Atlantic Will


Torrey de Belem Tower

The Belém Tower, formerly Torre de San Vicente a Par de Belen, officially Torre de San Vicente is a fortification located in the parish of Belen, a municipality and district of Lisbon, Portugal. On the right bank of the Tagus River, where Belém Beach once existed, it was For centuries it was surrounded by a beach until it was included on the mainland today. One of the former libria of the city, the monument is an icon of architecture of the board of D. Manuel I, synthesised between the tower of mediaeval tradition and the modern bastion, where artillery guns were available.
Over time, the tower lost its function of protecting the Tagus bar, and from the Philippine occupation the old paióis gave way to dungeons. On the four floors of the tower there is a governor's room, a room of kings, a hearing room and, finally, a chapel with its Quinent characteristics. The tower of San Vicente (1514) belongs to the defensive image of the Tagus basin erected by Juan II of Portugal, consisting in the south of the tower of San Sebastian da Caparica (1481) and in the west of the tower of Santo Antonio de Cascais (1488).
The monument stands out for its implicit nationalism, as it is all surrounded by the decorations of the Coat of Arms of Portugal, including inscriptions of the crosses of the Order of Christ on bastions; such characteristics relate mainly to the typical architecture of the time when the country was a world power (at the beginning of the New Age).
Together with the monastery of Jerónimos, it was classified as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1983 and elected one of the seven wonders of Portugal in 2007.

At the end of the 15th century, King John II developed a system of Defence of the mouth of the Tagus, which depended on the fortresses of Cascais and San Sebastian (or Torre Vella) in Caparica on the southern bank of the river. These fortresses did not fully protect the mouth of the river, and further protection was required. In his Chronicle of John II (Chronica de D. John II), who appeared in 1545, author Garcia de Rezende confirmed the king's opinion that Lisbon's Defence was inadequate and that he insisted on building fortifications along the entrance to the Tagus River in addition to the existing Defence. To this end, he ordered to "create a strong fort", but died before any plans were made. King Manuel I of Portugal revised this proposal twenty years later and ordered the construction of a military fortification on the northern outskirts of the Tagus in Belélaine. In 1513, Lorenzo Fernandez wrote a letter to his friends citing the king's intention to build a tower near Restelo Velho, deciding it necessary.
The project was started on a basalt outcrop of the rock near the river bank, using part of the stone collected for the construction of the monastery of Santa Maria de Belen. The tower was designed by military architect Francisco de Arruda, called King Manuel "Master of Works of the Belen Fortress", and in 1516 he began receiving 763 blocks and 504 stones for its construction, provided by Diogo Rodriguez, treasurer of the project. As the construction progressed in a military man called Grande Nau (Great Ship), a well-armed 1,000-ton ship continued to guard the mouth of the Tagus until the construction of the fort was completed.
The building was completed in 1519, just two years before Manuel's death, and Gaspard de Paiva was temporarily placed to command the fortress. His order was permanent on September 15, 1521, when he was appointed the first captain general, or alcalde, and the fortress was named Castelo de São Vicente de Belém in honour of the patron saint of Lisbon.

The Belém Tower is located on the north bank of the Tagus River in the civil parish of Santa Maria de Belen, a municipality of Lisbon, which can be reached at the western end of Brasilia Avenue by a small bridge. Nearby are the monastery of Jerónimos in the east and Forte do Bom Sucecho in the west, and in the north are the residence of the governor of the tower, the old residence of the governor of Fort Bom Suspeschudo and the chapel of San Geronimo.
The tower is isolated along the river bank, between the Bom Susicho and Pedrusos docks, on the basalt outcrop of rocks belonging to the geomorphological volcanic complex Lisbon-Mafra. Although various guides claimed that the tower was built in the middle of the Tagus and is now near the shore after the 1755 earthquake redirected the river, they are wrong. The Ministry of Culture of Portugal and the Institute of Architectural Heritage indicate that the tower was built on a small island near the banks of the Tagus, opposite the coast of Restelo. As development gradually expanded the coastline, more and more northern coast sneaked south into the Tagus, the tower eventually integrated into the river bank.

The tower has four floors with fenestrations and teeth, and the first floor is occupied by a vaulted tank. On the ground floor there is a southern rectangular door with arched windows in the east and north and barillas in the northeast and northwest corners. The southern part of the second floor is dominated by a covered veranda with a loggia (matakanche), consisting of an arcade of seven arches, supported by large brackets with balusters. It is covered with a lace stone handle, forming a porch, and its inclined roof ends with a sculptural twisted rope. The eastern, northern and western walls are occupied by two-arch enclosures, and the north-eastern and north-western corners are occupied by statues of St. Vincent of Zaragoza and Archangel Michael in niches. The third floor has double windows on the northern, eastern and western facades with a balusters interspersed with two armillary spheres, and a large relief with the royal coat of arms. The last floor is surrounded by a terrace with shields of the Order of Christ, a northern arched door and an eastern arched window. The terrace is surrounded by a low wall with colonnade pyramidal merlons with barillas in four corners. A similar terrace above this floor overlooks the surrounding landscape.