Braga
Template:Infobox Municipality pt Braga (pron. IPA /'bɾa.ɣɐ/) is a municipality in northwestern Portugal. It is the capital of the district of Braga and one of the biggest cities of the country, with a population of 155,000 in the urban area. Including the rural parishes, the municipality has a total of 62 parishes and 170,858 inhabitants. Braga is also the center of the Greater Metropolitan Area of Minho with a population of 798,137 one of the fastest growing urban areas in the European Union. Under the Roman Empire, as Bracara Augusta, it was capital of the province Gallaecia.
The present Mayor is Francisco Mesquita Machado, elected by the Socialist Party.
Parishes
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Sports
The city of Braga has it's own Football(Soccer) team named SC Braga and the currently play in Portugal's top division the Portuguese Superliga.
Arts and Architecture
The city of Braga has a Roman-style center, many churches and monuments:
- Bom Jesus do Monte
- Sameiro Church
- Monastery of Tibães
- The Cathedral
A modern symbol of the city is the new Braga Municipal Stadium, carved out of the Monte Castro hill that overlooks the city.
Commerce, Business and Transportation
The major industries in the muncipality are construction, methalomecanics, software development and web design. The computer industry is growing rapidly.
The most important University in Braga (and in the Minho Region) is the Universidade do Minho founded in 1973.
History
Braga is the see of the archbishopric. Braga was the center from which Galicia was Christianized, though the early bishops connected with Saint James the Great are purely legendary. A more historical bishop was Paternus, bishop of the see about 390. After the destruction of Astorga by the Visigoths (433), the see was removed to Braga, where it remained until the Moors conquered the region. Martin of Dumes, abbot of Dumio and bishop of Braga (died in 580), born in Pannonia was the foremost Iberian scholar of his time, according to Gregory of Tours (Hist. Francorum V, xxxvii). Isidore of Seville ("De Viris illustribus", c. xxxv) says that Martin converted the Suevi from Arianism, instilled Catholic discipline and founded monasteries.
When Afonso I, count of Portugal, declared his majority and his independence from León, he was countered by his mother and the bishop of Braga. Separated from Spain, the Bishop of Braga assumed even greater importance. Though at a later date the papacy decided in favor of Toledo for primacy among Iberian bishops, there have been many very famous bishops and writers in the diocese of Braga.
Famous Citizens
- Francisco Sanches (1550-1623)
Born within the diocese of Braga, he studied in Portugal until the age of 12, having then moved on to Bordeaux to continue his studies at the Colégio de Guyenne, where he studied until 1569. This college was the seat of intellectual renovation where religious reformism and the Italian renaissance had an important influence. In 1569, at the age of 19, Sanches went on to Italy, where he studied medicine and learnt how to investigate corpses. When he returned to France, he enrolled at the Faculty of Medicine of Montpellier, the city which was the centre of medical studies at the time. Two years later, in 1575, he set up residence in Toulouse, where he lived until his death. As from 1581, he took up office as a medical doctor at the Hospital Saint Jacques in Toulouse, a post which he maintained for 39 years. In 1585, he was invited to become professor of the Faculty of Arts of Toulouse, where he taught for 25 years. In 1610, he entered the Faculty of Medicine, where he remained for 11 years.
- André Soares (1720 – 1769)
In the eighteenth century, Braga revived and boasted a good record in flowery Baroque, featuring the Archbishop of the House of Bragança and the artistic genius of Architect Andre Soares (1720 – 1769), who for all eternity gave Braga a formidable gift, a real landmark of the Baroque in Portugal. With Engineer and Architect Carlos Amarante (1742 – 1815), the end of the century witnessed the transition to the Neoclassical.
In the sixteenth century, Braga is a citadel which remains a backwater not influenced by the winds of the Discoveries and the “progress” dominant at the time. D. Diogo de Sousa (a distinguished Archbishop), a man with Renaissance ideas, is going to transform it in such a way that one might speak of it as a refoundation, and so the new Brácara has remained almost unaltered until the nineteenth century.
Trivia
- Braga gave its name to a historic street in Bandung, West Java, Indonesia. And the musical instrument known as the cavaquinho has its roots in Braga
- The instrument was once so closely associated with the region that it was called the braguinha ("little Braga").
