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isbon sweet and baroque, somewhat labyrinthine, mysterious... There are three cities that share a similar air in southern Europe: Naples in the middle, and Istanbul and Lisbon at either end. They are literally endearing cities, somewhat oriental, swollen with life in their past well-being. But it is as if they know that the most enduring well-being is precisely feeling good, the awareness of one's own personality.
They are neither dead cities nor abandoned cities. They are cities inhabited with esteem, cities of great humanity, with much blood circulation.These three cities -Lisbon, Naples, Istanbul- have character, a strong identity given to them by the awareness of death that has been threatening them for centuries. They are cities with a wavering physiognomy, with architecture that time has been gnawing away at, but with people who live with the unease of constantly having to prove their existence.
Its inhabitants are proud to be, but they also know that inner elegance is the most important, that there is no better way to appear in the world than by being as one is, with complete naturalness. That is why those who live there shout and gesticulate so much: to visibly impose themselves on the inert matter that the passage of time disregards. They are not, in this sense, neither dead cities nor abandoned cities. They are cities inhabited with esteem, cities of great humanity, with much blood circulation.
Lisbon has mystery. The best way to contemplate it is motionless, on a Sunday afternoon, from a viewpoint. Perhaps from the Bairro Alto lit by the sunset, rosy. Among the rectangles of the buildings, the circularity of the dome of the Sociedade Geográfica calls your attention, with the skylight to look at the sky, and the cemetery right there. And there, the castle of São Jorge, with the cluster of houses in the Alfama neighborhood, terraced down to the river.
The river, at dawn and dusk, disguises itself with an uncertain fog. The earthly horizon, in this way, becomes confused with that of the ocean. The world has no end... The dream is vast, eternal. The sensation of abyss accompanies all finisterres.Lisbon is, in this framework, a privileged place. Next to the open Atlantic, sheltered by one or another of the seven hills - as in Rome - on which the city has grown. Solid ground next to the sea. What security this privileged situation gives and has given us!... A city in an estuary is a city that must be understood on more or less stable land, in a more or less provisional location.
From the Bairro Alto viewpoint, the Portuguese capital is a city of houses that touch each other along a very wide, irregular, protruding surface. Built on seven hills like Rome, yes, Lisbon is a very extended city, which has not been able to grow beyond the river that acts as its sea. In this sea where the sun sets, which imagination invites us to follow, westward...
The river, at dawn and dusk, disguises itself with an uncertain fog. The earthly horizon, in this way, becomes confused with that of the ocean. The world has no end... The dream is vast, eternal. The sensation of abyss accompanies all finisterres and Portugal is one of them, from end to end. In these spaces, it is easy for vertigo to take hold of poor mortals. Fatigued by the gray haziness, by the external uncertainty, they give themselves to transcendence by dreaming. Dreaming what? "Worlds that sprout and worlds that have already fled," as the Hispanist Joan Maragall saw it.
To defend against unreality, however, it seems that in Lisbon everything is in its place. The visitor finds everything, if they have chosen to get lost on foot, without planning. The city is wider than it is tall: it still seems dominated by the fear of growing too high...
The memory of the earthquake? It is easy to believe that the collective unconscious can transmit precautions for generations and generations. This is what has happened with the people of Lisbon, from the mid-18th century until today. In enlightened Europe, the Europe of historical optimism and rationality, the fact that the earth complained by turning everything upside down caused a great effect. Voltaire himself made a category of it...
The All Saints' Day earthquake of 1755 is as present in Lisbon's memory as the effusions of Vesuvius that destroyed Pompeii are in Naples. The great bewilderment gave way to a solemn relativity. It is a tearful, scalded-cat relativity. More preventive than balancing. The present, here, has almost never been able to enjoy more credit than the past. Lisbon, all of Portugal, is a terrestrial reality founded on yesterday and on there...
In Lisbon, the validity of the Baroque has extended to today. And not necessarily because the Baroque was the aesthetic of the years of imperial splendor. Nor because confident rationalism had received the mortal blow of that earthquake that came without warning or subsequent rational explanation. No. The Baroque is current in Lisbon because this ornate aesthetic is still a state of spirit, a vital emanation. Like fado, the song of nostalgia.