Arco da Rua Augusta: A Triumph That Took a Century
Why is it significant?
Stand right under the arch and look up into the great vault, then step out on the square side and turn around to see the whole thing: columns, statues, a clock, and on top a crowned woman holding out two wreaths.
Key Facts
| Place | Arco da Rua Augusta: A Triumph That Took a Century |
|---|---|
| Address | Rua Augusta 2, 1100-053 Lisboa, Portugal |
| Geo Coordinates | 38.70840, -9.13680 |
| Part of Walk | After the Earthquake: The Baixa Pombalina and the Lisbon of 1755 |
| Generated | Generated |
Stand right under the arch and look up into the great vault, then step out on the square side and turn around to see the whole thing: columns, statues, a clock, and on top a crowned woman holding out two wreaths. It frames the river at one end and the whole grid of the Baixa at the other, like a theatre's proscenium.
An arch here was part of the idea from the beginning, a ceremonial gateway between the new commercial square and the new city behind it. But Lisbon took its time. Designs came and went, money ran short, and the arch you see was only completed in 1873, more than a century after the earthquake, to a design by the architect Veríssimo da Costa.
The figure on top is Glory, crowning Valour and Genius, by the French sculptor Célestin Anatole Calmels. Below, four Portuguese heroes stand guard: Viriathus, the Lusitanian chief who fought Rome, Nuno Álvares Pereira, the general of Aljubarrota, Vasco da Gama, who sailed to India, and the Marquis of Pombal himself, finally given a place on the monument to the city he rebuilt. The two reclining figures represent Portugal's great rivers, the Tagus and the Douro.
Now read the Latin inscription. It says, roughly, to the virtues of the greatest, so that they may serve as a lesson to all, dedicated at public expense. It is a confident sentence for a city that had nearly been wiped out, and that is precisely why it was carved.
Since 2013, a lift and a narrow stair take visitors up to the top of the arch, and the view from there, straight up Rua Augusta to the Rossio and the castle, shows you the whole logic of the plan in a single glance. From above, you see what the planners saw on paper... a city laid out in straight lines on the ruins of a maze. Now turn west along Rua do Comércio, parallel to the square, for a couple of blocks, to the square of the city hall.