Enlightened Absolutism and the Lisbon Earthquake: Asserting State Dominance Over Religious Sites and the Church in 18th-Century Portugal

he Enlightenment-era destruction and rebirth of Lisbon riveted Europe’s attention in the mid-eighteenth century. As a pivotal historical event, it is an episode long studied, but interpretations of its significance have remained surprisingly static. This study aims to reinterpret the autocratically directed, state-mandated reconstruction of central Lisbon following the earthquake of 1755, focusing on a rivalry between secular civil authorities and traditional religious power. This reconstruction deliberately and dramatically reduced the physical profile of religious structures within the city center, lowering their perceptibility and symbolically manifesting the reduced power and role of the Church in Portuguese society.