Da demanda do Preste João à missão jesuíta da Etiópia: a cristandade da Abissínia e os portugueses nos séculos XVI e XVII

The myth of the Prester John was one of the most powerful legends in Western Christianity since the middle of the XIIth century. However, from the quest of the kingdom of Prester John and his identification with the negus of Ethiopia, to the «discovery» of the empire of Abyssinia by the Portuguese in the XVIth century and the later attempt to convert it to Catholicism by Jesuit missionaries, the Portuguese view of the Religion of the Abyssinians was completely changed. This paper examines how this change took place during two centuries of luso-ethiopian contacts.O mito do Preste João desempenhou um papel chave no imaginário da Cristandade Oriental durante a Idade Média e nos começos da Época Moderna. Contudo, entre a busca do reino do Preste João e a sua identificação progressiva com o negus da Etiópia, até à «descoberta» deste império por alguns portugueses e o posterior envio de missionários jesuítas para a região decorrem, não apenas cerca de dois séculos, como muda por completo a percepção do Cristianismo dos etíopes por parte dos portugueses. É esta questão que se procura discutir no presente artigo, recorrendo para isso a uma abordagem sintética das relações entre Portugal e a Etiópia entre os finais do século XV e o século XVII

A viagem de José Gonçalves da Fonseca e a cartografia do rio Madeira (1749-1752)

This article looks into the voyage of the "royal escort", a reconnaissance expedition sent from Belém do Pará in 1749 to explore the fluvial communication between the state of Maranhão and Grão-Pará and the captaincy of Mato Grosso down the courses of the Rivers Madeira, Mamoré and Guaporé, and its impact on the cartographic representation of this region. The considerable differences between the map drawn by José Gonçalves da Fonseca and the map of the boundaries of Brazil prepared for the negotiations with the Spanish Crown astonished the Portuguese politicians in charge of the matter before they set out to demarcate the South American territories according to the Treaty of Madrid signed by Portugal and Spain in 1750.Este artigo analisa a viagem da "real escolta", uma expedição de reconhecimento enviada de Belém do Pará, em 1749, para explorar a comunicação fluvial entre o Estado do Maranhão e Grão-Pará e o Mato Grosso através da rota formada pelos rios Madeira, Mamoré e Guaporé, e seu impacto na cartografia deste espaço. As grandes diferenças entre o mapa traçado por José Gonçalves da Fonseca e o Mapa das Cortes criaram grande perplexidade aos responsáveis políticos portugueses antes de darem início às demarcações de limites acordadas com a coroa espanhola no Tratado de Madri de 1750

O Mapa Geográfico de América Meridional, de Juan de la Cruz Cano y Olmedilla

Este texto analisa a história da elaboração do Mapa Geográfico de América Meridional, de Juan de la Cruz Cano y Olmedilla, a gravação das diferentes edições do mapa, a sua circulação e recepção durante a segunda metade do século XVIII, à luz do conflito entre as coroas ibéricas acerca dos limites do Brasil.This essay examines the history of the construction of the Mapa Geográfico de América Meridional (Map of South America) by Juan de la Cruz Cano y Olmedilla, how its various editions were engraved, as well as its circulation and reception during the second half of the 18th century in the light of the ongoing dispute between Portugal and Spain over the boundaries of Brazil

Response of an artificially blown clarinet to different blowing pressure profiles

Using an artificial mouth with an accurate pressure control, the onset of the pressure oscillations inside the mouthpiece of a simplified clarinet is studied experimentally. Two time profiles are used for the blowing pressure: in a first set of experiments the pressure is increased at constant rates, then decreased at the same rate. In a second set of experiments the pressure rises at a constant rate and is then kept constant for an arbitrary period of time. In both cases the experiments are repeated for different increase rates. Numerical simulations using a simplified clarinet model blown with a constantly increasing mouth pressure are compared to the oscillating pressure obtained inside the mouthpiece. Both show that the beginning of the oscillations appears at a higher pressure values than the theoretical static threshold pressure, a manifestation of bifurcation delay. Experiments performed using an interrupted increase in mouth pressure show that the beginning of the oscillation occurs close to the stop in the increase of the pressure. Experimental results also highlight that the speed of the onset transient of the sound is roughly the same, independently of the duration of the increase phase of the blowing pressure.Comment: 14 page

Os mapas do Brasil na engenharia militar portuguesa (1750-1822)

The maps of Brazil and neighbor countries which belong to the Estudos Arqueológicos de Engenharia Militar from the old Direcção dos Serviços de Engenharia do Exército Português (now Direcção de Infraestruturas) are a cartographic collection of great value – probably the most important about Brazilian territory (in the 18th and 19th centuries) in Portugal. This cartographic collection is complementary to the existing collections in Arquivo Histórico do Exército (Rio de Janeiro) and Mapoteca do Ministério das Relações Exteriores (Rio de Janeiro). Although this collection has in its majority manuscript maps of the Brazilian colonial period (1750-1822) it has another important printed maps. The collection (which also has documents about Portugal and it’s colonial empire) was recently catalogued and fully digitized for the Project SIDCarta (Sistema de informação para documentação cartográfica: o espólio da engenharia militar portuguesa / Information system for cartographic documents: the Portuguese military engineering assets) between 2002 and 2005. This collection is far from being truly known although is available online. Our aim in this paper is to familiarize the public with this collection through it’s most important aspects (such as: chronology, authorship, type of documents, scales and most common geographic areas) and through the analysis of it’s main maps regarding Cartographic History and the Brazilian-Portuguese modern and contemporary history