The Passeio Público is a public park in the historic centre of

Rio de Janeiro Rio de Janeiro ( , , ; literally 'River of January'), or simply Rio, is the capital of the state of the same name, Brazil's third-most populous state, and the second-most populous city in Brazil, after São Paulo. Listed by the GaWC as a ...

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

. Built after 1779, it is the oldest public park of Brazil and one of the oldest in the

Americas The Americas, which are sometimes collectively called America, are a landmass comprising the totality of North and South America. The Americas make up most of the land in Earth's Western Hemisphere and comprise the New World. Along with th ...

History

In 1763, the seat of government of colonial Brazil was transferred from

Salvador de Bahia Salvador (English: ''Savior'') is a Brazilian municipality and capital city of the state of Bahia. Situated in the Zona da Mata in the Northeast Region of Brazil, Salvador is recognized throughout the country and internationally for its cuisine ...

to the city of Rio de Janeiro. Among other improvements in the new colonial capital,

Viceroy A viceroy () is an official who reigns over a polity in the name of and as the representative of the monarch of the territory. The term derives from the Latin prefix ''vice-'', meaning "in the place of" and the French word ''roy'', meaning " ...

Luís de Vasconcelos had the idea of creating a public park in the capital of the colony, inspired by the ''Passeio Público'' (Public Park) created in the 1760s in Lisbon, as well as the Baroque-

Rococo Rococo (, also ), less commonly Roccoco or Late Baroque, is an exceptionally ornamental and theatrical style of architecture, art and decoration which combines asymmetry, scrolling curves, gilding, white and pastel colours, sculpted moulding, ...

garden of the Royal Palace of Queluz. Thus, in 1779 the Viceroy commissioned the building of the park to Valentim da Fonseca e Silva (Master Valentim), the main sculptor and urban planner of Rio at the time and an active collaborator of the Viceroy. The works would be completed in 1783. The park was built on land reclaimed from a

lagoon A lagoon is a shallow body of water separated from a larger body of water by a narrow landform, such as reefs, barrier islands, barrier peninsulas, or isthmuses. Lagoons are commonly divided into ''coastal lagoons'' (or ''barrier lagoons'') ...

located beside the

Guanabara Bay Guanabara Bay ( pt, Baía de Guanabara, ) is an oceanic bay located in Southeast Brazil in the state of Rio de Janeiro. On its western shore lie the cities of Rio de Janeiro and Duque de Caxias, and on its eastern shore the cities of Niterói a ...

. This lagoon — known as ''Lagoa do Boqueirão'' — was polluted and bred diseases, and its elimination was considered a major improvement in the urban conditions of Rio.

Original design

Master Valentim planned a park in the

French formal garden The French formal garden, also called the (), is a style of garden based on symmetry and the principle of imposing order on nature. Its epitome is generally considered to be the Gardens of Versailles designed during the 17th century by the ...

style, in the shape of an irregular

hexagon In geometry, a hexagon (from Greek , , meaning "six", and , , meaning "corner, angle") is a six-sided polygon. The total of the internal angles of any simple (non-self-intersecting) hexagon is 720°. Regular hexagon A '' regular hexagon'' has ...

, using straight pathways arranged in a geometrical and symmetrical form. By the sea, the park had a terrace from which wonderful views of Guanabara Bay could be enjoyed. This terrace also had two

pavilion In architecture, ''pavilion'' has several meanings: * It may be a subsidiary building that is either positioned separately or as an attachment to a main building. Often it is associated with pleasure. In palaces and traditional mansions of Asia ...

s decorated with paintings. Master Valentim decorated the park with various species of trees, as well as fountains and statues. The park was originally encircled by a stone wall and was mostly used by Rio's high colonial society, but after 1793 it was opened to the general public.

Decoration

The beautiful iron gate at the entrance of the park, in

style, is still in its original place and carries the

effigies An effigy is an often life-size sculptural representation of a specific person, or a prototypical figure. The term is mostly used for the makeshift dummies used for symbolic punishment in political protests and for the figures burned in certai ...

of Queen Mary I of Portugal and the King consort, Pedro III, with the

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

inscription ''Maria Iª et Petrus III Brasiliae Regibus 1783''. Inside the park, Master Valentim built two

fountain A fountain, from the Latin "fons" (genitive "fontis"), meaning source or spring, is a decorative reservoir used for discharging water. It is also a structure that jets water into the air for a decorative or dramatic effect. Fountains were ori ...

s positioned back to back and collectively known as the ''Fonte dos Amores'' (Love Fountain). One face of the fountain (the ''Fonte dos Jacarés'', Caiman Fountain) had a basin decorated with plants and bronze statues of

caiman A caiman (also cayman as a variant spelling) is an alligatorid belonging to the subfamily Caimaninae, one of two primary lineages within the Alligatoridae family, the other being alligators. Caimans inhabit Mexico, Central and South America f ...

s, a bronze coconut tree, and

egret Egrets ( ) are herons, generally long-legged wading birds, that have white or buff plumage, developing fine plumes (usually milky white) during the breeding season. Egrets are not a biologically distinct group from herons and have the same build ...

s from whose beaks the water flowed. Unfortunately the tree and the birds have been lost, but the two intertwined caimans are still in place. At the back of this fountain, facing the sea, is located the ''Fonte do Menino'' (Boy's Fountain), which had the

coat of arms A coat of arms is a heraldic visual design on an escutcheon (i.e., shield), surcoat, or tabard (the latter two being outer garments). The coat of arms on an escutcheon forms the central element of the full heraldic achievement, which in its ...

of the Viceroy Vasconcelos, vases and a bronze statue of a boy holding a

turtle Turtles are an order of reptiles known as Testudines, characterized by a special shell developed mainly from their ribs. Modern turtles are divided into two major groups, the Pleurodira (side necked turtles) and Cryptodira (hidden necked t ...

. Water flowed from the mouth of the turtle to a basin. This statue was stolen and later replaced by one with a different design. The bronze statues of Master Valentim were the first to be cast in Rio, and are a precocious representation of autochthonous fauna (caimans, egrets), which would become widespread in the Romantic Brazilian art of the 19th century. In 1806, Master Valentim added the final touch to the park — two

granite Granite () is a coarse-grained ( phaneritic) intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly cools and solidifies under ...

pyramids with medallions made of Portuguese Lioz stone, one with the inscription ''

Saudade ''Saudade'' (, , , ; plural ''saudades'') is an emotional state of melancholic or profoundly nostalgic longing for something that one loves despite it not necessarily being real. It often carries a repressed knowledge that the object of lo ...

do Rio'' (Nostalgia for Rio) and the other ''Ao Amor do Público'' (To the Love of the People). Between 1785 and 1790, the pavilions of the Passeio Público were decorated with oval paintings by one of Master Valentim's collaborators, the painter Leandro Joaquim. The oval paintings were among the first

landscape painting Landscape painting, also known as landscape art, is the depiction of natural scenery such as mountains, valleys, trees, rivers, and forests, especially where the main subject is a wide view—with its elements arranged into a coherent compo ...

s produced in Brazil and show various views of Guanabara Bay. Six of these paintings have survived and are now in the Museu Nacional de Belas Artes and the Museu Histórico Nacional.

The Glaziou Reform

In 1864, French landscape designer Auguste François Marie Glaziou was commissioned to modernise the old park. Glaziou greatly altered the original design by Valentim, following the

English Garden The English landscape garden, also called English landscape park or simply the English garden (french: Jardin à l'anglaise, it, Giardino all'inglese, german: Englischer Landschaftsgarten, pt, Jardim inglês, es, Jardín inglés), is a sty ...

style, which attempts to recreate a 'natural' landscape. The geometrical arrangement of the Passeio Público gave way to a labyrinth of winding pathways, with a lake, bridge and different plant species. He kept, however, the sculptural work by Valentim — the fountains, gate and pyramids.

Decline and renewal

During the 20th century, various commemorative busts dedicated to Brazilian personalities were placed in the Passeio Público, including one bust of Master Valentim, inaugurated in 1912. A series of land reclaimings nearby led the park to get far from the sea and lose its view of Guanabara Bay — greatly altering the original intention of the park. The terrace was modified in the 1920s when the ''Cassino'' building (actually a theatre) was built in its place. The Cassino was later demolished. During a great part of the 20th century, the Passeio Público — and the whole historical centre of Rio — fell into decay. This situation was reversed when the park finally went through a careful and extensive renovation, carried out between 2001 and 2004 by the city's municipal government.

External links

The Passeio Público in the Itaú Encyclopaedia of Visual Arts.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Passeio Publico Parks in Rio de Janeiro (city) National heritage sites of Rio de Janeiro (state)