São Tiago (fortress)
Original title: São Tiago (Fortaleza de)
The Fortress of São Tiago on the Funchal waterfront, dated 1614 and rebuilt in 1767, later housing a mountain artillery battery.
Abroad
This fortress,’ says Dr Álvaro Rodrigues de Azevedo in the notes to the ‘Longing for the Homeland’ (Saudades da Terra), ‘stands on a point of solid rock that juts further into the waters of the harbour than the neighbouring beaches, so that it watches over and protects them on either side; it is, moreover, the end of the curtain wall that runs up to it along the Cabo do Calhau (‘end of the pebble shore’). The original building did not have the first battery that exists there now: the primitive portal lies inside this battery and bears at the top, in lettering of the period, the date 1614, which attests when the work was done.
The fortress of São Tiago was rebuilt in 1767, as an inscription over the main gate, in the south-east corner of the entrance square, shows. The governor and captain-general José Correia de Sá had 50 pieces of artillery, with all their equipment, brought from London for its defence.
No. 3 Battery of Mountain Artillery is quartered in the fortress of São Tiago. See fortifications (Fortificações).
In this article
Time
Years mentioned · 02Place
Places mentioned · 03- Fortress of São Tiago · Subject
Funchal
A fortress on the Funchal waterfront at the eastern end of the landing shore, dated 1614 during Spanish rule and rebuilt in 1767; it later housed a mountain artillery battery. Prisoners were held there in 1823 and 1828, the Republican flag was raised there on 7 October, and it fired during the 1916 bombardment of Funchal.
- Cabo do Calhau
Funchal. Area along which the curtain wall ran up to the fortress.
Cabo do Calhau was a former locality beside the Chapel of Corpo Santo in Funchal, which marked the city's eastern limit at the end of the sixteenth century. Butchers were ordered to slaughter cattle there in 1495, and the curtain wall ran along it to the Fortaleza de São Tiago.
- London
United Kingdom. Origin of the artillery pieces sent for the fortress.
The British capital, the place of publication of many English works on Madeira, including those of the du Canes, Embleton and Bloxam. Mason compared its humidity with Funchal's, and artillery for the Fortress of São Tiago came from there. It hosted the 1909 applied chemistry congress.
People
People mentioned · 02- Álvaro Rodrigues de Azevedo1825–1898
Annotator of the Saudades da Terra, quoted for his description of the fortress.
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Governor and captain-general of Madeira who ordered 50 guns from London for the fortress rebuilt in 1767.