The Market Space in Portuguese Cities explores the history of marketplaces and their physical and functional roles in urban development between the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries. One might wonder why such a prosaic subject deserves attention; the reason lies in the ‘new centrality’ the market assumed during this era of profound economic transformation for Portugal. As Daniela Nunes Pereira notes, market spaces became ‘a battleground between political and mercantile interests, revealing the internal tensions of a system in transition’ (p. 11).
The author captures the reader’s interest by framing markets not just as functional urban elements, but also as catalysts for a broader reorganization of the city. Driven by Portugal’s entry into global trade networks, this commercial centrality ‘redefined the civic and social functions of public spaces’ (p. 12). Pereira presents the market as ‘a tangible reflection of a complex interplay between commercial activities, urban planning, and architecture’ (p. 30), making a major contribution to early modern Portuguese urban history.
Her clear reasoning and sophisticated understanding of markets are coupled with an interdisciplinary approach, linking urban history to architectural and socio-economic changes. Challenging traditional historiography, she investigates the extent to which overseas trade became the ‘decisive agent’ in reshaping cities and how architecture served as a ‘tool of control and regulation’ for the crown and local elites (p. 5).
Her research is painstaking, involving the meticulous collection of data from council minutes, municipal regulations, royal court texts, leasing contracts and historical cartography. She reinterprets documentation transcribed by other historians ‘to obtain the evolutionary rhythms of the market spaces and their buildings’, while her own designs and the book’s iconographic apparatus serve as precious tools for perceiving these transformations.
She analyses the markets’ patterns of location, their specificities regarding commercial activities and their architectural particularities to understand when, how and why distinct spaces were designated for market use. By contextualizing building practices and exploring the underlying economic value of structures, she reveals intriguing dynamics between the crown, local councils and property owners. Architectural features, such as porches, were more than aesthetic choices; they generated constant tension over ownership, usage rights and income. Similarly, buildings were not merely commercial spaces but expressions of cultural exchange, where the crown and councils often rhetorically imposed architectural solutions as a means to ‘dignify and control’ the market.
Pereira builds her argument gradually by introducing in Part One the concept of the market not only as a designation for transactions but also as a place – a specific location where, since the Middle Ages, economic activity unfolded. Nevertheless, her investigation does not concentrate on physical form and design but addresses the function of marketplaces as a concrete expression of the economic pressures and social transformations taking place during that period. Through a multiplicity of cases in cities like Guimarães, Viseu, Coimbra, Beja, and Elvas, she introduces the different topographies and forms of aggregation that commercial activities assumed: in streets, squares and fairs (rossio, terreiro, campo, chão), but also in churchyards.
In Part Two, attention is focused on architecture and the building typologies related to marketplaces, introduced or re-elaborated in this period, such as the porch, the estaus, the butchery, the granary and the town hall. Following Donatella Calabi’s observation that the architecture surrounding the squares acted as an intermediary between the different uses of marketplaces, Pereira addresses architecture’s impact on the functional reorganization of cityscapes, articulating between sacred and profane.
The book’s first two parts represent the general, theoretical foundation which leads to the five specific case-studies presented in Part Three. Selected on the basis of the availability of documentary sources and the diversity of urban and geographical conditions, the case-studies of Braga and Guarda (both sharing a strong ecclesiastical influence), Évora (characterized by the presence of royal power), and Tavira and Faro (both on the Algarve coast, playing a pre-eminent role in the early days of overseas expansion) allow the reader to follow the development of market spaces within the broader urban context.
Pereira’s contribution offers advancements not only to early modern Portuguese urban history but also methodologically to the urban history debate at large. The influential school of thought stemming from Donatella Calabi’s seminal Il mercato e la città (1993; The Market and the City, 2016) has generated numerous publications. Pereira builds upon this foundation yet takes the debate a step forward by stressing the dynamic aspects of market transformation and the resulting tensions between different public and private actors, rather than just static typologies or final regulations. This focus gives greater nuance to urban historical development. Her forthcoming research on the ‘Iberian and Ibero-American contexts’ is poised to advance the field toward a global urban history. We should stay tuned for further fascinating explorations.
