Casa Colombo – Museu of Porto Santo and of the Portuguese Discoveries wants to become a reference in Portugal’s history
The space wants to establish itself as the ex-libris of the historical moment when Portugal opened up to the world and cosmopolitanism and was, according to oral tradition, the home of the Genoese navigator Christopher Columbus when he passed by the Golden Island. We're talking about Casa Colombo - Museum of Porto Santo and the Portuguese Discoveries, which has undergone a major reorganisation and is now open to history lovers.
The museum unit has grown as a result of the work carried out on the emblematic "Baiana" building, a centuries-old and emblematic construction dating back to the mid-17th century. And what was the purpose of this extension? To place Porto Santo at the centre of history and make this museum a centre of excellence for knowledge about the so-called meeting of cultures between Portugal and the new worlds that were opening up in Renaissance Europe.
This is a project that is both unusual and ambitious, as it consists of placing an outermost region at the forefront of this historical period, through a museum unit with a vision of the Portuguese odyssey based on a national and not merely regional framework.
To make this possible, the Casa Colombo Museum of Porto Santo and the Portuguese Discoveries has been enriched with donations (from patrons) of works from national and European (Germany, Spain, Flanders, France), African, Asian and South American workshops.
The collection includes pieces from the 4th to the 18th century, such as plates, bowls, platters, tureens, vases, bottles, jugs, tiles, helmets, devotional images (sculpture, painting), furniture (bookcases, chests, counters, cupboards), engravings, maps and coins, made from the most diverse materials: porcelain, earthenware, copper, ivory, exotic woods, tortoiseshell, mother-of-pearl, iron, among others.
In short, Porto Santo has a remodelled, expanded museum with a new museography, from which you can gain new insights into a very specific period of national history. Furthermore, the increase in the collection, the promotion of research and the dissemination of knowledge go hand in hand with this bold objective of taking Porto Santo to the heart of the collective memory of a people.
