Belém Tower: A Sixteenth-Century Fortress and Maritime Gateway in Lisbon
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.5
- Popularity
- Very High
- Country
- Portugal
- Primary era
- Early Modern
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Early Modern, Modern
- Civilizations
- Portuguese
- Site type
- Military
- Remains
- Tower
On this page19 sections
History
Belém Tower is a sixteenth-century Portuguese fortification in Lisbon, Portugal, built in the Manueline style at the mouth of the Tagus. It served as a defensive position, a ceremonial gateway to the city, and a point where Portuguese explorers and returning fleets embarked or came ashore. Its decoration connected the fortress with Portugal’s maritime expansion during the Age of Discoveries, the period of European oceanic exploration and overseas expansion that included Portuguese routes to Africa, India, and Asia.
Plans for a Tagus Fortress
In the late fifteenth century, King John II sought to strengthen the Tagus estuary. Existing defenses at Cascais and at São Sebastião, also called Torre Velha, in Caparica did not adequately protect the river entrance. He ordered a strong fort to supplement them, but died before the project could be developed.
About twenty years later, King Manuel I revived the plan and ordered a military fortification at Belém on the northern bank of the Tagus. A letter written by Lourenço Fernandes in 1513 described a tower near Restelo Velho as essential. Construction began on a basalt outcrop, using some stone that had been gathered for the Monastery of Santa Maria de Belém. Francisco de Arruda, appointed master of the works of the Belém stronghold, designed the tower. In 1516, the treasurer Diogo Rodrigues supplied 763 blocks and 504 stones for the project.
Completion and Maritime Role
While construction continued, the heavily armed 1,000-ton warship Grande Nau guarded the Tagus estuary. The building was completed in 1519, and Gaspar de Paiva became its permanent first captain-general, or alcalde, on 15 September 1521. The fortress was then named the Castle of Saint Vincent of Belém, honoring Saint Vincent, Lisbon’s patron saint.
The tower commemorated Portuguese voyages to India and received fleets returning through the mouth of the Tagus. Its maritime symbolism included armillary spheres, models of the celestial sphere used in navigation and astronomy, which also represented Portuguese exploration and overseas discoveries. A carved rhinoceros reinforced this association. The animal had reached Lisbon on 20 May 1515 and was later sent by King Manuel I to Pope Leo X.
War, Prison, and Customs Control
In 1571, Francisco de Holanda argued that Lisbon’s coastal defenses required strengthening and proposed repairs and additions to Belém Tower. In 1580, after a brief battle, the garrison surrendered to Spanish forces commanded by the Duke of Alba. The dungeons were subsequently used as a prison until 1830.
During the last quarter of the sixteenth century, the Philippine Barracks, a two-storey rectangular structure over the bastion, was begun. In 1589, Philip I of Portugal commissioned the Italian engineer João Vicenzio Casale to design a larger and more strongly defended fort in place of what was considered the inadequate Castle of Saint Vincent. Casale produced three designs, but none was built.
A 1633 codex belonging to the House of Cadaval, a prominent Portuguese aristocratic family, was inserted into parts of the barracks and the southern façade. An inscription dated 1655 describes the tower’s use as a customs and navigation-control point on the Tagus. Vessels entering the harbor paid a tax that increased according to the recorded arrangements.
Later Military and Civic Uses
Between 1780 and 1782, General Guilherme de Valleré built Fort Bom Sucesso. Its battery was connected to Belém Tower by a corridor wall on the western side. French troops occupied the tower during the Peninsular War, the conflict in which Portugal and its allies fought French occupation in the Iberian Peninsula, from 1808 to 1814. Afterward, Lord Beresford recommended stronger artillery batteries around the bastion.
King Miguel I used the dungeons to imprison liberal opponents, while another level continued to operate as a customs house. This function ended after the tax on foreign ships was abolished in 1833. During the reign of Maria II, Almeida Garrett protested the tower’s deterioration. The Duke of Terceira then supported restoration directed by the military engineer António de Azevedo e Cunha.
Restoration and Heritage Status
The restoration of 1845 and 1846 demolished the Philippine Barracks and added or enlarged revivalist elements later described as Neo-Manueline. A beacon and telegraph service were installed between 1865 and 1867, although smoke from a nearby gas factory prompted protests.
Preservation efforts expanded in the twentieth century. The tower was transferred to the Ministry of Finance in 1940, which carried out small-scale conservation. Beginning in 1953, António Viana Barreto directed a three-year project that integrated the monument with the changing shoreline. In the 1990s, ownership passed to the Portuguese Institute of Architectural Heritage, which undertook a full restoration from February 1997 to January 1998. The work reinforced the tower and bastion, treated the southern balcony supports and mortar joints, cleaned the structure, and treated the statues of Saint Vincent of Saragossa and the Archangel Michael. The exterior restoration received the Europa Nostra award in 1999.
Belém Tower and the Monastery of the Hieronymites were inscribed together as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1983 for their association with the Portuguese maritime discoveries. The tower became a Portuguese National Monument in 1907 and was included among the Seven Wonders of Portugal in 2007. It also hosted the seventeenth European Exhibition of Art, Science and Culture in 1983.
Remains
Belém Tower stands at the western end of Lisbon’s Belém district, between the Bom Sucesso dock and Pedrouços. It occupies a basaltic outcrop belonging to the Lisboa-Mafra volcanic geomorphological complex. The monument was originally built on a small island near the northern bank of the Tagus, opposite Restelo. Progressive extension of the shoreline eventually incorporated it into the riverbank. The tower was not moved by a river diversion after the 1755 Lisbon earthquake.
Exterior Organization
Tower
The monument has two principal elements, a rectangular tower on the north side and an irregular hexagonal bastion projecting south into the river. Together they form a vertical structure resting on a horizontal stone platform and enclosed by masonry. The tower is approximately 12 metres wide and 30 metres high, with four principal storeys. It is built from beige-white Lioz limestone, a pale stone quarried in the Lisbon region.
The northeast entrance is reached by a drawbridge protected by a defensive wall and projecting corner turrets called bartizans, which served observation and defensive purposes. Plant motifs, the royal coat of arms, small columns, and armillary spheres decorate the entrance. The exterior combines Portuguese Late Gothic Manueline ornament with Moorish influences. Rib vaulting, carved ropes, nautical knots, naturalistic decoration, crosses of the Order of Christ, and elaborate open galleries express the Manueline style, the late Gothic style associated with the reign of Manuel I.
Bastion
The lower bastion contains embrasures for 17 cannons facing the river. Its upper level is enclosed by a parapet with bartizans and rounded shields bearing the cross of the Order of Christ, a Portuguese military-religious order descended from the Knights Templar. The corner bartizans are cylindrical watchtowers supported by corbels. They carry zoomorphic ornaments, ribbed domes, and ornate finials, while images of beasts appear at their bases.
A rhinoceros carved on the western façade probably represents the animal sent by Manuel I to Pope Leo X in 1515. The rhinoceros had attracted detailed observation and representation after arriving in Lisbon, and the tower’s image contributed to the European visual tradition later associated with Albrecht Dürer’s famous rhinoceros woodcut.
Tower Storeys and Decoration
Lower and Middle Levels
The ground floor contains a vaulted cistern. On the first floor, a rectangular doorway faces south, while arched windows open on the east and north sides. Bartizans occupy the northeast and northwest corners. The second floor is dominated on the south by a covered veranda, or loggia, with seven arches resting on large corbels and balusters. Its pierced stonework forms a porch, and its sloping roof ends in a carved twisted rope.
Double-arched enclosures occupy the eastern, northern, and western walls of the second floor. Niches at the northeast and northwest corners contain statues of Saint Vincent of Saragossa and the Archangel Michael. On the third floor, twin windows with balusters appear on the northern, eastern, and western façades. Two armillary spheres and a large relief of the royal coat of arms separate the windows.
Upper Terrace and Chapel
The fourth-floor terrace has shields bearing the cross of the Order of Christ, a northern arched doorway, and an eastern arched window. Its low wall includes colonnaded pyramidal merlons and corner bartizans. A further terrace rises above it. The fourth-floor chapel has a rib-vaulted ceiling and Manueline-style niches supported by carved corbels.
Bastion Interior
Casemate and Cloister
The bastion interior contains a circular staircase, two adjoining vaulted halls, four storage lockers, and sanitary facilities. Its ground-floor casemate, a fortified chamber for artillery or protected troops, has an outward-sloping floor, masonry pilasters, vaulted spines, Gothic rib vaulting, and peripheral compartments for individual cannons. Some ancillary storerooms were later used as prison cells.
Two archways open onto the main cloister, while six broken arches line its eastern and western sides between square pillars with gargoyle-like facets. The open cloister helped disperse cannon smoke and provided a position for light infantry. Its upper level has a railing decorated with crosses of the Order of Christ and rising columns topped by armillary spheres.
Virgin of Belém
The southern part of the cloister terrace contains an image of the Virgin and Child identified with the Virgin of Belém. The figure is also associated with the titles Our Lady of Good Success, Our Lady of the Grapes, and Virgin of Safe Homecoming. She holds the child in her right hand and a bunch of grapes in her left.
Interior Rooms
Governor’s Hall
The first-floor interior contains the octagonal Governor’s Hall, which opens toward the cistern. Corridors at the northeast and northwest corners connect with the bartizans, and a small door leads to a spiral staircase serving the upper floors.
King’s Hall and Audience Hall
The second-floor King’s Hall opens onto the river-facing loggia. A small corner fireplace rises toward the fireplace of the third-floor Audience Hall. The ceilings of these three floors are covered with hollow concrete slabs.
