http://www.madeira-island.com/museums/sugar_museum/museum_city_of_sugar.html
The City of Sugar Museum (Nucleo Museologico A Cidade do Acucar) serves as a retrospective on the history of Funchal guided along the central theme of sugar - the industry that helped shape the early vestiges of Funchal, and Madeira.
Before the growth of importance of the wine industry or the importance of tourism as the leading industry in the latter part of the twentieth century sugar played the pivotal and crucial role in the consolidation of the island and the city of Funchal as one of the most important centres of civil activity in Imperial Portugal during the sixteenth through to the eighteenth centuries.
Incredible fortunes were amassed by the early settlers and developers of the island that involved themselves with the sugar trade. Christopher Columbus himself was involved in the trade of sugar here - was he perhaps hoping to make his own personal fortune to pay his way to the Americas? The wealth created by these merchants helped build the physical structure of the island and Funchal. One such edifice of Funchal was the residence and home of "Joao Esmeraldo" - a Flemish settler that traded in sugar between Madeira and other parts of Europe. (The site of the current museum under discussion). The building was demolished in 1877. However, under the auspices of the city council efforts were made in 1989 to uncover the foundations of the building still recoverable - despite the controversy surrounding the authenticity of the location of the esteemed sugar trader's residence - in and around the yellow Praca de Colombo or "Columbus Square". The museum includes some of the objects found during the excavations of the foundation.
The museum is designed along chronological lines and shows in detail the rise and decline of the impact of sugar on the city. Prominence, however, is given to the instruments and the types of sugar used in trade between the island and the rest of the sixteenth and seventeenth century worlds. Items displayed include English and Portuguese variants of measuring instruments (scales, weights, measuring pots, and so on).
Another important and interesting feature of the museum are the remnants of one of the earliest Coat of Arms for the city of Funchal (circa 1584). Interestingly enough the coat of arms, different to that of today, shows elements or icons of sugar cane plants - underlying the enormous role of that product in the diurnal routine of sixteenth century Funchal. Alongside the colourful archive of documents to the coat of arms there are also some significant tiles from across a spectrum of several centuries, and some important maps - including a very good and important copy of a map of Funchal from 1572.
This unique square in Funchal is delightful as it is historic. Set among some of the oldest colonial buildings in Funchal this square with its beautiful cobbled streets that are only open to pedestrians, is also the home to some interesting shops, restaurants, bars and tea houses. Recently restored you will also find here the Sugar Museum. Housed in what was originally the 15th century house of a rich sugar merchant (Joao Esmeraldo, friend to Christopher Columbus) on Madeira, the Sugar Museum is essential viewing exploring the history of sugar plantations and the sugar trade on Madeira. The museum offers a fascinating insight into the sugar trade here with maps, charts and artifacts, recently excavated, related to the Sugar Trade all on display.
Крепостные ворота
In the 17th and 18th century this square represented the commercial centre as well as the main entrance gate of the town. After the terrible attack of French pirates in 1566, fortification and defence of the island were the main interests of the ruling power and the inhabitants of Funchal. Therefore, walls with only five gates were built around the city for protection, and the rivers nearby served as a moat.
This was the reason why the Largo dos Varadouros gained a special importance for the city at the end of the 16th century. But due to urbanisation and redefinition of Funchal’s defence interests in the 19th century, the walls lost almost all military interests, and big parts of it were ceded by the military and later destroyed.
Today the existing door was reconstructed obeying a historical study and maintaining the elements of its first construction, like the crown, the real arms and the tombstone of origin.
