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History

Sintra

UNESCO World Heritage

The human presence in Sintra had its beginning several millennia.
 
By connecting different among which stands out its peculiar climate provided by orographic mass constituting the Sintra hills reasons.
 
The fertility of their land as well as the relative proximity of the estuary of the Tagus river without forgetting the influence of the presence of old Olissipo (Lisbon) probable foundation Tartéssica during the first half of the 1st millennium BC Lisbon current. The most ancient evidence of occupation in Human Experience located in the northern part of the ridge of the Serra de Sintra – it is the occupation of Epipaleolitica Penha Verde where abundant utensils microlaminar type were collected. Testimony of an ancient Neolithic occupation is located in St. Peter of Canaferrim, near the chapel of the Moorish Castle.
 
Santa Eufemia, arises Habitat us an Iron Age, in which fuse elements of indigenous and other features uniquely Mediterranean origin (mainly Punic) dating back to the fourth century BC Romanity during the whole region of Sintra fits the vast territory of the civitas Olisiponense, which Caesar around 49 BC Octaviano or more probably about 30 B.C. grants the enviable status Municipum Civium Romanorum.
 
All indications are that have existed a village located southeast of Sintra which was inhabited since the II / I centuries BC the d.c. V a route would connect this cluster to rural areas located southeast of Serra and most likely there entroncaria roadside Olisipo. As the Roman custom of placing the burial mounds along the exit routes and habitats here also detected traces belonging to terse funerary monuments, which fall, in general, the dc séc.II
 
Domain Muslim – Early texts explicitly occupy the town Sintra (a Xintara Arabic) since the Greco-Roman authors only refer to their hills. Sintra is now presented us (Séc.X), a dscrição the Geographer Albacr fixed by Al-Munim Al-Miari as one of the villages that depend Andaluz in Lisbon, near the sea. Other coeval texts indicate it as the most important town on the heels of Lisbon, in this territory. The Lion King Alfonso VI following the fall of the Caliphate of Cordoba in 1031 and a conjuncture of internal instability among the various Muslim Rates Peninsula but especially the decision of the King of Badajoz, Al Mutawakkil, to put under their protection against the threat Almoravid. Alfonso VI eventually take possession of the cities of Lisbon, Santarém and Sintra Castle between 30 April and early May 1093. Sintra would be re-occupied by the Moors and only after the conquest of Lisbon in October 1147, by Afonso Henriques aided by Crusaders who Sintra – whose trim Castle surrenders to the King in November – is definitely integrated into Christian space, in the context of the conquest of other cities: Almada and Palmela.

Shortly after taking possession of the castle, Afonso Henriques then founded the Church of St. Peter of Canaferrim. On January 9, 1154 Afonso Henriques granted charter to the town of Sintra with its perks during the 3rd quarter of the eighteenth century and throughout the nineteenth century practically is the romantic spirit of estranjeiros rating and the Portuguese aristocracy rediscovering the magic Sintra and its people, but above all the exoticism of its landscape and its climate.
 
Here comes the summer of 1787, William Beckford, guest 5th Marquis of Marialva, equerry Mor the UK, residing in your property Seteais and it is here that even Princess Carlota Joaquina, wife of conductor D.João, buy in principle nineteenth century, the fifth and the palace of Ramalhão, between 1791 and 1793 Gerard Devisme builds on its extensive Quinta de Monserrate neo-Gothic mansion whose design – that is the English architect is supposed to – it was not yet assigned safely. . Beckford, who had remained in Sintra .Devisme leases the property in 1794 and is still the exoticism of this landscape shrouded in fog a good part of the year which attracts another English, Francis Cook – the second tenant of Monserrate after Beckford and the expense of which is built the pavilion of oriental taste that we know today – among a number of foreign magnates who here is going living in palaces, mansions and chalets that are building or rebuilding as the potential of this unusual natural environment.
 
The big tourist complex this (nineteenth) century Sintra is undoubtedly the Pena Palace, a remarkable work of Portuguese romanticism, an initiative of the king-consort D. Fernando II, husband of Queen D. Maria II (1834-1853), a German house of Saxe-Gotha Gobourg. The palace, built on the remains of the old monastery of Jerónimo XVI Century – but keeping him basic parts (the church, the cloister, some dependencies) – is a unique eclectic architecture that was not continued in the Portuguese art. Project Baron Eschwege and D.Fernando II itself, if replace the Palace of Vila while summer resort of the court. After Sintra, in the months of September and October in Cascais is the court of King Louis I (1861-1889) and King Carlos I (1889-1908) ends the summer.
 
During the 1st half of the twentieth century are based in Sintra specifically targeted institutions for the study and protection of its vast artistic heritage that is worth noting, in the twenties, to the Historical Institute of Sintra, under the aegis of Afonso Ornelas. Archaeological studies in this period had a considerable development. In 1917, Félix Alves Pereira rediscovered the Neolithic village of Santa Eufémia, and the first news about the prehistoric monument of Praia das Maçãs in 1929.
 
Thanks to De Groer plan dating from 1949 and which was prepared to defend the village and its immediate surroundings predictable urban assaults, was thankfully respected and contributed decisively to Sintra and its Serra are today practically anything we were in nineteenth century.  
Historical heritage, environmental and anthropological roots of millennial. Sintra is today had a place in qualifying cultural landscape that is stated as assets that are identified today as in the past – domestic and foreign.