Spaces for growing and studying plants on Jesuit properties between Brasil and Portugal, centuries XVI-XVIII

• Grant number: 22/11358-2
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research Internship - Master's degree
• Start date: March 01, 2023
• End date: May 31, 2023
• Field of knowledge: Applied Social Sciences - Architecture and Town Planning - Fundamentals of Architecture and Urbanism
• Principal Investigator: Renata Maria de Almeida Martins
• Grantee: Mônica Bertoldi André
• Supervisor: Maria João Fontes Pereira Coutinho
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Arquitetura e Urbanismo (FAU). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Institution abroad: Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal
• Associated to the scholarship: 21/02288-8 - Gardens, edible gardens, orchards, and herbariums in the Jesuit spaces of Portuguese America (16th-18th centuries), BP.MS

Abstract

Research on the spaces for growing and studying plants on Jesuit properties has revealed, in a preliminary way, a complex and intricate network that brought together fences attached to urban buildings, recreational farms (quintas), granges (roças), and farms, where various activities were developed: acclimatization experiments with foreign plants; development of agricultural production techniques; production for barter and subsistence; recreation and spiritual recollection; recovery of physical health, among others. In this sense, we recognize typologies of open spaces originating from the Portuguese reality, and introduced/imposed by the colonization process, and other indigenous ones, mobilized as secularly developed forms of relationship with the autochthonous environment and essential for the survival of the foreigners. Seeking to deepen the empirical basis that sustains the historical and architectural landscape research, we propose this research stage in Portugal, in view of the access to archives and libraries with an important collection of documents about the Society of Jesus and its properties in the Portuguese Assistancy, as well as maps and other relevant iconographic sources related to Portuguese America. In addition, it will enable field visits, adding a methodological tool of great importance for studies in the field of Architecture and Landscape. (AU)