Palácio de São Lourenço

Referring to the fortress of São Lourenço, Frutuoso says the following on p. 84 of ‘Longing for the Homeland’ (Saudades da Terra): ‘and just as it has water within, it lacks neither horse-mills, ovens nor granaries for storing provisions, and rich lodgings where the captain resides, adorned with their garden and cool greenery’.

It is therefore clear that in 1590, when ‘Longing for the Homeland’ was written, the highest authority of the archipelago – at that time Tristão Vaz da Veiga, captain-major (capitão-mor, commander of the local militia) of war and governor-general – resided at São Lourenço. And if we read the same Frutuoso’s description of the sack of the city of Funchal by French corsairs in 1566, it is also clear that the fortress already had rooms and other accommodation in that year.

Dr Azevedo says that the fortress of São Lourenço has been called a palace only since the end of the 18th century, because it was the residence of the highest military and civil authorities of the archipelago. It should be added that the living quarters of the building underwent more or less notable alterations at different times.

In 1689 works were carried out on the quarters of São Lourenço at a cost of 1,007,000 réis (old Portuguese money of account; 1$000 = 1,000 réis, 1:000$000 = one conto = 1,000,000 réis), as shown by a warrant of the Council of the Treasury (Conselho da Fazenda) dated 8 November of the same year. On 14 May 1699 a fire broke out in the same quarters, and the damage was repaired with money from the fortification funds, raised under the responsibility of the captain-general (capitão-general, military governor of Madeira) and the superintendent (provedor).

We have read in two English works on Madeira that the palace of São Lourenço underwent great alterations, being partly rebuilt, during the occupation under General Beresford in 1808. If this is true, it did not prevent Governor Botelho, twelve years later, from requesting various works on the same palace, some of them very urgent.

In 1820 the building had ‘four rooms facing a corridor that ended at the bastion on the west of the island’. In the second of these rooms an open staircase led down to a courtyard 176 palmos long and 86 wide, which was entered through the gate of the fortress.

An examination of the view of the São Lourenço Palace that accompanies the Descripção da ilha da Madeira drawn up in 1817 by Paulo Dias de Almeida shows that, on the side of the building facing the sea, there were then balcony windows only on the west side, two of them at the western end of the less projecting part of the building; the remaining windows were identical to those of the present residence of the military commanders. It was towards the end of the third quarter of the 19th century that the residence of the civil governors underwent major alterations inside and out: new balcony windows were built and the ceilings of the rooms on the seaward side were raised. We believe that the work was completed in 1873 or 1874. The residence of the military commanders was not improved at the same time, owing to obstacles raised by Colonel Macedo e Couto, then military governor of Madeira.

Before the proclamation of the Republic, one of the rooms in the part of the São Lourenço Palace occupied by the civil authority held a collection of portraits of former governors, among them that of João Gonçalves Zarco.

The building of the São Lourenço Palace once included the chapel that existed in Funchal dedicated to the same saint, which we believe disappeared in the third quarter of the 19th century.

The chapel had its own chaplains. The first of whom we have found any record is Father José da Costa de Lima, appointed in 1641, who received as his salary ‘whatever a soldier’s pay amounted to’.

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On gala days the household service passed through the chapel, the altar being covered with a curtain.

A document from the first quarter of the 19th century records that the governors’ residence always had a room of its own hung with crimson silk, with a canopy, and beneath it the Royal Effigy of the Kings of Portugal, where on solemn days the nobility, clergy and authorities gathered to render, in the august presence of those royal effigies, the tribute of their faithful allegiance’.

Decree no. 29,742 of 12 July 1939 granted a subsidy to the District General Council (Junta Geral do Distrito) to carry out various repair and adaptation works, long needed, in several parts of the São Lourenço Palace (‘St Lawrence’).