Thank you Rafael!
Historic Centre of Salvador de Bahia
UNESCO site
Date of Insscription: 1985
Founded in 1549 on a small peninsula that separates Todos os
Santos Bay from the Atlantic Ocean on the northeast coast of Brazil, Salvador
de Bahia became Portuguese America’s first capital and remained so until 1763.
Its founding and historic role as colonial capital associate it with the theme
of world exploration. Salvador de Bahia’s historic centre – an eminent example
of Renaissance urban structuring adapted to a colonial site – is the Cidade
Alta (Upper Town), a defensive, administrative and residential neighbourhood
perched atop an 85-m-high escarpment. This densely built colonial city par
excellence of the Brazilian northeast is distinguished by its religious, civil
and military colonial architecture dating from the 17th to the 19th centuries.
Salvador de Bahia is also notable as one of the major points of convergence of
European, African and American Indian cultures of the 16th to 18th centuries.
The settlement of Salvador de Bahia, strategically situated
overlooking an immense bay on the Brazilian coast, was aimed at centralising
the activities of the metropolis in Portuguese America and facilitating trade
with Africa and the Far East. The city grew quickly, becoming Brazil’s main
seaport and an important centre of the sugar industry and the slave trade. The
historic centre’s main districts are Sé, Pelourinho, Misericórdia, São Bento,
Taboão, Carmo and Santo Antônio. Pelourinho is characterized by its fidelity to
the 16th-century plan, the density of its monuments and the homogeneity of its
construction. In addition to major buildings dating to the 17th and 18th
centuries such as the Catedral Basílica de Salvador and the churches and
convents of São Francisco, São Domingos, Carmo and Santo Antônio, the Historic
Centre of Salvador de Bahia retains a number of 16th-century public spaces,
including the Municipal Plaza, the Largo Terreiro de Jesus and the Largo de São
Francisco, as well as baroque palaces, among them the Palácio do Arcebispado,
Palácio Saldanha and Palácio Ferrão. There are many streets lined with brightly
coloured houses, often decorated with fine stucco-work, that are characteristic
of the colonial city. Salvador de Bahia was also, from 1558, the first slave
market in the New World, with slaves arriving to work on the sugar plantations.
Echoes of this multicultural past survive to the present day in the historic
centre’s rich tangible and intangible heritage.
Criterion (iv): Salvador de Bahia is an eminent example of
Renaissance urban structuring adapted to a colonial site having an upper city
of a defensive, administrative and residential nature which overlooks the lower
city where commercial activities revolve around the port. The density of
monuments, with Ouro Preto (included on the World Heritage List in 1980), makes
it the colonial city par excellence in the Brazilian northeast.
Criterion (vi): Salvador de Bahia is one of the major points
of convergence of European, African and American Indian cultures of the 16th to
18th centuries. Its founding and historic role as capital of Brazil quite
naturally associate it with the theme of world exploration already illustrated
by the inclusion on the World Heritage List of the Old Havana (1982), Angra do
Heroismo (1983), San Juan de Puerto Rico (1983), and Cartagena (1984).
Source:
unesco.org
