São Paulo – The collection of Museu Imperial (the Imperial Museum), in the city of Petrópolis, Rio de Janeiro, includes precious keepsakes of Brazil’s ties with the Arab world in its empire days: the diaries of emperor Dom Pedro II’s travels through Brazil and the world, including Arab countries. The notepads contain accounts of the monarch’s trips to Egypt, in 1871, and then to Lebanon, Syria, Palestine and Egypt again, in 1876.
“He is fascinated with Egypt. He made that clear in his writings on several occasions,” says the Imperial Museum‘s director Maurício Vicente Ferreira Júnior. He also highlights Dom Pedro II’s enthusiasm about the trip to Palestine. Júnior lists characteristics of the emperor that show through in his diaries – he was curious, easily moved and sarcastic, which becomes evident from his critical, light-hearted remarks about things.
“After sitting a mass at the Franciscanos church, which can only be reached by foot because of these streets akin to ant galleries, I went to the Pyramids of Giza. The path is almost entirely flanked by Acacias, a very many of which intertwine their crowns of the most splendid green, a worthy locale to such venerable monuments,” wrote Pedro II during his first trip to Egypt.
The accounts of his first trip to Egypt are basically about visits to landmark sites, interspersed with a few alternately endearing and high-spirited remarks about the people he met and the places he saw.
The museum’s director notes that the emperor’s Middle East travels were personal affairs rather than official missions. Proof of this is the fact that Dom Pedro II made a point of checking in at hotels as Pedro de Alcântara, and not as the Brazilian emperor. Júnior explains that the monarch took his first trip abroad in 1871, already a middle-aged man who had read a lot about different countries and studied different languages.
“At close to ¼ past 7 I was in Al- Eizariya (Bethany). Not many Arabs there. I crossed the village to go to Lazarus grave, where I arrived after almost lying down flat on my stomach to go through a hole that opens up to the hall from whence one walks down 5 steps, after having walked down another 27,” the emperor described on November 27th, 1876, already in his second trip to the Arab world, about his visit to the grave site of Lazarus, a biblical character who supposedly resurrected. The grave is located in what is now the occupied West Bank.
In the diaries from his second trip to Arab countries, the emperor takes his time to write about the landmarks he visits, displaying vast knowledge about them and making remarks at times analytical and at others funny. “Since I started sailing the Nile, above and near Aswan, I have heard nothing but the exclamation – look, a crocodile! – a beast I was unable to see and could only glimpse at, on three occasions, stuffed,” he writes of his second time in Egypt, in 1876.
The Museum’s archive holds a total of 47 notepads. Some of them also contain sketches, such as the one written in Egypt; The written material is not on display at the Museum to prevent wear and tear on the paper, but the contents are available online (see the link below). The travel logs have been the subject of a book and a CD produced by Museu Imperial in the 1990s, which are out of print, and were also featured in exhibitions. One of them was titled “O Imperador Viajante” (The Travelling Emperor) and travelled to 12 localities throughout Brazil that were visited by emperor Dom Pedro II.
Júnior explains that within the next two years, new materials based on the travel logs are set to be published, and that the museum is planning another exhibition. The items on showcase at the museum include a few keepsakes, but these are mostly from the emperor’s trip through Brazil, integrated into different rooms within the house, with no labelling to connect them to specific trips.
Museu Imperial was founded in 1940, in emperor Dom Pedro II’s former summer palace. The site was formerly a farm named Fazenda do Córrego (Creek’s Farm), which Dom Pedro I purchased to create a shorter route from Rio to Minas Gerais, bypassing São Paulo. Dom Pedro I dreamed of building a summer retreat there and name it Palácio da Concórdia (the Palace of Concord), but never did. After receiving the farm as inheritance, Dom Pedro II proceeded to fulfil his father’s dream by building the villa.
Afterwards, the city of Petrópolis was erected around the palace. After the Proclamation of the Republic, the estate was bought by government and converted into a school. During his administration, president Getúlio Vargas worked for the appreciation of all things national, therefore the villa was converted into a museum to hold items dating back from the monarchy period. Some of the items came from various organizations, but most are from the personal collection of Pedro de Orléans e Bragança, Dom Pedro II’s grandson.
The body of documentation of the emperor’s travels through Brazil and the world was nominated last year for the International Register of the Memory of the World Program of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (Unesco).
All quotes from: Museu Imperial/Ibram/Brazilian Ministry of Culture
Service:
Dom Pedro II Travel Diaries
Access the Museu Imperial archives
http://www.museuimperial.gov.br/component/content/article/134-arquivo-historico-pt/4349-instrumentos-de-pesquisa.html (in Portuguese)
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum