Oct 31 Branco, Portugal

Our afternoon stop was in Branco. The word means 'white' in Portugeuse and at one time there must have been a white castle (the castle which is not in the town itself, was subsequently rebuilt and is now longer white). One part of this place is a statuary garden. It is called the Jardim do Paço Episcopal (Garden of the Episcopal Palace) It had, among other statues, representatives of various qualities e.g., piety, modesty, knowledge (in the first image, George is in front of the statue of Justice). There are also statues of saints and of the kings of Portugal.

The amusing part of the Statues of the Kings is the way they handle the the Spanish Kings that ruled Portugal.  This was from 1580 to 1640 The Spanish King Phillip II, 'the prudent' ('O Prudente' in Portuguese) is the same person as King Filipe I of Iberia. Similarly, Phillip III of Spain is also Filipe II, the pious and Phillip IV is also Filipe III, the fair. All three of these Kings were from the Hapsburg dynasty*.  The way this was handled in the statuary garden was by making the statue of the Spainish-Portuguese Kings smaller than the statues of the 'real' Portuguese Kings (oddly enough, Filipe I lost the Spanish Armada even though he was 'prudent') .  George is in the kings in the second image.

Also in Branca is a new opera/concert hall (the entrance to this is the third image, with George).





There was a nice garden pool across the street from the statuary garden. Beth and George are in this, the fourth image. 




There is also a museum next to the statuary garden.  It had quite a bit about the inquisition. 

In the fifth image are reproductions of two shirts that people wore during the auto de fe (act of faith). Confessions were encouraged, partly by knowledge that confessors found guilty would be killed before being burned while those not confessing but found guilty could be burned alive. If this wasn't enough to extract a guilty plea, there was, of course, torture.

Another exhibit included Jewish items. I don't remember whether these were found as part of an 'investigation' during the Inquisition period or whether they were 'similar to' such items.



* The same Isabella who made the deal with Columbus and was responsible for the expulsion was also, in a sense responsible for the Hapsburg period of Spain. Isabella had a daughter with Ferdinand who was called Isabella of Aragon who then married Manuel I. When Isabella of Aragon died, Manuel I married again and his daughter became Isabella of Portugal. This Isabella married Charles who was the son of Maximilian I of the house of Hapsburg and Joanna who was in turn another daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella. Maximilian I was the Holy Roman Emperor. Charles became Charles I, King of Spain and later inherited territory in Germany and Austria as he was by then also Charles V of the Holy Roman Empire. About two centuries later, the Hapsburg Spanish King Charles II died in 1700 without an heir and this led to the War of the Spanish Succession.