Monserrate - 11th of November 2007

For all those who are keen to find out the history of this place, which is close to Sintra, a beautiful town not far away from Lisbon, here it is. What I can say is that along with all the palaces in Sintra (I have seen only three of them, but there are some more beautiful ones near by), Monserrate is extremely beautiful, discrete, cosy and serene. The second picture was taken in the garden of a 5-star hotel (Tivoli Sintra) that we came across accidently, thinking that it was another palace. Enjoy the story and some of the pictures taken in the gardens of this romantic palace, designed by James Knowles Jr. and built in 1858 on the initiative of Francis Cook, Viscount Monserrate.

"Local history records that in 1540 Monserrate, known then as the Quinta da Bela Vista, was integrated in the domains of the Hospital of All Saints in Lisbon. After a pilgrimage to the Benedictine Hermitage of Montserrat, in Catalonia, friar Gaspar Preto commissioned the building of a chapel dedicated to Our Lady of Monserrate. According to legend, this was most probably built at the place where, during the Moorish domination, a Mozarab knight who lived there in conflict with the Alcaide of the Moors’ Castle, finally perished. Buried on the hill, he later was venerated as a martyr. In 1601, the Hospital of All Saints leased Monserrate to the Mello e Castro family. Dom Caetano de Mello e Castro, Knight of the Order of Christ and Viceroy of India, finally bought the property in 1718. Since then the Mello e Castro family administered the property through procurators who, in turn, chose tenants and bailiffs who were responsible for the agricultural running of the farm and the maintenance of the outhouses. Little is known about the buildings that existed at that time except that the Earthquake of 1755 rendered them uninhabitable. In 1790, Gerard DeVisme, an English merchant who immensely rich as a result of the concession of the monopoly of the importation of Brazilian Teak granted to him by the Marques of Pombal (the Prime Minister of Dom José I), rents the property and lands of Monserrate and orders the construction of a neo-gothic mansion. The chosen location was an early chapel in ruins that was later rebuilt elsewhere. DeVisme resided at Monserrate for only short time, eventually subletting the property with all its improvements to William Beckford in about 1794. In 1799, Beckford finally leaves Portugal and Monserrate falls once more into decline. In 1809 Lord Byron, the famous poet, visits it and praised its beauty in his narrative poem Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. In 1856 Francis Cook, an English millionaire textiles trader, buys the Quinta of Monserrate from the Mello e Castro family and rebuilds the Palace, this time in a neo-Moresque style, and creates an extraordinary landscape garden inspired by English Romanticism. The whole park was transformed into a unique example of 19th century revivalism and eclecticism, predominantly marked by an oriental exoticism in which the delicately rendered vegetal motifs of the interior are harmoniously prolonged into the garden. Monserrate remained in the possession of the Cook family until 1947. In 1946 they endeavoured to sell it to the Portuguese Government who delayed the deal in such a way that eventually it was the antique dealer, Saul Saragga, who bought the property and the Palace and its contents. Only in 1949 did the Portuguese Government managed to acquire the property and the respective lands, a total of 143 hectares (about 350 acres), together with the Palace, by then virtually emptied of its contents".