History
In 1308, King Denis wrote a charter in which the King gave his royal land in Varzim to 54 local families; these would have to create a "Póvoa", a new settlement in Varzim, just south of the primitive Roman and Early Medieval core of the Town of Varzim, controlled by knights under a feudal structure. Praça Velha, the new civic center appears in this context, in the site of the "Póvoa Nova de Varzim" (The New Settlement of Varzim), which included the free fair, the town hall and a new church - the Madre Deus Church.
On February 18, 1743, the new First Church of Póvoa de Varzim started to be constructed near the town hall. By the end of the 18th century, it was noticeable that the Town Hall and the square were too small for an expanding urbanity, and the Royal Provision in 1791, created the Praça Nova (the New Square) where the new Town Hall was built.
Read more about this topic: Bairro Da Matriz
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Every generation rewrites the past. In easy times history is more or less of an ornamental art, but in times of danger we are driven to the written record by a pressing need to find answers to the riddles of today.... In times of change and danger when there is a quicksand of fear under men’s reasoning, a sense of continuity with generations gone before can stretch like a lifeline across the scary present and get us past that idiot delusion of the exceptional Now that blocks good thinking.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)
“They are a sort of post-house,where the Fates
Change horses, making history change its tune,
Then spur away o’er empires and o’er states,
Leaving at last not much besides chronology,
Excepting the post-obits of theology.”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)
“Culture, the acquainting ourselves with the best that has been known and said in the world, and thus with the history of the human spirit.”
—Matthew Arnold (1822–1888)