EnglishThe City’s Fortification System
São Luís, Maranhão, Brazil
Military Architecture
Nothing now remains of what was once the cradle of the city. Apart from two circular half-bastions dating from 1650 and overlooking the water – the “half-oranges” – now included in the Seaside Promenade, everything else has disappeared: from the Fort Saint-Louis with its wooden palisade from 1612 at the top of the acropolis, a 30-metre-high cliff that plunges vertically into the sea below, to the triangular, bastioned stone fortress that covered it in 1627 (of which one can see a corner outside the Palace...), as well as the triangular Government Palace that was built over it, enlarged in 1730 and repaired after 1776 by the governor Melo e Póvoas. There still remains the Palace of the Lions, also triangular, and an eclectic work from 1865, recently restored and the most beautiful seat of government in northern Brazil. But only an excavation using sophisticated modern methods for detecting wood, moats and earth movements will someday be able to reveal the numerous things hidden under the Palace. Campo de Ourique is the name of the vast empty terrain where, as in Lisbon, the city ended in the 17th century, at the end of Rua da Paz and Rua do Sol, encircled by dense scrubland. A garrison was located there in single-storey houses and in 1723 a barracks was planned to house 1333 soldiers. The work began in 1792 using masonry brought from Lisbon, but it was interrupted in 1797, due to excessive spending, while still only half-finished. It was a remarkable work: a two-storey rectangle with a central courtyard measuring 64 metres at the front by 170 metres deep (the Overseas Historical Archive still houses the beautiful neoclassical project). Much of the masonry was used in the State Public Library, built on the same site in 1930. Fortress of Ponta d’Areia – the spit of sand that runs between the sea and São Marcos Bay, between the city and the other bank of the estuary of the River Anil – the João Dias Point – had been highly coveted for its strategic importance for a long time. A small stronghold in 1618, it was laid out in a circle in 1675, like the Fortress of Bugio at the entrance to Lisbon. After much debate, it was built in stone in 1692 in keeping with the design of the State engineer Pedro de Azevedo Carneiro and given the name of the Fortress of Santo António da Barra. It was debated in 1718 whether it should be altered to a square floor plan in order to prevent silting (it was the subject of a series of studies in 1740 at the Court’s Academy of Fortification, with plans by José Custódio de Sá e Faria – app) but the old plan was the one that prevailed. A drawing in the National Library shows the fortress in the late 18th century with the terrace made of flagstones brought from Lisbon so as to avoid the advance of the sand and the pounding of the waves. It is a circular wall nearly 50 metres (22 braças) in diameter, with a 2-metre-high parapet and cordon, and 7 metres in height. Nowadays, it is just 1-2 metres. above the level of the sand due to silting. The ignorance of the authorities led them to believe that this was the original height of the wall and to see the fort as the chapel, powder magazine, prison, command post and barracks in the open air, all of which was carefully restored on the top of a tiny fortress! This has resulted in the gradual disappearance of its 22 canons and in the destruction of the parapet and parts of the wall of the real fortress, which were mistaken for its foundations. We cannot say that the fortress has disappeared; it is simply half-buried. Fortress of Saint Francis – The fleet of Alexandre de Moura disembarked in 1615 at the São Francisco Point, in the jungle at the mouth of the River Anil before the Ponta d’Areia. He ordered the building of a fort made of rammed earth (pau-a-pique), where the French immediately signed the act of surrender. Rebuilt before 1666, the system designed to defend the access to the island of São Luís was thus completed. It was rebuilt in 1720 on the orders of King João V by the engineer Custódio Pereira during the governorship of Pereira de Berredo, according to Vauban’s rules. The walls were 4 metres thick and the moat 5 metres deep. It was enlarged by the engineer Manuel Fernandes Goetz in 1762 to order to mount 21 cannons. It was the strongest of the thirteen forts of Maranhão and the first to be built “in the Vauban style” in Brazil. Turned into a government holiday home in the 19th century, its surroundings are now the busiest and most modern quarter in the new city, serving as the banking and commercial centre, while also containing many modern hotels.