Direita (street)
Original title: Direita (Rua)
Rua Direita is an old street in the Sé parish of Funchal. It was once one of the city's largest and most important streets, where the bishop D. Jerónimo Barreto lived and where the church and hostel of São Bartolomeu stood.
It lies in the parish (freguesia) of the Sé and links the Largo do Pelourinho (‘pillory’) with Rua 31 de Janeiro, formerly Rua da Princesa.
It is an old public thoroughfare, short and of secondary importance compared with other streets of this city. Among the streets of old Funchal, however, it was one of the most important and also one of the longest, beginning at the Pelourinho and running along the left bank of the Ribeira de Santa Luzia (‘St Lucy’s stream’) to the vicinity of the Torreão (‘turret’). Gaspar Frutuoso, writing of it in 1590, says that it was ‘a great, wide street and the largest in the city’, adding that Bishop Dom Jerónimo Barreto (1574–1585) had there ‘his very rich lodgings, with their cool gardens’. In this old street stood the church of St Bartholomew (São Bartolomeu) and its hospice (albergaria), and some of the most distinguished people of Funchal had their residences there.
In this article
Time
Years mentioned · 02Place
Places mentioned · 08- Rua Direita · Subject
Funchal
Rua Direita is an old street in the Sé parish of Funchal, once one of the city's largest and most important. The bishop D. Jerónimo Barreto lived there, and it was the site of the church and hostel of São Bartolomeu.
- Church of St Bartholomew
Funchal. The church and hostel formerly stood on this street.
The Igreja de São Bartolomeu was a former church on Rua Direita in early Funchal, founded by Gonçalo Eanes de Velosa with an attached hospice for poor clergy. It housed the Jesuits from 1566, as their second temporary home, and was demolished in the 19th century.
- Funchal
The city in which the street lies.
The capital of the archipelago and seat of the principal captaincy, where settlement began; it was made a vila c.1451–52. Its bay, the widest in the archipelago, lies between Ponta do Garajau and Ponta da Cruz and offers sheltered anchorage, though its harbour had never been studied oceanographically. The Elucidário discusses it as a health resort with climate data and records the January 1906 disturbances, the Danish prince's visit in May 1846 and recent volcanic cones in the area.
- Largo do Pelourinho
Funchal. The square at one end of the street.
Largo do Pelourinho is a Funchal square, already tree-planted in 1508, through which the Forte de São Filipe was entered. The council occupied a house there from 1838 that was damaged by the 1842 flood; it also held a passo of the Procissão dos Passos, the Talia society's premises, and was where Francisco Rodrigues Jardim was hanged in effigy.
- Ribeira de Santa Luzia
Funchal. The street once ran along its left bank.
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 31 de Janeiro
Funchal. Street, formerly Rua da Princesa, that Rua Direita joins.
Rua 31 de Janeiro in Funchal is the present name of the former Rua da Princesa, popularly called Rua das Árvores; it is joined by Rua Direita and ends at Rua do Monteiro. The Associação Funchalense built the permanent building of the Escola Lancasteriana there.
- Sé
Funchal. The parish in which the street lies.
The Sé is the central urban parish of Funchal, lying wholly within the city, split from Santa Maria Maior in 1557 and seated in the cathedral; it is the city's commercial, administrative and official heart. The Elucidário records its churches, notable buildings, judicial role as starting point of the eastern comarca, and several notable people born there, and notes that the Bugio belongs to it administratively.
- Torreão
Funchal. The old street extended almost as far as this point.
The Torreão is a small square and bridge in Funchal on the old pilgrim route to Monte, rebuilt in masonry by Governor Diogo Forjaz Coutinho in 1787. Nearby stood Hinton's sugar factory, the island's main industrial plant, and the second American-vine nursery.
People
People mentioned · 02- Gaspar Frutuoso1522–1591
Chronicler who in 1590 described Rua Direita as the largest street in Funchal.
- Jerónimo Barreto1543–1589
Bishop of Funchal (1574–1585) who had rich lodgings with gardens on Rua Direita.