SURVEYS AND DEBATES

The CNCDP Years^[1]

Tiago C. P. dos Reis Miranda²

² CIDEHUS-UÉ, Évora, Portugal. E.Mail: trmiranda@uevora.pt

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ABSTRACT

After presiding over the Scientific Council of the National Commission for the Commemoration of the Portuguese Discoveries, Joaquim Romero Magalhães held the position of Commissioner-General from February 1999 to November 2002. He focused his attention on the 500th anniversary of Pedro Álvares Cabral’s voyage to Brazil. This text recalls some of the main aspects of those celebrations and presents a personal view on events and circumstances that have yet to be made public.

Keywords: Brazil; Commemoration; Cultural Diplomacy; Discoveries; Letter of Pêro Vaz de Caminha

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RESUMO

Após presidir o Conselho Científico da Comissão Nacional para as Comemorações dos Descobrimentos Portugueses, Joaquim Romero Magalhães desempenhou funções de Comissário-Geral entre fevereiro de 1999 e novembro de 2002. O foco da sua atividade foi o advento dos 500 anos da viagem de Pedro Álvares Cabral. Apresentam-se aqui alguns dos mais importantes aspetos dessas celebrações e um testemunho sobre episódios e circunstâncias ainda não divulgados.

Palavras-chave: Brasil; Comemorações; Diplomacia Cultural; Descobrimentos; Carta de Pêro Vaz de Caminha

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I first entered into contact with Joaquim Romero Magalhães late in 1998, at the suggestion of Fernanda Olival and through the intervention of Francisco Bethencourt.^[3] At that time, I had just completed my PhD thesis in Social History at the University of São Paulo, where I had also undertaken my previous academic training despite being born in Lisbon. Joaquim Romero Magalhães was the President of the Scientific Council of the Comissão Nacional para as Comemorações dos Descobrimentos Portugueses (CNCDP-National Commission for the Commemoration of the Portuguese Discoveries) and the coordinator of the program of activities for the 500th anniversary of Pedro Álvares Cabral’s voyage to Brazil. He was also expected to soon be confirmed as the successor of António M. Hespanha as the Commissioner-General of the CNCDP.

I was then living once again in Portugal and, for some years, had gradually grown used to functioning as a kind of “facilitator” of the studies or working missions of Brazilian researchers on this side of the Atlantic. I would perhaps be considered a “hybrid” with “cross-cultural skills” and rumor had it that Joaquim Romero Magalhães was having difficulty in finding the desirable balance between the appropriate qualifications and sensitivities for his new team of assistants. I now calculate, therefore, that it was with some curiosity and perhaps a slight interest that he agreed to consider the suggestion of my name.

I do not entirely recall the circumstances of our first meetings, but I do clearly remember that our very first encounter was over lunch in a modest restaurant, close to the Casa dos Bicos.^[4] He was a relaxed and affable man, inquisitive and with a huge appetite- which I later discovered to be quite usual. I was shy and embarrassed but tried to match up to the description that he might perhaps have been provided with. After some time, and to my relief, I realized that we shared similar historiographical and personal references, mainly because he had spent some months as a visiting professor in the History Department of the Faculty of Philosophy, Languages and Human Sciences at the University of São Paulo in 1991 and 1997.

I believe that this conversation resulted in an informal proposal being made for me to participate in a project of Luso-Brazilian microbiogaphies, to be published in the newspapers. Shortly afterwards, when he was already the Commissioner-General, Romero Magalhães also entrusted me with the task of delivering an opinion on the idea of a large exhibition of original works in Washington, which, despite being recommended by the highest political authorities, threatened to undermine the plans already existing at the CNCDP. I believe that the way in which I performed this “test” contributed to his presenting me with the challenge of taking over as the head of his office, coupled with the promise of participating in the scientific design of one of the major exhibitions of historical works due to be held in Lisbon in the first semester of the following year.

The main lines of the program for the Brazil commemorations were, at that time, relatively well defined. Together with the “museological” aspect, there was also another one relating to exhibitions of panels and posters,^[5] a third one, linked to seminars, talks, and conferences, a fourth one linked to publications, and also a fifth one relating to audiovisual products, shows, and concerts. These areas could be further subdivided into two or three blocks, each placed under the supervision of more than one of the six members of the executive committee, who, in turn, coordinated teams of quite different sizes. It should, in fact, be remembered that at the beginning of Joaquim Romero Magalhães’s term of office as Commissioner-General, in February 1999, the CNCDP occupied two buildings in Lisbon’s riverside district and a large warehouse in São João da Talha,^[6] where altogether over one hundred collaborators worked. Some of them enjoyed the status and tenure of civil servants. Most, however, were employed on fixed-term contracts, had been at the CNCDP for more than three years, and nourished the hope that afterwards they would be able to work for the state, knowing that it would not be easy to achieve and that time was already running out. After all, the last great anniversary in the cycle of the “Discoveries” was due to occur in just over six months’ time; everything pointed to the fact that the CNCDP would come to an end thereafter and be disbanded.

Romero Magalhães envisaged that his mandate would last for just over two years. The first year would essentially be spent finalizing some activities still connected with India and, above all, preparing projects about Brazil. The second year, which would possibly extend until December 2001, would be devoted to completing the planned program and making a final assessment and report on the Commission’s activities, which might include a proposal for a new state structure, into which the CNCDP’s collaborators could be incorporated. The key moment in this timetable was, however, the period from March 9 to May 2 or 3, 2000, which coincided with the 500th anniversary of Pedro Álvares Cabral’s departure from Belém and the end of his stay in Porto Seguro. Romero Magalhães believed that most of the planned activities would need to be concentrated into this roughly eight- week period, as this would be the only way of guaranteeing that the commemorations had a sufficiently significant impact. Even if this meant placing the CNCDP team under almost endless pressure and splitting it into groups working for several months in various cities and in two continents. Brazil’s huge size and the importance that it had for Portugal called for such commitment.

I shall dispense with making an exhaustive list of what was in fact done and of the specific reasons justifying each of several dozen initiatives. Together with João Paulo Salvado, Romero Magalhães himself left us with a printed report of the activities undertaken by the CNCDP during his term of office (Magalhães; Salvado, 2002). Furthermore, in his capacity as the Commissioner-General, he wrote and published introductory texts justifying practically all of the events that the CNCDP promoted or sponsored: examples of a somewhat nervous but nonetheless precise and substantive prose, in which we can see the “craftsman” who, almost every day after reading the news, sat at his desk in front of his computer in order to edit at least one more page. It is better, therefore, to re-read him rather than to simply quote or summarize his writings.

In the space that I have been afforded here, what I should like to do is broadly describe three or four disappointments that Joaquim Romero Magalhães experienced at that time and that seem to me to be relevant for understanding what happened.

The first two of these disappointments are closely linked to one another and arise from a strategy developed with the aim of identifying material icons that would make it possible to project a positive image of Portugal in Brazil. At an early stage, and for various reasons, Romero Magalhães focused his attention on the panels of the Adoration of the Magi, by Vasco Fernandes,^[7] and on the Letter of Pêro Vaz de Caminha.^[8] In his opinion, these would be the two trump cards of the commemorations and everything was to be done to take them physically to Brazil. In both cases, however, “Grão Vasco’s” Adoration was prevented from being featured at the head of one of the most decisive meetings of the Bilateral Committee for the Commemorations of the Voyage of Pedro Álvares Cabral, under the pretext that it was too fragile. Raquel Henriques da Silva, who was the director of the Portuguese Institute of Museums at that time, limited herself to endorsing the technical reports issued in this regard. It later proved possible to display the altarpiece at the exhibition held in the Rei Dom Luís Painting Gallery at the Palácio da Ajuda: The Construction of Brazil, 1500-1825. Simultaneously, and by way of compensation, it also proved possible to send the famous Hell painting from the MuseuNacional de Arte Antiga^[9] to an exhibition at the Museu de Arte de São Paulo (MASP).^[10]

However, the horrors of Hell certainly did not carry with them the same message about the new American peoples as the noble and unexpected figure of King Balthazar paying homage to the Baby Jesus at the entrance to the scanty manger, and Joaquim Romero Magalhães was deeply hurt by these setbacks.

Pêro Vaz de Caminha’s Letter had a longer and even more troubled story. One day, it will be well worth trying to reconstruct it in detail, because, when put together, some of its passages might resemble a detective novel. For now, it is enough to say that the approved idea in relation to this subject consisted of exhibiting the document in each of the three historical capitals of Brazil consecutively: Salvador, Rio de Janeiro, and Brasília. Inevitably, however, keen interest began to be shown by other cities, and it was impossible to resist the pressure from almighty São Paulo, which was planning to hold its great Rediscovery Exhibition in the city’s Ibirapuera Park. The person behind this initiative was Edemar Cid Ferreira, head of the Banco Santos and an emerging collector, who, offered to pay the costs of the Letter’s tour around the country, counting on the firm support of Itamaraty.^[11] Portugal had to agree to this request.

Unfortunately, little or nothing went as agreed between the various parties involved and both the document and the technicians who escorted it on its travels were subjected to the most incredible stress exerted by the team of the Santos banker. What was even worse was that, after some weeks, in an alleged effort to neutralize the possibility of greater evils, and without the prior knowledge of the CNCDP, one or two of the folios of Pêro Vaz de Caminha’s Letter were sent back to the Torre do Tombo, thus reneging on the deal that had been made and compromising the symbolism of the whole undertaking.

There then followed months of great tension, which I had the displeasure of experiencing on a daily basis. Perhaps no other episode of the commemorations threatened such a great danger of public unrest. Joaquim Romero Magalhães suffered immensely with the prospect of a media scandal and was the first to try to avoid it, agreeing that the matter should be resolved discreetly by the Portuguese Embassy in Brasília. Some years ago, he and I were also, conceivably, among those most consoled by the news of the denouncements that culminated in the trial and sentencing of Edemar Cid Ferreira for money laundering, fraudulent management, and criminal conspiracy. His property was apprehended, deposited at cultural institutions or auctioned in order to compensate a long list of creditors. In this way, at least, some justice was done.

The third episode had to do with the precise date on which the 500th anniversary of the discovery of Brazil was to be celebrated. Joaquim Romero Magalhães had always imagined that it would be difficult to successfully organize any kind of commemorative event on the so-called Ilhéu da Coroa Vermelha.^[12] For this reason, in mid-1999, he instructed me to go discreetly to Porto Seguro to reconnoiter the terrain and to assess the risks of holding any ceremony there. I remember the whole journey very well, as I stopped, first of all, in Salvador. I also remember having landed in Lisbon, some four or five days later, with an extensive set of photographs, the memory of various dialogues with the Baiano people and half a dozen objects that I had acquired from the populations of Pataxó descent who lived on the Ilhéu. My opinion was categorical: that we should not allow ourselves to become linked with any type of event in Porto Seguro, even out of courtesy. Romero Magalhães smiled and agreed, satisfied with the confirmation of his suspicions.

Unfortunately, our counterparts had other ideas. It was at the Casa dos Bicos that the minister Rafael Grecca, charged with the task of leading the Brazilian commemorations, presented us with a detailed outline of an urban planning project that envisaged the erection of a great monument to the arrival of the Portuguese, situated between the tiny ancient island and the high sea, and the construction of other buildings in the immediate vicinity, with the most prominent feature being a shopping center generously planned for the native people, and which, in their honor, would be called “Pataxopping.” In addition, a whole series of festivities were planned in the region. Romero Magalhães promptly declared that the CNCDP did not regard any of those ideas favorably and he also tried to influence the design of the coastal monument so that it would at least have a more contemporary, metaphorical appearance. It was all in vain. Probably due to a lack of funds, Rafael Grecca ended up not succeeding in realizing any of the pieces of his project but maintained the meeting of the delegations of the two countries scheduled to take place in Porto Seguro. The sad events that followed are well-known.^[13]

By April, 2001, Joaquim Romero Magalhães was able to say that he had completed with distinction almost all of the items in his lengthy program of activities, particularly priding himself on the eleven oil paintings that he had commissioned from the best Portuguese painters centered around Pêro Vaz de Caminha’s Letter, the many volumes of documents, journals, and monographs that he had published at the CNCDP, and the first of two exhibitions Brasil, brasis: cousas notaveis e espantosas (Brazil-Brazils: Remarkable and Striking Things), which, in his opinion, could well inspire a permanent exhibition in Lisbon recounting more than three centuries of the history of Portuguese America. The efforts that he made and the deprivations that he suffered were, however, quite considerable, including sacrifices of a family nature. What is more, the ministries responsible for overseeing his work were not always understanding of his efforts: there were consecutive cuts in the budget, in truly unfavorable circumstances, and, on several occasions, it proved impossible even to obtain a brief meeting to deal with sensitive matters. If we add to this the aforementioned disagreements and misunderstandings, we should not be surprised by the relative bluntness with which, on more than one occasion, the Commissioner-General spoke his mind.^[14]

At a certain point, the reactions of some official bodies caused him to fear that Brazil was prepared to escalate these cases. Tired and disappointed, Romero Magalhães considered resigning, but the storm passed and he acquiesced to staying. Contrary to all initial expectations, he was to remain in his post until November, 2002, creating the conditions for celebrating the arrival of the Portuguese in Newfoundland-the rich “Land of the Codfish”-publishing more volumes of sources and some CD-ROMs, and giving his support to documentaries and even some new exhibitions, such as Outro mundo novo vimos (We saw another new world), at the Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga, and De Olisipo a Lisboa: a Casa dos Bicos (From Olisipo to Lisbon: the Casa dos Bicos).

The dream of integrating the members of the CNCDP team into a new state structure, which was planned to be called the “Casa da História” (House of History), was not approved by the Council of Ministers and it finally evaporated on the night of the local elections in December, 2001, which led to the resignation of the Prime Minister António Guterres.^[15] This ill-fated political process was perhaps the greatest generator of internal instability in all of Romero Magalhães’s time in office.

When he ceased his functions, following a brief and rather curt letter of termination issued by the Presidency of the Council of Ministers at the end of a wintry day, some of the Commission’s staff invaded his office, accusing him of not having been sufficiently committed to ensuring the recognition they believed they deserved. Everything took place in such a chaotic and untimely fashion that he had to collect his own copy of the last book to be published at the Casa dos Bicos^[16] from one of the closed packages stacked on the stone floor of the building, halfway between the elevator and the exit. Even though only in passing, it is worth recording this incident for future memory among the long list of indignities suffered at the hands of the 15th Constitutional Portuguese Government.

There were, however, some brighter moments that, fortunately, I also remember. Shortly before the peak of the commemorations of the discovery of Brazil, it was with great satisfaction that the Commissioner-General accepted the invitation from the Grêmio Recreativo Escola de Samba Unidos in Tijuca to attend the “Parade of the Champions” in Avenida Marquês de Sapucaí, after they had come fifth in the Special Group with great support from the Portuguese community.^[17] On his return to the Casa dos Bicos, he was in exultant mood. On March 9, at the Igreja da Graça in Santarém, he delighted in listening to four of the Bachianas by Heitor Villas-Lobos, performed by the Lisbon Metropolitana Orchestra with an expressive group of cellos conducted by Paulo Gaio Lima and the participation of the soprano Ana Ester Neves. Weeks later, back once again in Rio, when the replica of a flagship in which Brazil had invested so much money came to a sudden and unexpected halt at the entrance to Guanabara Bay, Joaquim Romero Magalhães was so amused that he couldn’t resist taunting President Fernando Henrique Cardoso with the much simpler and more sober Portuguese vessel that, weeks before, had left the Tagus estuary with an amateur crew and was then reaching the end of its voyage at a steady pace, powered only by its sails. I can still hear him choking with accompanied his repetition of this story.^[18]

Romero Magalhães genuinely believed that the occasion of the 500th anniversary of Cabral’s expedition might help to bring Portuguese and Brazilians closer together through their knowing more about one another, offering support for the dissemination of their icons, emblems, and cultural realizations. Not only was he hostile to conceptual effervescence, grandiloquent catchphrases, and other similar clichés in the historiographical arena, but he also sought, in his own way, to clear up misconceptions and to dismantle commonplaces and prejudices that cast a shadow over the relationship between the two peoples. He usually did so cordially and with good humor. These are perhaps the two main reasons that justify the affection, admiration, and recognition that many people also nourished for him.

It would be risky to attempt to say exactly how much the program developed by the CDNDP helped to diminish the gap that existed at that time. It is true that one could already feel a certain tendency towards a greater proximity, encouraged by the increased use of digital communications and the number of air routes that were beginning to interconnect both countries more regularly. Over the last decade, migration and tourism have worked in the same direction. Changes thus produced, especially in Portugal, have been huge. Looking back, I am tempted to say that, in his efforts to safely accomplish the commemorations of the discovery of Brazil, Joaquim Romero Magalhães was lucky to find the winds of History blowing in his favor.

Nevertheless, however far we may have come on average, there is still an urgent need for people who can distinguish themselves through the commitment that they dedicate to careful, thorough, and ongoing studies. Early on in his life, Joaquim Romero Magalhães experienced an unusual fascination for Brazil, fed by writers such as Érico Veríssimo, Gilberto Freyre, Graciliano Ramos, José Lins do Rego and Jorge Amado, whose works had been regularly published in Lisbon since the 1940s.^[19] He was deeply marked by the theatrical performances of Cacilda Becker, Procópio Ferreira, Tônia Carrero and Bibi Ferreira. And he was very keen of Brazilian music: from the melody of the national anthem, which he listened to being played, in an arrangement by Louis Gottschalk, on his mother’s piano, to the opera ballo Il Guarany, by António Carlos Gomes, whose performance he had the pleasure of supporting at the Teatro Nacional de São Carlos.^[20] Many other affinities were to appear afterwards, although not exactly as a result of any particular fondness for “vanguards” on his part. He admired the clarity and precision of João Capistrano de Abreu’s explanations, the majestic volumes of the História da colonização portuguesa do Brasil by Carlos Malheiro Dias, almost all that Jaime Cortesão sent to print in his exile, the unimpeachable rigor of José António Gonsalves de Mello, Fernando A. Novais’s sophisticated capacity for analysis, and the singular brilliance of Evaldo Cabral de Mello. Whenever he talked or wrote about Brazil, Joaquim Romero Magalhães therefore felt rather confident of his opinions, because there was indeed a Brazil that he cultivated, which was present in his life and which helped him to define his own identity. In fact, much of the best work that he dedicated to the history of Portuguese America only came to light after the disbandment of the CNCDP.^[21]

It is now strange not to have him close at hand to comment on the latest news from Rio de Janeiro or Brasília, which certainly would have exasperated him, as had habitually been the case over the last three or four years. I am sorry not to have any recordings of our conversations, nor even to have found the courage to propose to him an interview such as the one he encouraged me to conduct with his old master in the company of Alberto da Costa e Silva. Finally, I am sorry that it is not possible for me to submit this testimony to his reading, because there is no one else who would be able to correct it or contradict it with the accuracy and the pungent elegance of which he was capable.

Caxias, April 30, 2019

 

REFERENCES

Magalhães, Joaquim Romero; Salvado, João Paulo, eds. (2000). A carta de Pêro Vaz de Caminha. Lisbon: Comissão Nacional para as Comemorações dos Descobrimentos Portugueses.         [ Links ]

Magalhães, Joaquim Romero (2011). Labirintos brasileiros. São Paulo: Alameda.         [ Links ]

Magalhães, Joaquim Romero (2011-2017). Miunças. Coimbra: Imprensa da Universidade, vol. 1 (Concelhos e organização municipal na Época Moderna), vol. 3 (No Portugal Moderno. Espaços, tratos e dinheiros) and vol. 4 (Avulsos de História Moderna. Instituições, pessoas e conflitos).         [ Links ]

Magalhães, Joaquim Romero; Salvado, João Paulo, coord. (2002). Relatório de actividades: 1999- 2001. Lisbon: Comissão Nacional para as Comemorações dos Descobrimentos Portugueses.         [ Links ]

Medeiros, Nuno Miguel Ribeiro de (2012). “Edição de livros em Portugal e no Brasil: influência e contra-influência na inversão do poder tipográfico,” Anais do XXVI Simpósio Nacional de História, São Paulo: ANPUH. http://www.snh2011.anpuh.org/resources/anais/14/1312635152_ARQUIVO_EdicaodelivrosemPortugalenoBrasilinfluenciaecontra-influenciatipografica.pdf (Consulted on April 30, 2019).

Miranda, Susana Münch; Magalhães, Joaquim Romero, ed. (1999). Os Primeiros 14 documentos relativos à Armada de Pedro Álvares Cabral. Lisbon: Comissão Nacional para as Comemorações dos Descobrimentos Portugueses.         [ Links ]

 

NOTES

^[1]This text was funded nationally through the FCT- Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia under the scope of the project CIDEHUS - UID/HIS/00057/2013 (POCI-01-0145-FEDER-007702). I am grateful for the information kindly provided by Gonçalo Aresta Branco Miranda and João Paulo Salvado, as well as the readings that were made of the article by Isabel dos Guimarães Sá, João Carlos Garcia, and Mafalda Soares da Cunha.

^[3] Fernanda Olival was in the final phase of writing her PhD thesis, supervised precisely by Romero Magalhães. Francisco Bethencourt had welcomed me some years earlier as a scholarship recipient to work on a project funded by the Junta Nacional de Investigação Científica e Tecnológica (National Board of Scientific and Technological Research, which later became the Fundação Nacional para a Ciência e a Tecnologia-the National Foundation for Science and Technology), and he had known Romero Magalhães since the time of the inaugural seminars of the Faculty of Social and Human Sciences of the Nova University of Lisbon.

^[4] An emblematic sixteenth-century building, in Campo das Cebolas in Lisbon.

^[5] More specifically, itinerant exhibitions of panels and three-dimensional objects (often replicas of old instruments or utensils), assembled by teams from the CNCDP, and exhibitions of posters, which were mailed, in their hundreds, to all types of Portuguese and foreign teaching institutions.

^[6] The head office was at the Casa dos Bicos. The support building, belonging to the Army, was at Rua do Jardim do Tabaco, Nr. 23. The warehouse, in the Bairro da Fraternidade, had a floor space of several hundred square meters and sufficiently high ceilings to accommodate two floors, being rented from a private individual. The CNCDP also occupied a store in the Palácio da Independência, in Rua das Portas de Santo Antão, through an agreement that had been signed in January 1996 with the Sociedade Histórica da Independência de Portugal (Historical Society of Portuguese Independence).

^[7] Panel from 1501-1506, painted in oil on oak, originating from the altarpiece of the chancel of Viseu Cathedral and housed at the Museu Nacional Grão-Vasco in Viseu.

^[8] Manuscript parchment kept at the Arquivo Nacional da Torre do Tombo, the national archives in Lisbon. To better understand the importance of this document in Portugal, which was distributed as a supplement in the daily press during the cycle of the commemorations of Brazil, see Miranda, Susana Münch, and Magalhães, Joaquim Romero (1999) and Magalhães, Joaquim Romero and Salvado, João Paulo, (2000).

^[9] An anonymous work from 1505-1530, painted in oil on oak. It was incorporated into the collection of the Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga in Lisbon, from the large deposit of works taken from the “Suppressed Convents.”

^[10] Brasil 500 Anos - Descobrimento e Colonização. The loan of this painting lasted from March 26 to May 20, 2000.

^[11] The Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Relations. The name “Itamaraty” is a word of indigenous origin and derives from the palace where the ministry was housed in Rio de Janeiro throughout most of the twentieth century.

^[12] Nowadays, this island is, more precisely, a cove, situated at the southern end of the beach, where Pedro Álvares Cabral is supposed to have disembarked.

^[13] The coverage of this affair by the newspaper O Estado de São Paulo, of April 23, 2000, for example, is available at: https://acervo.estadao.com.br/pagina/#!/20000423-38904-nac-0001-pri-a1-not (Consulted on April 30, 2019).

^[14] For an illustration of Joaquim Romero Magalhães’s directness in addressing people, see Leme, Carlos Câmara; Ribeiro, Pedro, & Lusa (1999). “A festa será dentro do Brasil e para os brasileiros,” Público, Porto, April 22, p. 25; Leme, Carlos Câmara (1999). “Faço um favor aos portugueses ao querer ensinar as glórias de Portugal aos brasileiros.” Ibidem, April 30, pp. 30-31, and Magalhães, Joaquim Romero (1999). “A festa a nada conduz.” Ibidem, p. 31. In due time, an inventory should be made of these texts published in the press.

^[15] Magalhães, Joaquim Romero (2002). “O destino de pessoas: o caso da Comissão dos Descobrimentos,” Público, Porto, December 8. Available at: https://www.publico.pt/2002/12/08/jornal/o-destino-de-pessoas-o-caso-da-comissao-dos-descobrimentos-177311 (Consulted on April 30, 2019). A debate was held in the press about the creation of the “Casa da História.” See, on this subject, Lisboa, Eugénio (2002), ‘A acção da CNCDP e a Casa da História’, Jornal de Letras, Oeiras, May 1 to 15.

^[16] The fourth volume of the Cartas do 1.º Conde da Torre, edited by Susana Münch Miranda and João Paulo Salvado.

^[17] The venue used for the annual parades of the samba schools from Rio de Janeiro, popularly known as the “Rio de Janeiro Sambadrome”, has the official name of Passarela Professor Darcy Ribeiro (Professor Darcy Ribeiro Catwalk), and is situated in Avenida Marquês de Sapucaí. Its construction, completed in 1984, was due to the efforts of the governor Leonel Brizola. For the background to this episode, see Martins, Filomena (2000). ‘Figura da semana: Joaquim Romero Magalhães’s, Record, Lisboa, March 11. Available at: https://www.record.pt/opiniao/detalhe/figura-da-semana-joaquim-romero-de-magalhaes (Consulted on April 30, 2019).

^[18] The incidents at Porto Seguro and the replica of the flagship at the entrance to Guanabara Bay were the subject of various cartoons. It is worth consulting, among others, those drawn by Chico Caruso and published in the O Globo newspaper from Rio de Janeiro.

^[19] On the changes that took place in the relationship between the Portuguese language markets in the mid- twentieth century, see Medeiros, Nuno Miguel Ribeiro de (2012).

^[20] Joint production of the Teatro Nacional de São Carlos and São Paulo ImagemData, with recitals being held from October 10 to 14.

^[21] See Magalhães, Joaquim Romero (2011). Labirintos brasileiros, and Magalhães, Joaquim Romero (2011-2017). Miunças. vol. 1 (Concelhos e organização municipal na Época Moderna), vol. 3 (No Portugal Moderno. Espaços, tratos e dinheiros) and vol. 4 (Avulsos de História Moderna. Instituições, pessoas e conflitos).