«For the Nation, resident in Lisbon». Luso-italian relations and Italians elements in the capital (Second half of the XVIII century)

Abstract

The Luso-Italian relationships in the XVIII century show a strong polyvalence. For this reason, one can analyze them from different perspectives. This is possible mainly because of the specificity of that century, a period of high transformation of the socio-economic context. The mobility characterizing European economy and society from that moment also affects the modifications of the causes and the connotations of Italian emigration in Portugal. This phenomenon takes a set of elements of italianità in the country and mainly in the capital in three big areas: culture (arts and sciences), trade and religion. These elements are present in Lisbon in the second half of the eighteenth century , in the framework of general reconfiguration of the Luso-Italian relations, both political and cultural. Concretely, there is a European projection of the Portuguese culture. This happened through two different dynamics. On the one hand, one could recognize the State’s ‘occupation’ of the public thinking, having as a practical application the implementation of politics of cultural organization, aiming to moderate the clerical hegemony in the academic field. On the other hand, this dynamics are also a consequence of the interests of intellectuals and politicians for the important scientific and philosophical Italian culture of the eighteenth century.