Perspectives from the Tejo. The New Lisbon of Giovanni V in Three Filippo Juvarra View Drawings

Abstract

The new identification of two drawings by Filippo Juvarra as views of the Tejo River, en pendant with another view drawing of the river already identified, enriches the number and quality of the scarse graphic documentation of Juvarra’s activity during the time that he served John V of Portugal, in Lisbon, from January to June of 1719, when the architect was finalizing the project for the royal palace and adjoining patriarcal church. Complementing that view drawing already identified of the northern bank of the Tejo River facing eastwards, with, in the background, the city of Lisbon, and, in the foreground, the monumental celebratory royal light-house/column (ideally placed in front of the area of Alcântara), the other two view drawings show the semi-rural coast of the river, facing westwards, with various realistic and idealistic new architectural elements, including a church on a hill with a tall cupola and two bell-towers flanking a pronaos with a triangular pediment. The correspondence between this church, and that depicted in the surviving drawings for the royal palace and patriarcal church, offers the occasion for a new reconstruction of the preliminary phases of the royal project, strongly conditioned by the choice of an alternative site to that of the old royal palace at Terreiro do Paço. At the same time, the comparative analysis of the three views offers a priviliged perception of Juvarra’s creative processes, always focused on determining through the tools of drawing, the form and the dimensions of new developments in rapport to the architectural and landscape context.