On the occasion of the 189th anniversary of the death of King Pedro IV on 24 September 1834, Irmandade da Lapa and the Porto Liberal Route are promoting the Memorial Ceremony for King Pedro IV on 25 September at 9.30pm in the Church of Lapa in Porto.
The ceremony’s programme includes the reading of a sermon by the priest António de Ascensão de Oliveira, delivered in the Church of Lapa in 1856; and a concert by the Army Band, Porto Detachment, Lapa Polyphonic Choir, Ana Sousa Sacramento (soprano) and Filipe Veríssimo (organ).
D. Pedro I of Brazil or Pedro IV of Portugal, “the Liberator”, was the first Emperor of Brazil as Pedro I from 1822 until his abdication in 1831, and also King of Portugal and the Algarves as Pedro IV between March and May 1826. He was the fourth son of King João VI of Portugal and Queen Carlota Joaquina of Spain.
One of the must-sees on the Porto Liberal Route is the Soares dos Reis National Museum, whose origins date back to the Museum of Paintings and Prints and other Fine Arts objects, created in 1833 by Pedro IV of Portugal, the first Emperor of Brazil, to safeguard the assets sequestered from the absolutists and convents abandoned during the civil war.
The Soares dos Reis National Museum keeps some of the items that made up the uniform of Colonel of Hunters No. 5, worn by Pedro de Alcântara, Duke of Bragança, during the Siege of Oporto: dolman, waistcoat, cap, cocked hat, sword, lanyard, boldrié (belt with talim for suspending the sword), eyeglass, map holder.
The first room of the new long-term exhibition at the Soares dos Reis National Museum shows, in rotation, the elements of the uniforms worn by King Pedro during the civil war.
The Porto Liberal Route was created in 2017, bringing together various organisations: Porto City Council, the Northern Regional Directorate for Culture, the Portuguese Army, Irmandade da Lapa, the Porto Misericórdia Museum and Church and the Soares dos Reis National Museum, to publicise the places associated with that time of struggle and the contribution made by Pedro IV, also the liberator of Brazil and its first emperor as an independent country.