A philosophers journey of the digital world

Amarante's origin dates to the primitive peoples that hunted and gathered in the Serra da Aboboreira, sometime during the Stone Age, and extended during the Bronze Age and later the Romanization of the Iberian peninsula. The first prominent building erected during the area of Amarante was likely the Albergaria do Covelo do Tâmega sometime in the 12th century, by order of Queen D. Mafalda, wife of D. Afonso Henriques. These types of shelter were constructed in small settlements and were used by travellers, especially the poor who transited the territory. Permanent settles fixed themselves around the local churches, such as the Church of São Veríssimo and Church of Lufrei, resulting in growth during the intervening years. The urban agglomeration of Amarante became important and gained visibility with the arrival of Gonçalo (1187-1259) a Dominican friar who was born in Tagilde (Guimarães), who settled in the area following a pilgrimage to Rome and Jerusalém. He was instrumental in the development of the region, with many local structures attributed to his efforts, including the construction of the stone bridge across the Tâmega River. Following his death, Amarante became the destination of pilgrimages and grew substantially.

In the parish of Ferreira is one of the gems of the heritage of the Terras de Sousa, the Ferreira Monastery. With a strong influence, in the Middle Ages, on the settlement and agricultural and cultural development of the region, the Romanesque Church of S. Pedro de Ferreira that has reached our days is an impressive testimony of 12th century architecture. In it you can find influences as diverse as those of the school of Zamora, evident in the portico; from the school of Coimbra, visible in the capitals and, still, from a local school, with parallels to Unhão, in the beautiful stonework of the two side doors. The Church is of impressive strength and robustness, of a single nave, with buttresses attached outside and inside. It has an exterior nartex with a bell tower that, although from a later period, articulates harmoniously with the construction of the century. XII. The entrance porch is made up of five arches with simple columns and profusely worked capitals. The interior, of a single nave, gives access to a chancel that has a Galician influence mark, with polygonal shape and a deep mitered arcade and entrance with a triumphal arch. The vault of the chancel has two very clear sections in its shapes and volumetry. The baptismal font that exists in the Church, of Manueline style and that bears the arms of D. Diogo de Sousa, also deserves a mention. There is still a Gothic image (16th century) of S. Pedro, Patron of the Monastery.

Founded in the 9th century, according to the opinion of some researchers, or at the end of the 10th century (985), according to records from that time, it would have been a basilica dedicated to Saint Peter (Monasterio Sancti Petri de Ceti), occupied by Benedictine monks. At the end of the 11th century, the monastery was rebuilt by order of Gonçalo Oveques. At the end of the 13th century and the beginning of the 14th century the church underwent a major remodeling, including changes in the nave's size, reconstruction of the chancel and alteration of the building's facade. The current cloister, the tower and other elements of the complex are the result of the restoration work carried out in the 15th century. The monastery was occupied by members of the Order of São Bento until the 16th century, when D. João III transferred the ownership of the building to the Royal College of Graça de Coimbra (Gracianos).

The Monastery of Paço de Sousa was founded in the 10th century. The current church was built in the 13th century in the Gothic style, the chancel, the sacristy, the cloister and what remains of the monastic building date from the 17th and 18th centuries. The ensemble was the target of interventions in the 19th (1883 and 1887) and 20th (1937-1939) centuries. Inside the church is one of the most beautiful pieces of national Romanesque sculpture: the tomb ark of Egas Moniz de Ribadouro, the legendary aide of D. Afonso Henriques, the first king of Portugal. It presents an architectural style in the transition between Romanesque and Gothic styles. The monastery comprises a Romanesque church of three naves of considerable proportions, in which a beautiful rose window stands out. Its layout influenced the entire Penafiel region, and it can be said that this temple fits in the style of other Romanesque monuments, such as those of Roriz, Gândara, Travanca and Pombeiro. Egas Moniz, preceptor of Afonso I of Portugal, is buried inside this monastery. Inside the tomb there is a small copper box with its funeral ashes. The tomb itself is a magnificent piece with high reliefs that depict D. Afonso Henriques' attendance to the court of the kingdom of Leão.

Stereo views of Philadelphia's most famous burial ground, on 11 November 2020

The municipality of Matosinhos belongs to the Province of Douro Litoral and the district of Porto and is located on the banks of the River Leça about 8 km from the center of Porto. It belongs to the Porto Metropolitan Area (corresponds to about 8% of that area) together with Vila Nova de Gaia, Maia and Gondomar, among others. Administratively, Matosinhos is divided into 10 parishes such as: Matosinhos, Senhora da Hora, Leça do Balio, S. Mamede Infesta, Custóias, Guifões, Leça da Palmeira, Perafita, Santa Cruz do Bispo and Lavra. In 2006 this municipality had about 170 000 inhabitants. The settlement of Matosinhos predates the foundation of Portuguese nationality, since it already existed in the year 900, being called Matesinus. The village of Matosinhos, formed by the parishes of Matosinhos and Leça, was created in 1853 and was elevated to a city in 1984. In this territory there are various traces of human action throughout the ages, the settlement of people in these lands started about 5000 years ago, during the Neolithic era, and until today our vestiges of the funerary monuments of that time have arrived. : the tapirs, whose most important nuclei would be located in Antela, Perafita, Guifões and S. Gens. At the end of the Bronze Age, a new type of habitat will expand - the castros, associated with a culture of its own characteristics that will last throughout the Iron Age. Even today, there are significant vestiges of castros in the municipality, especially in Guifões, which is located on the left bank of the river Leça, on Monte Castêlo. Due to its location (close to the sea and on an elevation over the old Leça estuary) it will have been a village dedicated to the exploitation of coastal resources and commercial activity. This castro will have been abandoned around the 4th / 5th century AD. The arrival of the Romans, about 2000 years ago, will cause profound structural changes such as the opening of roads (such as the Cale-Bracara road) and the construction of bridges. The Leça estuary and the Lavra area were, in this context, the most romanized places, where there are traces of a villae and salt and garum production structures (paste resulting from the maceration of several species of fish and molluscs with wine, olive oil and other products). Mention should be made of the Roman Tanks of Angeiras and Villa do Fontão - these are examples of Roman industrial architecture, composed of six sets of tanks of rectangular and trapezoidal shape, excavated in the rocky outcrop and dispersed over about 600 meters on Angeiras beach. These tanks were used for salting fish or for the production of garum. Between the rear of the Parish Church of Lavra and the beach were found the remains of an important archaeological station that was the central nucleus of the settlement of this parish during Roman times - it is an old Roman villa, it has not yet been the target of systematic excavations. In the High Middle Ages this territory was marked by the now-disappeared Bouças Monastery, which was the reason for the development of the entire population that would lead the administrative division of Julgado de Bouças, which is at the base of the current municipality of Matosinhos. Another important medieval monument is the Monastery of Leça do Balio which resulted from the expansion of an old building and which would become the original headquarters of the Knights Hospitalier of the Order of Malta. Its origin dates back to the 10th century, in an architecture of transition from Romanesque to Gothic style.

The Serralves house is a unique example of a villa-garden complex with art deco architecture. Built during the interval between the two world wars 1925-1940, with great decorative rigor and quality of materials, which involved the most famous architects and decorators of that time, such as Marques da Silva, Charles Siclis, Emile Ruhlmann, René Lalique, Edgar Brandt and the pasiagista Jacques Gréber. The Mata-Sete farm, which belonged to his mother Maria Emília Magalhães, had a romantic garden, a chapel from 1882 and a house from 1918. The history of Casa de Serralves began in the early 1920s after Carlos Alberto Cabral (1895-1968), 2nd Count of Vizela, inherited his family's summer farm. A cultured and well-traveled man, he had an attraction for modernity and cosmopolitan living.

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Built by the Jesuits in 1577 in a Baroque-Jesuit mannerist style, financed by donations from the faithful, as well as by Friar Luís Álvaro de Távora, Commander of Leça do Balio, of the Order of Malta, whose coat of arms atop the main facade, the Church and the São Lourenço Convent were erected with strong opposition from the city council and the population. However, the followers of Santo Inácio de Loyola ended up managing to found the highly sought after school with free classes, which quickly achieved a notable success. The population's opposition was not directed at the Jesuits, but at the college they intended to institute due to the privileges that citizens had that prevented the nobles and nobles from staying within the city for a period of more than three days. Thus, the school that was to be built would call children noble and noblemen who would necessarily have to reside in the city, but through some artifices of the religious the opposition of the bourgeois was overcome. With the expulsion of the Jesuits in 1759, by order of the Marquis of Pombal, the church was donated to the University of Coimbra until its purchase by the Barefoot Friars of Santo Agostinho who stayed there from 1780 to 1832. These friars came from Spain in 1663, installing it was initially in Lisbon, on the site of Grilo, where they quickly gained the sympathy of the village, earning the name "friars-grilos", thus giving the name to the church where they were in Porto.

Aerial Views over Porto

In the heart of the historic center, on Rua das Flores, emerged one of the most important institutions in the city of Porto; the Confraternity of Nossa Senhora da Misericórdia founded in March 1499, following the recommendation and appeal of King D. Manuel I to the most important good man in the city. After several decades of existence, the confraternity was installed in the cloister of the Cathedral, and in 1550 on the 24th of June, Rua de Santa Catarina das Flores, opened in 1521, was permanently installed on the new street of the city. dispatch and a Renaissance style church, whose work will continue until 1590. The influence of the noble D.Lopo de Almeida, friend of Philip I and defender of the union of the two dynasties, was important.

The history of Livraria Lello e Irmão goes back to 1869, the year when Ernesto Chardron's International Bookstore was founded in Rua dos Clérigos. After Chardron's unexpected death at the age of 45, the publishing house was sold to Lugan & Genelioux Sucessores. In 1894 Mathieux Lugan sold Livraria Chardron to José Pinto de Sousa Lello, who then owned a bookstore on Rua do Almada. Associated with his brother, António Lello, they keep Livraria Chardron, under the name José Pinto de Sousa Lello & Irmão, until 1919, the year in which the name of the company changes to Lello & Irmão Lda. The current neo-Gothic style building , and designed by Engº Xavier Esteves (Ilhavo 1864-1944) was inaugurated in 1906, with the presence on the opening day of, among others, Guerra Junqueiro, José Leite de Vasconcelos and Afonso Costa. In 2008, the English newspaper The Guardian considered it the third most beautiful bookstore in the world. In 2011 Lonely Planet publisher considered it the third best bookstore in the world, and CNN in 2014 considered it the most beautiful bookstore in the world

Aerial views over Porto

Casa da Música is the first building built in Portugal dedicated exclusively to public presentations of different types of music, as well as spaces for rehearsing orchestras and other resident and visiting groups. Its construction is linked to the candidacy of Porto as European Capital of Culture in 1997, and its construction was announced in 1998. The project tender process was too short, which reduced the participation of 7 to 3 architects. In July 1999, Rem Koolhaas' project was accepted, and in December the project was delivered. In April 2005 the inaugural concert takes place. This building does not leave anyone indifferent, all the solutions used here are out of the ordinary, and its architecture is already an experience in itself, being an adventure for our senses to walk through the various interior spaces, and also observe them from the outside. I consider your visit mandatory.