Residences of Zarco

Pinpointing the places where João Gonçalves Zarco built his dwelling houses is certainly not essential to the history of Madeira, nor is it a central point of inquiry for the biography of the illustrious navigator and coloniser of our archipelago. Even so, there is some interest in knowing with complete accuracy where he made his home and where he spent the three or four decades of his long stay on this island. These places deserve from the public authorities, and especially from the administrative bodies based in Funchal, the respect and veneration that are everywhere paid to the objects and things closely bound up with the lives of great men. To identify with absolute precision the buildings and grounds most intimately connected with his life is to awaken in Madeirans the veneration owed to his memory, and to encourage generous initiatives that aim to perpetuate, worthily and here among us, that same glorious and unforgettable memory.

The historian of the islands relates: ‘. . . Captain João Gonçalves Zarco... sheltering the ships by the islets that lie off the cape (cabo) of this lugar (settlement ranking between a town and a parish), because there was a fine cove there, resolved to build his wooden dwelling on land, which he at once built right beside the sea on a high spot, where the captain’s wife (capitoa, wife of the captain-donatary) Constança Rodrigues later founded a church of St Catherine.’ This was Zarco’s first settlement, and the chapel that the navigator’s wife had built was also the first place of worship erected on Madeira. The small, primitive chapel underwent several rebuildings and repairs over the centuries; the present chapel is a building of the middle or end of the 17th century. It is nonetheless the only building in Funchal that truly recalls the discovery. As such, it ought to be religiously preserved. In its smallness, its modesty and its poverty, it commemorates the beginning of our brilliant maritime discoveries, and for Madeirans it stands, besides the discovery, for the start of the settlement and colonisation of this archipelago. The chapel still bears on the threshold of its portal the date 1425, which marks the year of the original construction. It was beside this small church that João Gonçalves Zarco had his first residence for some years, built perhaps of the rich, fragrant cedars that grew everywhere in dense forests. It was no doubt a more than modest and uncomfortable dwelling, of a single storey and stripped of all architectural display, as were all the earliest houses built here. We read somewhere that only later did a man named João Manuel build in the Campo do Duque (‘duke’s field’) the first two-storey house, made of dressed cedar wood, which caused no small wonder at the time.

From the solitary retreat of Santa Catarina (‘St Catherine’) – for the first and densest core of population, with its houses, took shape on the left bank of the easternmost stream (ribeira) of Funchal – Zarco directed the first work of colonisation and laid the foundations of the future town (vila), which progressed rapidly and grew extraordinarily even in his lifetime. There he would dream of the progress of the captaincy of which he was donatary (donatário), and of the rise of the house he had founded, glimpsing in the near future the honours and privileges that would be heaped upon his descendants and successors. Perhaps he had guessed that the monarch would reward him with the marks of nobility and the use of a coat of arms, already seeing his grandsons’ patents of nobility adorned with the coronet of count and of grandees of the Kingdom (reino, i.e. mainland Portugal), in homage to the services rendered by their grandfather. . .

A few years later Zargo moved his residence to the left bank of the stream, at the foot of the hill later known as Pico dos Frias (‘the Frias’ peak’), close to the chapel he had built there with the dedication to St Paul. This is said to have been the first stone-built dwelling house to be raised in Funchal. In this vicinity the first hospital was built, on land donated by Gonçalves Zargo in 1454. It operated there for some years, until it moved to the left bank of the Ribeira de João Gomes.

João Gonçalves Zargo does not seem to have stayed very long in his first two residences. He settled for good, and spent the greater part of his life, in the immediate vicinity of the spot where he built the church of Conceição de Cima. An old manuscript says: ‘he resolved also to build a dwelling for himself, as he did, on a height above the valley of Funchal: and directly opposite, a church of Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception (Nossa Senhora da Conceição) as a family vault for himself and his kin, which they began to call Nossa Senhora de Cima, because it was founded on a stump of cliff at the foot of a peak’. It is in this church, which later took the name of the Convent of St Clare (Santa Clara), that the mortal remains of the illustrious navigator lie, and it was surely in the dwelling houses he built nearby that he ended his earthly career. We read in the manuscript already cited: ‘the great Gonçalves Zargo reached such old age that he had himself carried in men’s arms to be set in the sun, which greatly invigorated him. From there he disposed the affairs of his jurisdiction, governing and administering justice with his understanding whole, never suffering the feebleness of a decrepit man’.

On the strength of various documents that we have examined closely, we have been able to establish, for the first time, that Gonçalves Zargo’s old residence corresponds to the former manor house of the Lomelino entailed estate holders (morgados), which today still bears the name of Quinta das Cruzes (‘estate of the crosses’). Over the centuries, however, it has undergone such profound alterations that at present nothing of the original building is likely to remain.

It seems that this old and noble residence remained in the possession of his descendants. It is certain that a century after his death it belonged to his grandson Pedro Gonçalves da Câmara, who was married to Dona Joana de Eça, chief lady of the bedchamber to Queen Catherine. In 1575 it was in the usufruct and possession of a grandson of this couple, also named Pedro Gonçalves da Câmara, who by public deed of 16 September of that year sold it to his close kinsman Francisco Gonçalves da Câmara, grandson of João Gonçalves Zargo. It was this Francisco Gonçalves da Câmara who was governing the captaincy of Funchal, in the absence of his nephew João Gonçalves da Câmara, the sixth donatary (donatário), when in 1566 this city was attacked by French corsairs, who carried out a terrible sack here and massacred some three hundred people. Gaspar Frutuoso stated in 1590 that Gonçalves da Câmara lived near the convent of the Holy Cross (Santa Cruz) ‘in a great and sumptuous palace’.

This house passed into the possession of a daughter of Francisco Gonçalves da Câmara, named Dona Joana de Noronha, and then to her son António de Carvalhal Esmeraldo, who owned it in 1624. At the end of the 17th century it belonged to Francisco Esmeraldo Henriques, who founded there the chapel of Our Lady of Pity (Nossa Senhora da Piedade). The date 1692 is still visible at the top of its doorway, but the deed of grant dates from 1695, and it was in that year that religious worship began there. In this chapel there is a marble burial vault said to hold the mortal remains of Urbano Lomelino, founder of the convent that once stood in the town (vila) of Santa Cruz (‘Holy Cross’) and one of the founders of the Lomelino family on this island. The house at Cruzes was incorporated into the entailed foundation (instituição vincular, a morgado or capela) of this important entailed estate (morgadio), probably through marriage, in a year we cannot determine. It remained in this family until our own day, and a few years ago became the property of the barons of Jardim do Mar (‘garden by the sea’).

This is a fitting moment to make special mention of the two-handed sword (montante) of João Gonçalves Zargo, which was always kept in this house. A constant tradition, handed down from generation to generation within the family that owned it, holds beyond doubt that it belonged to the illustrious coloniser. It was always regarded as such, and the deep veneration paid to that relic there at all times further confirms the truth of its origin. It is an old weapon, made to be wielded with both hands, and not remarkable for the fineness of its workmanship. It certainly has no intrinsic or artistic value, but it is worth a great deal for its five hundred and more years of existence and, above all, for having belonged to the great navigator who colonised this archipelago. It is perhaps the sword that Gonçalves Zargo wielded in Morocco in his charges against the Moors, winning fame as a brave and daring knight. This venerable relic is in this city in the hands of a foreigner, who keeps it with the esteem it truly deserves. It ought, however, to be in the possession of the Municipal Council (Câmara Municipal) of this city. It is the duty of this administrative body to arrange its acquisition and keep it reverently in its archives until it can take its worthy place in the museum of art and antiquities that must one day be founded in this city (1921).

The two-handed sword attributed to João Gonçalves Zargo is today in the Municipal Museum.