Luis Mendonça De Carvalho

• PhD
• Director at Polytechnic Institute of Beja

The Victorians: A Botanical Perspective, Volume 1 offers a unique re-evaluation of the Victorian Age and presents a new historiography based on plants. It examines the use of gutta-percha in the development of electrical measurements; provides a detailed history of cocoa and the forced labor in the São Tomé and Príncipe Islands; explores the beauty...

The Cathedral of Braga, one of Portugal’s most iconic religious landmarks, preserves a profound connection between sacred traditions and fertility symbolism. At the core of this association stands Saint Gerald, whose legend recounts a remarkable event—fruits miraculously ripening in the depths of late autumn. This episode gave rise to a lasting rit...

In Baixo Alentejo, a historic province in southern Portugal, musical traditions are deeply intertwined with nature, particularly through a local chordophone known as the campaniça guitar, crafted from both exotic and native Portuguese woods. This distinctive guitar, commonly played at rural festivals to provide harmony and rhythm to improvised song...

The Royal Treasury Museum (Lisbon) houses one of the richest collections of jewels in Europe and its collection of circa one thousand pieces, includes many that depict stylized plants. Studying them provides us with an insight into the symbolic use of plants in the societies that created them and reveals their links with the classical symbolic code...

The unicorn is a legendary chimaera that, for centuries, has been present in the mindset of EuroMediterranean cultures. Although its morphological description changed, tradition identifies it as an animal like a horse, albeit smaller and with a spiralling horn on its head pointing forward. The unicorn has been known since Antiquity, with references...

In Portugal, the flowers, stems and roots of Pterospartum tridentatatum (L.) Willk [= Genista tridentata L.], a species native to the Iberian Peninsula and northwest Africa, have been used in traditional medicine as antioxidant, anti-diabetic and anti-inflammatory. Other historical and contemporary uses include culinary, to add a rustic touch to me...

The Azores Island of Corvo (Portugal) is home to a centuries-old woodworking tradition that has stood the test of time and passed down through generations. Central to this craft is cedro-do-mato [Juniperus brevifolia (Seub.) Antoine], an endemic species of juniper found in the Azores. Artisans on Corvo have honed their skills in working with this a...

During the nineteenth century, violets were highly valued plants in Europe, especially in the courts of Napoleon III and Queen Victoria. Many new varieties were introduced, and some even won awards at events organised by the Royal Horticultural Society. In nineteenth-century English literature, violets were frequently mentioned, and they were grown...

By the late nineteenth century, in Marvão (Portugal), women created a new art by embroidering the chestnuts' pericarp – Castanea sativa Mill. –in linen fabric. This tradition has been kept alive and is now the most representative traditional art from Marvão. The pattern of the embroideries includes flowering branches in which the chestnut's pericar...

Medieval colors used in illuminated manuscripts from the 12th to 15th centuries can be at risk. Knowing the binding media used, the medieval tempera, is fundamental to developing new and greener methodologies to increase sustainability in Cultural Heritage. A closer look at the tempera used in medieval illuminated manuscripts kept in Portuguese col...

This paper presents and discusses some of the historical applications of thistles in the Portuguese heritage, such as in art and in culinary, since Roman times. Nowadays, the use of thistles is almost limited to the manufacture of cheese, where an aqueous extract of Cynara cardunculus L. dried flowers is added to milk for the coagulation process. K...

In Portugal, the tradition of handmade white willow (Salix alba L.) toothpicks began in the Cistercian Monastery of Lorvão (Penacova), in an uncertain date during the 17th century. After the suppression of all monastic orders (1834), people from Lorvão continued this craft and, later, this parish became the main Portuguese center of the toothpick i...

The art made with white heartwood slices obtained from the young branches of the fig tree (Ficus carica L.) is found only in the Azores (Portugal). It probably began in the convents of nuns, during the XVII century, and soon after the secularization of these institutions continued to be done by artisans. This exquisite traditional art produces ligh...

Violets were an important trade plant, sold in the streets and markets of European and North America cities throughout the nineteenth century up to the 1920’s, when they began to be out of fashion. France was a major producer of violets and many activities associated with them, such as picking and selling, were commonly done by women. Here we prese...

Vegetable ivory is a raw material used to make small objects, such as buttons, adorns for personal use or home decorations. It comes mainly from the seed endosperm of species belonging to the genus Phytelephas Ruiz & Pav.. The collection of Beja Botanical Museum includes a set of historical photos that show all the stages of vegetable ivory process...

Wheat or rye straw embroideries, typical of the island of Faial (Azores), are the ultimate representatives of a European craft very popular in the XIX century. Our investigation into the cultural use of plants in the Azores presents some examples of straw embroideries and information on the raw materials of plant origin used by the last embroideres...

Christian works of art, from the middle XIV to early XIX centuries, were studied in order to contribute to a new perspective of the cultural history of plants in Portuguese and European art displayed at the National Museum of Ancient Art (NMAA). The symbolic use of trees, leaves, flowers and fruits in painting, sculpture and tapestry were compared...

Existiam lacunas de informação sobre o presumível desaparecimento de 11 quadros “animalistas” de Bernardino da Costa Lemos no trágico incêndio ocorrido em 1978 na Faculdade de Ciências da Universidade de Lisboa. Excluindo o artigo de Júlio Jesus (1928) com descrições écfrasicas-histórico-artísticas de cada uma das telas, cinquenta anos antes delas...

There were knowledge gaps about the presumed disappearance of 11 “animalist” paintings of Bernardino da Costa Lemos in the tragic fire that occurred in 1978 at the Faculty of Sciences, University of Lisbon. Excluding Júlio Jesus (1928) article, with ekphrastic-historical-artistic descriptions of each of the paintings, fifty years before they disapp...

O último quartel de Setecentos em Portugal registou assinaláveis progressos científicos e

The Calouste Gulbenkian Museum (Lisbon) houses one of the finest private art collections in Europe. The collection (circa 6.500 items) was assembled by Calouste Sarkis Gulbenkian (1869-­‐ 1955) and reveals an eclectic and refined taste. It includes masterpieces from antiquity up to the early twentieth century, The team studied the Gulbenkian collec...

Scented cultivars of Parma violets were among the most important urban plants during the nineteenth century, with many references in literature, fashion, art and flower trade. Our research analyzed data related to Parma violets in France and in the United Kingdom and presents the cultivars introduced during the nineteenth century.

During the middle nineteenth century, jet obtained from Whitby (England) was sought after due to its dark black color and hardness. This fossilized plant material was used in mourning jewelry, and Whitby hard jet was regarded among the best for carving and bead making. Jet fashion was connected with Queen Victoria, whose long mourning period lasted...

In traditional societies, religious and political leaders often use elements from the surrounding ecosystems to symbolically affirm their power. This ethnobotanical research looks for a similar pattern of use in urbanized western societies. We selected the use of plants by Queen Elizabeth II as a case study due to her singular position as a politic...

The Economic Botany Collection at Harvard University contains economically and culturally important plants from around the world and is one of the largest collections of its kind. The collection houses a unique set of twenty-five pineapple fabrics (Ananas comosus) that reveal the historical and contemporary uses of this important fiber plant. An in...

Commercial vanilla is the fruit (capsule) obtained from several different species of Orchidaceae, namely, Vanilla pompona Schiede (West Indian vanilla), Vanilla tahitiensis J. M. Moore (Tahiti vanilla) and Vanilla planifolia Jackson (Mexican vanilla). The most important is Vanilla planifolia Jackson, from which almost all vanilla fruits come from (...