An allegorical representation in the spiritual gardens of Frutas do Brasil: an insight about the new world

Abstract

This research seeks to analyze the work Frutas do Brasil numa nova, e ascética monarquia Consagrada a Nossa Senhora do Rosário, by Frei António do Rosário, published in 1702. The work is divided into three parables in which Rosário allegorizes the Brazilian nature to compare it With the Portuguese Empire, more specifically with the Portuguese court and its virtues. Thus, his work is configured within the Portuguese-Brazilian baroque, and reproduces an Edenic view of Brazil. In this work the author seeks to represent the transition from the political axis of the Portuguese Empire of India to Brazil, thus corroborating for the establishment of a new monarchy in the territory. Through the problematic of understanding how and why Frei António do Rosário produces this work representing such a transition and allegorizing the Brazilian nature, we aim to understand this transition, as well as the attempt to understand how this work is located before the historiography of the Iberian Royal Academies Of the early eighteenth century. To theoretically base the research, we will use the concepts of representation from Roger Chartier, Social Place from Michel de Certeau and Former Catholic Regime from João Luís Ribeiro Fragoso. (AU)