Reinterpreting architectural description in drawings and literature of an early modern colonial city in India

Abstract

Diu was a Portuguese early modern colonial city located in Western India, in what became the Estado da Índia and previously, the sultanate of Gujarat. It was tributary first of the Mughals and later of the Portuguese and has three important historical moments: the establishment of Gujarat as an independent sultanate, the conquest of Gujarat by the Mughal Empire in 1573 and finally and foremost, the instituting of the European presence in Gujarat with the establishment of a Portuguese colonial city. Sixteenth century Portuguese texts and images read the colonial takeover and the early colonial presence in Diu during these years. This is verified by relating to political and imperial discourses after the cession of the place to the Portuguese in 1535, by describing how urbanity was shaped by earliest architectural events and finally by categorizing architecture in a Portuguese imperial context. I will compare and contrast arguments from different drawings and texts which portrait political deviation between historical visions and territorial, urban and architectural discrepancy of representation of the same city. Later, I will come back to the political connotations of the sources, which I think are important to understand the early political history of the Portuguese Empire in the East and its repercussions in architecture and urbanism of the early Portuguese colonial cities and in representation. Finally, I will end with the collection of valuable ethnographic novelties, many of them unknown in the West until the early sixteenth century and addressed by Portuguese authors.