Jardim Municipal (Municipal Garden) 1Creation, naming and improvements
Jardim Municipal (Municipal Garden)
Original title: Jardim Municipal
History of Funchal's Municipal Garden, laid out from 1880 on the grounds of the former Franciscan convent, covering its funding, successive names, lighting, a monument to the first Lisbon–Madeira aviators and its notable plants.
Abroad
1Creation, naming and improvements
On 21 February 1878 the Funchal Municipal Council (Câmara Municipal do Funchal) appointed a committee of councillors (vereadores) charged with promoting, under the supervision of the civil governor, the laying out of gardens on the convent grounds of the former Convent of São Francisco (St Francis of Assisi) and on the land between those grounds and the Praça da Constituição (‘Constitution Square’). The land to the west of the Praça da Constituição was laid out as a garden shortly afterwards, but work on the São Francisco convent grounds did not begin until August 1880; the design and plan of the garden that exists there were approved by the Council on 15 September 1881. To meet the costs of this work, the Council first allocated the sum of 15 contos, diverted from the loan of 69,980,000 réis (old Portuguese money of account; 1$000 = 1,000 réis, 1:000$000 = one conto = 1,000,000 réis) taken out in 1883 with the Companhia Geral do Credito Predial, and then the sum of 19,980,000 réis, from another loan taken out the following year with the same company.
In October 1880, while the first work was being carried out on the site of the former convent of São Francisco, there was found, according to a document of the time, ‘a stone serving as the lid of a small cavity cut into another stone, in which were found some remains that appeared to be of rotted parchment’. The stone, or lid, was ordered to be deposited in the Municipal Archive, where, however, it is not to be found. It bore the following inscription in gilt letters: D. Ma. Iª. Rainha de P. Pio VI, P. M. Fr. Bernardo N. E. P. D. U. S. C. ‘Julho 1780’.
On 1 October 1885 the Council gave the new garden the name Jardim Municipal, but on 6 September 1897 this name was replaced by Jardim D. Amélia, which it kept until 27 October 1910, when it was resolved to restore the name given to the grounds in 1885. Electric lighting was inaugurated there on 21 March 1902, and in 1916 this lighting was improved, since it had already been recognised in 1911 that the wires carrying the power were in poor condition.
On 28 March 1921, at 5 p.m., before an enormous crowd, the ceremony was held of laying the foundation stone of the monument that Mr Henrique Vieira de Castro is to have erected in the Jardim Municipal in honour of the aviators who first made the Lisbon–Madeira flight. After being signed by the authorities present at the ceremony, the minutes were sealed, together with some coins, in an iron casket, which the civil governor placed in the foundations of the work (1921).
2Plants and origins of the site
The first plants introduced into the Jardim Municipal came from Paris, and others later arrived from Porto and a few other places. Among the species growing there at present, the following deserve special mention: Pritchardia filifera, Phoenix canariensis and Trachycarpus excelsus, highly ornamental palms; Dammara australis and Ginkgo biloba, broad-leaved conifers; and Wigandia macrophylla, Astrapaea Wallichii, Jossinia tinifolia, Plumiera lutea, Pterocarya japonica, Negundo fraxinifolium and Alsophila excelsa. On 29 August 1888 the Council resolved to buy twenty-nine panes of glass to build a greenhouse, which still exists today in the Jardim Municipal. Some curious species grow in it, chiefly begonias and maidenhair ferns.
The land and building of the convent of São Francisco, where the Jardim Municipal stands, were ceded to the Council by decree of 7 November 1844.
In this article
Time
Years mentioned · 12-
Date of an inscription on a stone later found in the convent grounds of the Jardim Municipal.
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A decree ceded the land and building of the São Francisco convent in Funchal to the council, for law courts; the site later became the Municipal Garden.
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On 21 February the Funchal council appointed a committee to lay out gardens on the São Francisco convent grounds, and the small garden was built that year.
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Work began on the Funchal municipal garden in the enclosure of the Convento de São Francisco; in October an inscribed stone dated 1780 was found during the works.
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Funchal council approved the design of the Municipal Garden.
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Funchal council took a loan from the Companhia Geral do Crédito Predial, part of which was used for the municipal garden.
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The Funchal garden was named Jardim Municipal.
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The council bought glass panes for the Municipal Garden's greenhouse.
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Funchal's municipal garden was renamed Jardim D. Amélia.
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Electric lighting was inaugurated in Funchal's Municipal Garden.
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The republican municipal commission of Funchal renamed streets and places, creating Avenida João Gonçalves Zarco, restoring the name Jardim Municipal and annulling the name of the Leite Monteiro park.
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The foundation stone of the monument to the first Lisbon–Madeira aviators was laid in the Jardim Municipal of Funchal.
Place
Places mentioned · 07- Jardim Municipal · Subject
Funchal
The Jardim Municipal is Funchal's public garden, laid out from 1880 on the grounds of the former Franciscan convent in the parish of São Pedro. It is bounded by Rua do Conselheiro to the west and Rua Hermenegildo Capelo to the south, and stands next to the Scottish church. It holds the monument to the first Lisbon–Madeira aviators and the bust of João Fernandes Vieira, and it was hit in both bombardments of Funchal.
- Convent of St Francis
Funchal. Former convent whose grounds became the garden.
The Convento de São Francisco was a Franciscan convent in Funchal founded in 1473, which marked the western limit of the city in 1508. Its church was demolished in 1865, and its fittings, books, tombstones and bones went to the Angústias cemetery, the museum and the Municipal Library. Its buildings briefly lodged prisoners until 1836 and housed the police in 1857.
- Funchal
Municipality whose council created the garden.
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.
- Funchal Municipal Archive
Funchal. Where the inscribed stone was sent, though it is no longer there.
The Arquivo Municipal do Funchal is the municipal archive of Funchal. It holds the still-blank book of the Funchal annals, and an inscribed stone from the Jardim Municipal was sent there, though it is no longer there.
- Paris
France. Source of the garden's first plants.
The French capital, where Franco de Sousa settled and painted 'Ar livre', and where Juvenal Honório de Ornelas took his medical doctorate in 1834. Padre Luiz Gonçalves da Câmara studied there and met Loyola, and the Barão de Ornelas graduated, practised and died there.
- Porto
Portugal. Source of later plants.
A Portuguese city, where the 1820 liberal revolution began and whose district is the only one denser than Funchal's. Several Madeirans studied at its medical school or Academia Politécnica, and some lived or died there. The editor of O Funchalense Liberal was hanged there, and Marítimo beat FC Porto there in 1922.
- Praça da Constituição
Funchal. Square adjoining the garden; land to its west was laid out first.
The Praça da Constituição was a former square in Funchal, earlier called Passeio Público, named after the liberal constitution proclaimed there on 28 January 1821. It was called Praça Real under D. Miguel, became Praça da República in 1911, and disappeared in 1914 when the Avenida Oeste was built. It adjoined the Municipal Garden and was a terminus of the tramway.
People
People mentioned · 04-
Friar named on the 1780 inscription unearthed in 1880.
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Sponsor of the monument to the first Lisbon–Madeira aviators in the garden, begun in 1921.
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Queen of Portugal named on the 1780 inscribed stone found during the garden works.
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Pope named on the 1780 inscribed stone found in the convent grounds.