Acciaioly (Zenobio)
Son of Simão Acciaioly, recorded by Gaspar Frutuoso as owning a sugar mill on the old Rua Direita in Funchal; a street once bore the family name.
He was the son of Simão Acciaioly, the first to come to this island bearing that surname. Referring to the Rua Direita (‘straight street’), which then ran along the bank of the Ribeira de Santa Luzia (‘St Lucy’) perhaps as far as the present Ponte do Torreão (‘turret’), Gaspar Frutuoso says ‘that the generous and wealthy Zenobio Acciaioly had a sugar mill (engenho) there’. Was this Zenobio the same Zenobio who was the son of Simão Acciaioly, or another? We do not know.
The present Rua do Bettencourt and a small part of the adjoining Rua dos Ferreiros (‘blacksmiths’) once bore the name Acciaioly, and it may be presumed that the Acciaioly family’s sugar mills stood near them, on the banks of the stream.
In this article
Place
Places mentioned · 05
- Ponte do Torreão
Funchal. Bridge marking the probable extent of the old street.
The Ponte do Torreão is a bridge in Funchal that replaced an earlier wooden bridge and gives the Torreão entry its name. Rua dos Ferreiros ends at it, and it is repeatedly used as the reference point for the former extent of Rua Direita.
- Ribeira de Santa Luzia
Funchal. Stream along which Rua Direita ran.
The Ribeira de Santa Luzia is one of the three streams crossing Funchal, named after a chapel of Santa Luzia on its left bank. Its banks were probably the first land irrigated by levadas and had four sugar mills in the late 17th century. It feeds the Santa Luzia, Moinhos and D. Isabel levadas, and the Jesuits' Fundoa residence stood on its right bank.
- Rua Direita
Funchal. Street where Zenobio had a sugar mill.
An early Funchal street existing in 1508, on which the church of São Bartolomeu, an old customs house and the seminary's first house stood. D. Jerónimo Barreto lived there and Zenobio Acciaioly had a sugar mill there. It was hit by a shell in the 1916 bombardment.
- Rua do Bettencourt
Funchal. Street formerly named Acciaioly.
Street in Funchal, formerly named Acciaioly, situated at one end of Rua do Phelps.
- Rua dos Ferreiros
Funchal. Part of it formerly bore the Acciaioly name.
Rua dos Ferreiros is an old Funchal street, already in existence in 1508, whose western half forms part of the boundary between the parishes of Sé and São Pedro. It gave access to the Aulas do Pátio, which housed the lyceum until 1914, and the newspaper Patriota Funchalense had its press and office at no. 7. The first suspected case of plague in 1905 occurred there.
People
People mentioned · 03-
Son of Simão Acciaioly, said to own a sugar mill on Rua Direita.
- Gaspar Frutuoso1522–1591
Chronicler who recorded Zenobio's sugar mill.
- Simão Acciaiolyd. 1544
His father, first Acciaioly in Madeira.