Gabriele Malagrida
Gabriele Malagrida arrived in the capital with the future Marquis of Pombal, although with completely different objectives. He faced the power and the Lisbon earthquake, but ended up on fire, along with his book.
The Italian Jesuit priest Gabriele Malagrida e Sebastião José de Carvalho e Melolater known as Marquis of Pombalarrived in Lisbon in 1750: one as a missionary consecrated by his devotion, and the other, as a rising diplomat who would shape Portugal during 27 years of government.
Born in 1689, near Lake Como, Malagrida joined the Society of Jesus in 1711 and dedicated himself to the missions in Maranhão and Grão-Pará, in Brazil, where he faced epidemics and gained a reputation as a preacher.
On the other side of the Atlantic, Sebastião José de Carvalho e Melo, born in Lisbon in 1699, rose through the gentry ranks. After a diplomatic career with stints in London and Vienna, he married an Austrian aristocrat, which brought him influence at the Portuguese court.
The year 1750 was decisive for both men. With the death of D. João VD. José I ascended the throne, with the widowed queen Maria Ana favoring both Malagrida, in her religious role, and Carvalho e Melo, in the reorganization of the government, recalls Rui Tavares in .
The , one of the most memorable moments of the reign of D. José I, shaped the destiny of Malagrida. For him, the earthquake was divine punishment for the sins of Rio de Janeiro.a common view at the time. In sermons and in the book Judgment of the True Cause of the Earthquake, Malagrida links the disaster to the lack of true devotion, criticizing frivolities such as the vanity of young people at masses.
The politician and pragmatist Marquês de Pombal, who sought to consolidate a modern and secular State, rejected religious explanations for natural phenomena.
Carvalho e Melo took advantage of the earthquake to establish himself as a reform leader. He rebuilt Lisbon based on Enlightenment principles, and Baixa Pombalina became a symbol of this vision, with earthquake-resistant urbanism.
The confrontation with the Italian priest had become inevitable.
Malagrida Remains
The relationship between Malagrida and the family Távoraaccused of conspiring against D. José I in 1758, was the opportunity that Carvalho e Melo needed to eliminate many of their enemies. The public execution of the Távoras marked the beginning of a repression against the Society of Jesus. The Jesuits were expelled from Portugal in 1759, and Malagrida, accused of heresy, was arrested and condemned.
Em 1761, Malagrida was burned at the stakeone of the last acts of the Inquisition in Portugal. The condemnation was aimed not only at the man, but also at the ideas he represented. In 1770, the Milanese’s book was publicly burned — Malagrida thus died, physically and ideologically.
With the expulsion of the Jesuits and the centralization of power, Carvalho e Melo implemented reforms that modernized the State, but the imposition of a naturalistic vision to explain the earthquake generated philosophical questions: if God did not send catastrophes to punish men, what was the divine role? in the government of kings? Thus were born the “children of the earthquake”: enlighteners who questioned divine and monarchical authority.
