chimbel, an 18th century religious structure built to house missionary clergy of Goan origin with non-Brahmin background. The present-day ruins of the church and convent are scantly known both inside and outside Goa. Through a topographical survey of the ruins of the church and documental research into the structure's history, we propose to unravel the importance of N. Sra. do Carmo for Goa's history, and demonstrate its heritage value within the larger scope of architecture of Portuguese influence in India. Contextualising the convent's creation within the decline and exodus from the city of Old Goa, we will access its impact in the development of Chimbel and Ribandar, halfway between Old Goa and Pangim. We will also address the eventful history of the Cloistered Carmelites of Chimbel, including the excommunication process by the archbishop fr. Manuel de São Gualdino, in the early 1800s, known as the "Cisma de Chimbel", a prelude to the well-known Schism of Goa in the mid 19th century.
Nuno Miguel de Lopes (CES/Universidade de Coimbra)
Paper short abstract:
Goa’s defensive system developed by the Portuguese, has indelibly influenced the composition of the contemporary territory. Understanding this defensive system implies understanding its significance: an organising, aggregating network of the territory, a defining element of the Goan identity.
Paper long abstract:
Old Goa, this region's capital for three centuries, corresponds to the core of Tiswadi. The island, the base where the Portuguese settled in and from which they pushed forward their frontiers, corresponds to the heart of this territory, the last and fundamental stronghold to be preserved.
Having experienced both shocks and cultural dissemination, resistance and military alliances, battles on land and sea, joined by technological evolution - of weaponry, of naval power and, above all, of answers produced by military architecture, a main mark which subsides in the territory - as time flew by the Portuguese managed to sustain gradual growth, from the Old to the New Conquests, thus indelibly influencing the composition of the contemporary territory.
Currently, understanding the development of Goa's defensive system - at the scale of the fortified structure (the architectural interpretation, the goals, the transformations which took place and their significances) and from the standpoint of the ensemble (mutual relationships based in logics of territorial disposition and organisation, progressive bordering (re)definitions and consequent leading to the creation of new communities or transformation of pre-existing ones) - implies understanding the significance of a network aggregating the territory and, as such, a decisive element in the definition of the Goan identity.
R. Benedito Ferrão (William Mary)
Paper short abstract:
This paper will examine how Rushdie’s novel, Midnight’s Children, uses the early modern history of sea-ports and maritime trade to underscore the postcolonial location of characters and their Lusophonic connections as subaltern legacies subsumed in post-British India.
Paper long abstract:
In having Mary Pereira/Braganza be Goan, Midnight's Children brings into focus the significant utility of his character's native land in the European imperial history of South Asia. Mary Pereira evokes the figure of Goa as one of the earliest colonies and then the last foreign dominion (1510-1961) in what was to become modern day India. In adopting the Braganza moniker, the character recalls an important historical moment in the making of coloniality. The 1662 marriage of Catherine of Braganza to Charles II was orchestrated to secure the relationship between two colonial powers. Through the alliance, England received the port city of Bombay as dowry.
Further, in renaming herself after the Portuguese infanta, Mary Pereira also evokes that other Catherine. On 25 November, 1510, Afonso de Albuquerque took the port of Goa. It was the feast day of Saint Catherine of Alexandria, and the Portuguese conqueror believed she had overseen his defeat of the Muslim ruler of the enclave. This conquest changed the course of commercial relations between Europe and Asia, displacing Middle Eastern trade hegemonies. Simultaneously, the site where Saint Catherine discovered her faith - North Africa - doubly pagan and quintessentially "other" in the later Occidental imagination is also the continental location from which sprung the Moors: Muslims who once ruled over Iberia.
By centring on the iconic naming and renaming of Mary Pereira in Midnight's Children, I will argue that the novel uses the history of the ports of Goa and Bombay to challenge the Anglo-centrism of postcolonial thought in relation to India, especially by highlighting maritime commerce.
Mónica Esteves Reis (CHAM/Fundação Oriente)
Paper short abstract:
A Religious Order at the margins of Padroado, the Grand Duke Cosimo III from Florence-Italy and Guarino Guarini, they all relate to shape the baroque of Goa churches.
Paper long abstract:
The historical documentation in the Directorate of Archives and Archaeology in Goa as enabled to reach interesting conclusions regarding the artistic modus operandi of the Theatines in Goa. This religious order started its action in Goa in 1640 without the knowledge of the Portuguese Padroado and after a few mishaps where able to build the church of Divine Providence between 1656 and 1661. In c.1675 and 1710, they launch two distinct and important artistic campaigns for the altarpieces in the church. Both have artistically shaped Goa. This presentation will highlight the visual and written documentation behind the statements.
Ana Teresa Teves Reis (Faculty of Fine-Arts, University of Lisbon) Antonio Candeias (University of Evora)
Paper short abstract:
This portrait gallery’s purpose was to emphasize the Portuguese’s achievements overseas as well as their precedence in ultramarine territories. Their current conservation condition misrepresents what was once an amazing collection and rises misinterpretation issues that need to be urgently addressed
Paper long abstract:
In 1547, Vice-Roy D. João de Castro entered triumphant in Goa after his victory in the second siege of Diu, an event widely described throughout history which justified the commission of a portrait for the main Acts Room at Sabaio Palace.
He also decided to dignify the memory of the former rulers which preceded him and asked the chronicler Gaspar Correia to point out to a local painter their physiognomic characteristics. The ruler's portrait became a tradition until the last General Governor.
This gallery created an imposing and reverent background to all diplomatic events. Chroniclers and voyagers testified its grandeur and decay, parallel to Old Goa's fate. In fact, we believe it was the partial abandon of this collection in the Fortaleza Palace trough 125 years (from 1695 until 1820) which led to the degradation of the paintings and justified a major, but poor, 'renovation' intervention, in 1840 before transferring to Nova Goa. Later, Captain Gomes da Costa also tried to dignify their figure, thus adding a new layer.
Coeval documentation gives information regarding the artistic quality of these paintings, as well as their iconographic and documental value to ultramarine history and art history. Ongoing investigations reveal that some of the early portraits are missing and were replaced by later portraits and that others are hidden behind layers from the 1840's renovation.
Such as in Old Goa, a thorough stratigraphic survey is required to trace the hidden place of these 'treasures', towards the scientific 'excavation' of this unique heritage.
Nadia Rodrigues (Faculty of Humanities, University of Coimbra)
Paper short abstract:
The existence nagas - Hindu and Buddhist aquatic deities - inside the catholic churches of Goa is commonly understood as an appropriation of the indigenous mythology created by Jesuits, in order to convert. Nonetheless, these entities attributes and ornaments suggest an additional interpretation.
Paper long abstract:
Nagas (masculine) and naginis (feminine) are hybrid figures - half human, half cobra -, genius and royals of the underwater world, who are present in both Hindu and Buddhist mythologies. In Goa, namely in Tiswadi, they became popular along the 17th and 18th centuries. Inflamed by the baroque aesthetics, with voluptuous lines and covered by gold these figures were positioned under the pulpits - as part of the narrative scene carved in these structures. Deeply symbolic, their existence has been questioned along the times and the interpretation that sees it as partly naga, partly mermaid, - once in most of the cases the tail end as a flipper - due to the influence of Portuguese seamen. A closer regard into these figures offers different hypothesis and perspectives. Some of them are related to the modification of the appearance: tails that show profound scars, which suggest that, for some reason, they have been intervened and probably modified; or an unnatural aspect of their upper body that make they look like male entities with female faces. Others are related to their attributes and ornaments, videlicet the wide range of fruits, leafage, pearls and shells that either fell from their mouths or cover their bodies. This apotheosis of a luxuriant nature - marine and earthly - will find parallels in other exquisite pieces which, though apparently detached from those, share the same symbolic meaning.
Sidh Losa Mendiratta (Universidade Lusófona do Porto)
Paper short abstract:
Under Portuguese rule, Old Goa's urban fabric expanded for about one century, until the time when the city's economic stagnation and decline became manifestly visible along its cityscape. Focusing on the history of the built landscape, I will describe and map process, from 1510 to ca. 1615.
Paper long abstract:
Reflecting the trajectory of the "Estado Índia", Old Goa, its capital between 1530 and 1843, had a meteoric growth and a slow and agonising decline. After a long period of ruin and abandonment, Old Goa is today growing again, and new urbanized areas will soon replace the palm tree groves and jungle overgrowth that covers the archaeological structures and artefacts dating back to the Early Modern period. Only a handful of religious buildings and sites will be left standing, barely hinting to a disappeared city. Once this re-urbanization process come full-circle, the architectural and urban history of Old Goa will enter a new chapter, and its Indo-Portuguese layer will cease to be a concern for the archaeologist, remaining solely a matter for the historian.
This paper addresses the period of Old Goa's history under Portuguese rule from its conquest in 1510 to ca. 1615, the time when the city's economic stagnation and decline became manifestly visible along its cityscape and urban fabric. Focusing on the history of the built landscape, I will make use of archaeological and architectural studies produced during the last hundred years or so, as well as primary and secondary sources important to the city's history.