Chapter 22
Rainuncio’s Reign
From “The Italian Kings – A History of the House of Parma”, by Abelardo Barbosa
…After his coronation, Rainuncio I dealt with the problem of securing his throne. Both Dom Alvaro and Dom Manuel were accused of revolting against the king, and were beheaded. Their relatives and most important supporters were persecuted and arrested, and their lands and properties annexed to the crown. Some of them were sent into exile in Mozambique. Others would be later pardoned under the condition of going to Brazil where they should colonize new lands…
…One of the first actions of Rainuncio was to order a complete cleansing of Lisbon. While still acting as regent of his father in Parma, Rainuncio had made laws forbidding the throwing of garbage in the streets, ordering that all trash should be buried in ditches outside the walls of the city and far away from any river. As the times of war made Lisbon become much dirtier than the normal, he ordered the cleansing to begin immediately… [1]
…As a result of the Treaty of Seville, Rainuncio I decided that, if Portugal could not expand to new areas, then they should colonize better the areas already possessed. The main aims of the colonial policy during his reign were: ensure the possession of the Portuguese territories in India; increase the profitable trade with China; develop crop plantations and explore the wild regions in the countryside; and increase the slave trade in Africa. Also, he gave incentives to the colonization of Good Hope Land, to where he would send Jewish settlers… [2]
…With the death of his father in June 13 1602, Rainuncio became Duke of Parma. As his brother was already the Archbishop of Lisbon, and his presence was important to the king’s policy of controlling the Inquisition, Rainuncio needed to convince his sister, Margherita Farnese, who had become a nun, to assume the government of the Duchy in his name. After some reluctance Margherita accepted, and the “Nun of Parma”, as she would be called, ruled the city until 1630, when was replaced by the young Prince Otavio… [3]
…The idea of Rainuncio was to make his reign be considered the beginning of a new era to Portugal, but at the same time claiming to be the return of the old golden days. One of the symbols of this ideal was the new Portuguese flag. Using again the old square flag used during the first “Discoveries Era”, he combined it with his personal flag of Parma, to show that his dynasty would continue the Portuguese glories from the past. This new flag would be known popularly as “The Five, Six and Seven”, for having five shields, six fleurs-de-lis and seven castles…
…In the same year that inherited Parma, Rainuncio finally married Margarida of Savoy, according to the Treaty of Rome. The union was not a very happy one. Margarida could give to Rainuncio only a daughter, Maria de Portugal, born in 1603. But Margarida could not give to the king any further children, having only miscarriages, probably due to the consequences of her first birth. It made Rainuncio despair, because he wanted a male heir to continue his dynasty…
…After Margarida died during a miscarriage in 1607, Rainuncio decided to marry again. He looked for a young princess whose mother had given birth to many healthy children, believing that her daughter would have the same quality. The chosen candidate was Eleonora di Medici, daughter of the Grand Duke Ferdinando I of Tuscany and Christine of Lorraine, who had given birth to 10 children, with seven of them surviving childhood…
…All the churches of Lisbon rang their bells to announce the news that the heir of the throne, Prince Eduardo Farnese, was born, in February 12 1610. After him, Eleonora would give birth also to Otavio (1611), Alexandre (1613) and Vitoria (1615)…
…In foreign relations, Rainuncio tried to keep the peace with Spain, but at the same time tried to balance the Habsburg influence, searching for alliances with other potencies. This policy, which had the support of Jorge Fernandes Gramaxo, would be the origin of the Triple Alliance between Portugal, England and France…
…Another point where both Rainuncio and Gramaxo agreed on was the necessity of revitalizing the importance of Portugal among the European nations. As the small kingdom could not conquer territories in the old continent, they should again dedicate their efforts to the Portuguese vocation of the old times: the vanguard of naval technology. In order to ensure this aim, Rainuncio founded in 1603 the Marine Academy of Porto. The place would become a true “naval university”, where new techniques of shipbuilding and modern instruments of navigation would be experimented and taught…
…The reform of the University of Coimbra was another great innovation. Until then only concentrated on the teaching of Law, the university, due to a royal decree, should now invest on the natural sciences too. For this aim, Rainuncio ordered the closing of the University of Parma, and asked the professors who worked there to go to Portugal. [4] However, few of them accepted, preferring to move to other Italian universities, as Bologna, Padua and Ferrara. Therefore, Rainuncio needed to search other places in order to get the intellectuals he wanted…
…For the teaching of Medicine he convinced the celebrated Francisco Sanches, a Portuguese of Jewish origin who was working in Montpellier. For the Mathematics, was brought from Bologna Pietro Antonio Cataldi. But his greatest acquisition was the famous astronomer Galileo Galilei. He had left Padua in 1610 to work in Rome, but was suffering some opposition from some sectors of the Church due to his ideas about the Solar System and the movement of Earth. With the promise of a high salary and a honourable position as king’s advisor, Galileo accepted the invitation of Rainuncio I, and went to the more tolerant Portugal in 1612…
…In the cultural area, there were rich developments during Rainuncio’s reign. The passion of the king for theatre and music, and the fact that the nobles and the rich Portuguese burghers started to imitate the king’s habits, made many Italian artists going to the court of Lisbon, as an alternative to reach fame and fortune. The painting had also incentives, with the arrival at Lisbon of Lodovico Carraci and the brother Camilo and Giulio Cesare Procaccini. The Italian influence of that age can be also noticed in the poetry of Francisco Rodrigues Lobo, [5] who lived his creative peak between the reigns of Rainuncio I and Eduardo II. Also in literary area, Rainuncio hired the services of the Italian poet Bernardino Baldi, who used to amaze the court with his knowledge of languages, especially Chaldaic, Persian and Arabian. The king made him his official historian and biographer, and commissioned him with the task of writing a history of Portugal including his reign…
…In the architecture, this was the age of Giovan Battista Aleotti, who built the Tejo Fortresses in the Port of Lisbon, Setubal and Cascais, and also the forts of Faro and Porto. Still in the military area, he projected the “Castillian Belt”, the series of fortresses which would be built along the Spanish border in the beginning of Eduardo II’s reign. Also notable among his works was the beginning of the construction of the Palace of Belem [6], outside the walls of the city, and the Royal Theatre, one of the major examples of the Farnesian Style [7] in Lisbon, which unfortunately wasn’t spared from the earthquake of 1755…
… An interesting consequence of the Italian influence in Portugal under the earlier kings of the House of Parma was the changes in the development of the Portuguese language. The presence of so many Italians in Lisbon and other important cities made many words from the Italian languages being incorporated in the Portuguese, replacing other older Iberian terms. [8] The fact that Rainuncio never learned to speak Portuguese correctly also contributed to this. Due to their fear of making the king become angry for realizing that they were noting he was speaking wrongly, the nobles and courtesans started to imitate the king’s way of speaking. Many historians affirm that this probably is the origin of the characteristic accent from Lisbon, which is of all the Portuguese dialects the most similar to Italian languages… [9]
[1] This action would avoid the plague of 1598 that in OTL lasted 5 years and killed 80,000 people.
[2] The changes in the colonial world will be better explained in the next chapter, which will be only about the colonies.
[3] She will die in 1643, as in OTL.
[4] An example of the decay that Parma will face during the next decades, due to the fact that the Duke now lives in Portugal.
[5] The period of the Iberian Union was very mediocre for the Portuguese arts, especially literature. Now, with the Italian influence and the king’s patronage Portugal keeps some relevant art.
[6] It will be the New Royal Palace once completed. The area of Belem is near enough to Lisbon to be considered part of the municipality, but did not suffer too much during the 1755 earthquake (actually, the Portuguese Royal family was only saved because they were spending the holiday in the area when the tragedy happened). Therefore, the Royal Portuguese treasures will be saved when the disaster will occur in the next century.
[7] A development of the early Italian Barroque with some elements of the old Portuguese Manuelian style.
[8] It happened OTL during the Iberian Union, with some Castillian words replacing older Portuguese terms.
[9] Shamelessly stolen from the history of Rio’s accent in Brazil. The characteristic accent from Rio was created due the influence of the Royal Court when they arrived in 1808. Everybody started to copy the way of speaking of the king, and it developed to the modern carioca accent.
Rainuncio I, by the Grace of God, King of Portugal and Algarves, of either side of the sea in Africa, Duke of Parma, Lord of Guine and Brazil, Lord of the Conquest, Navigation and Commerce of Ethiopia, Arabia, Persia and India.
