Flammable Cities: Urban Conflagration and the Making of the Modern World

7. The Great Fire of Lisbon, 1755

7 The Great Fire of Lisbon, 1755 M M You will in all likelyhood have heard before this, of the unexpressible Calamity befallen the whole Maritime Coast, and in particular this opulent City, now reduced to a Heap of Rubbish and Ruins, by a most tremendous Earthquake . . . , followed by a Conflagration which has done ten times more Mischief than the Earthquake itself.1 Abraham Castres, British envoy to the king of Portugal The Lisbon earthquake was one of the most dramatic and consequential events in European history. Without warning on November 1, 1755, a series of violent tremors, followed by a devastating tsunami and a raging fire, brought the capital of the Portuguese empire to its knees. The resultant debate about the meaning and causes of the disaster among scientists, theologians, and philosophers—including the three most celebrated minds of the eighteenth century: Voltaire, Rousseau, and Kant—forced a stunned and frightened continent to reevaluate and, in some cases, abandon its most deeply held beliefs concerning God, man, and nature. For intellectual historians, the earthquake represents a defining moment, if not a turning point, in the course of the European Enlightenment. For Portugal, it marked the dawn of a new political era under the ruthless, visionary leadership of its first minister, the Marquês de Pombal (1699–1782).2 Less well known is that much of the damage inflicted on Lisbon was the direct result of neither the earthquake nor tsunami but of the ensuing fire, which began almost immediately after the initial tremors and swept unchallenged across the cityscape for more than a week. As terrible a conflagration as any experienced in European history, this fire effectively destroyed the Portuguese 147 capital, laying waste to much of what was left of its opulent churches, convents , palaces, and private libraries. When it was all over, the entire city center, including most of the principal institutions of Lisbon’s political, religious, economic, and cultural life, was rendered little more than a charred, smoking ruin (fig. 7.1). The human cost of the combined disaster was staggering: perhaps as many as thirty thousand people lost their lives in Lisbon alone. “I believe so complete a Destruction has hardly befallen any place on earth since the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah,” wrote one survivor.3 This chapter will examine the origin, course, and ultimate impact of the Great Fire of 1755 on Lisbon’s population, infrastructure, politics, and economy. Mindful that the fire began in the wake of a major earthquake (like the San Francisco fire of 1906 and the Kant¯o, Japan, fire of 1923), it will seek to understand the conflagration as both a unique historical occurrence—with its own 148 M M Figure 7.1. Map of Lisbon showing the area (shaded) destroyed by the fire. (Reproduced from José Augusto França, Lisboa Pombalina e o Iluminismo [Lisbon: Bertrand Editora, 1983].) internal dynamics—and as part of a complex and many-faceted disaster event. Ultimately, it will attempt to show how the Lisbon fire functioned as a catalyst for change, clearing the way for sweeping political and cultural reforms as well as an ambitious rebuilding project that decisively altered the layout and function of the city center. Attention will also be given to the state and effectiveness of Lisbon’s firefighting institutions as well as those preventative measures taken— and not taken—during the process of reconstruction in the second half of the eighteenth century. Although contemporary accounts of the Lisbon disaster are, on the whole, less detailed than those of the Great Fire of London (there is no equivalent to Samuel Pepys’s Diary, for example), they do allow for the construction of a useful historical narrative. A City Destroyed Early in the morning on the Feast of All Saints, 1755, the captain of a British ship anchored off the coast of Lisbon witnessed an event that would have a profound impact on the European mind. Experiencing a sudden jolt, he glanced toward shore, where to his “amazement,” he “beheld the tall and stately buildings . . . tumbling down with great cracks and noise.”4 During the minutes that followed, he watched—paralyzed with fear—as one of the great cities of the world was transformed into a pile of dust and debris. Although he and his crew were able to steer their ship out into the Atlantic and escape injury, few would be as lucky. Striking at approximately...