Cristina Fernandes, full researcher at INET-md and coordinator of the research group Historical and Cultural Studies in Music, is the author of the chapter entitled “Entre palácios, jardins e assembleias: música, dança e sociabilidades dos diplomatas em Lisboa na segunda metade do século XVIII” (Between Palaces, Gardens, and Assembly Rooms: Music, Dance, and Sociabilities of Diplomats in Lisbon in the second half of the 18th Century), included in the book Roma, Madrid, Lisboa: palacios de alquiler. Decoro, habitabilidad y ceremonial en el siglo XVIII (Ediciones Trea, 2025), coedited by Pilar Diez del Corral, Álvaro Molina and Milton Pacheco.
This is a multidisciplinary volume that aims to study the complex phenomenon of renting properties to tenants from the aristocracy and other social elites in three important capitals of southern Europe throughout the 18th century. It reveals particularities and issues surrounding the rented palaces themselves, in the context of architecture, urban planning, and decorative arts, as well as aspects of palatial life in the family, political, social, and cultural spheres. Cristina Fernandes‘ chapter is part of Section IV – “El palácio como escenario: cerimonial, diplomacia e sociabilidad” – which also includes contributions relating to musical practices in the palaces of Rome and Madrid.
Abstract:
Diplomats accredited to Lisbon in the second half of the 18th century constituted a privileged circle for accessing and disseminating new models of elegant and cosmopolitan sociability in the Portuguese capital, in which music and other performing arts played a fundamental role. Based on accounts from foreign travelers (letters and diaries) and other sources, this chapter presents an overview of these activities in the palaces they inhabited in Lisbon and in other spaces from two complementary approaches: 1) Sociability practices that included music, dance, and occasionally poetry and theater, promoted by diplomats in their residences, among them the Marquis of Bombelles (France), the Count of Fernán Núñez (Spain), and Robert Walpole (England); 2) Parties, concerts, assemblies (mainly the Assembly of Foreign Nations and the British Assembly), balls, and informal gatherings they attended, both within the diplomatic corps and among the aristocracy and mercantile elites. The study focuses on indoor spaces and private gardens, excluding outdoor festivities, music in churches and public theaters, which have been addressed in other investigations. Several musical practices, by professionals and amateurs, are analyzed, including those of members of diplomats’ and aristocratic families, as well as the most fashionable social dances. The study also demontrates how repertoires of French, English, and Germanic origin (in addition to the strong Italian influence) interacted with the works of Portuguese and foreign composers living in Lisbon (Pedro António Avondano, Jerónimo Francisco de Lima, Policarpo da Silva, José Palomino, among others), and the role of diplomats in the creation of a transnational European musical culture.