ANTERO DE QUENTAL: FROM PONTA DELGADA TO PONTA GROSSA

Ponta Delgada is the birthplace and final resting place of Antero de Quental.

The largest city in the Azores publicly and perpetually honors him, with a toponymic record that is also multiplied in other areas of the region, the country, and the world.

Ponta Delgada has “Avenida Antero de Quental,” with the current toponymy assigned by the city council in 1971 to the former “Rua do Papa Terra,” and the “Jardim Antero de Quental” (Antero de Quental Garden), with an important monument that includes a bronze bust by the São Miguel sculptor Canto da Maia, as part of an architectural project by Soares Branco inaugurated on the centenary of April 11, 1942.

Close to this garden stands the old Fonte Bela Palace, built in the mid-19th century by Baron Jacinto Inácio Rodrigues da Silveira, to which the Central High School of Ponta Delgada was transferred in 1921, later renamed Liceu Antero de Quental and now, since 1979, “Escola Secundária Antero de Quental” (Antero de Quental Secondary School). In the “Largo dos Mártires da Pátria” (Martyrs of the Fatherland Square), located opposite, we find another public bust of Antero, created by the sculptor Diogo Macedo.

In addition to the city of Ponta Delgada, there are other Azorean locations with his name, such as the “Largo Antero de Quental” in Vila Franca do Campo and in Vila do Porto.

In Madeira, we also have “Rua Antero de Quental” in the parish of Santo António in the city of Funchal.

But it is on the Portuguese mainland that we find a “Rua Antero de Quental” in more than two dozen cities, such as Albufeira, Amadora, Cantanhede, Coimbra, Évora, Faro, Gaia, Lagoa, Lagos, Lisbon, Loures, Macedo de Cavaleiros, Matosinhos, Odivelas, Oeiras, Ovar, Palmela, Porto, Seixal, Sesimbra, and Sintra.

In the Portuguese capital, for example, nine years after the death of our greatest poet, Lisbon City Council named the street between Largo do Intendente and Largo do Conde do Pombeiro “Rua Antero de Quental.” And in the city of Porto, the original “Travessa do Campo Lindo,” later named “Rua da Rainha,” is now “Rua Antero de Quental.”

While there are more than two dozen streets named after Antero in other urban centers on the Portuguese mainland, there are also at least five “Avenidas Antero de Quental,” namely in the cities of Braga, Fafe, Montijo, Setúbal, and Vila Franca de Xira. And we also find a “Largo Antero de Quental” (Antero de Quental Square), for example, in the cities of Almada, Benavente, and Vila do Conde.

In fact, in Vila do Conde, the City Council acquired and restored the property where Antero lived for ten years, from 1881 to 1891, his last residence on the Portuguese mainland, inaugurating this cultural center in 2013 to also house the Centro de Estudos Anterianos (Antero Studies Center) – an association founded in 1994 by Guilherme d’Oliveira Martins and Ana Maria Almeida Martins.

In addition to avenues, streets, and squares from north to south of mainland Portugal, Antero is also immortalized in monuments, statues, and busts.

In Lisbon, we find a Memorial to Antero de Quental in Praça do Príncipe Real and a statue of him in Jardim da Estrela, sculpted in marble by Barata Feyo and inaugurated in 1951 by the city council.

In 1929, a bust by Diogo de Macedo was placed in this garden on the initiative of the “Diário dos Açores” newspaper, which was later donated by the Lisbon City Council to the Coimbra City Council, and has been installed in the Dr. Manuel Braga Park in the “city of Mondego” since 1953.

A monument to Antero de Quental, by the sculptor Álvaro Raposo de França from São Miguel, was recently installed in the “Parque dos Poetas” in the city of Oeiras.

Another statue of Antero, by Rodrigo Baeta, was inaugurated by the Torres Vedras City Council in 2009, next to Santa Cruz beach, where our poet spent his summer holidays in 1870.

If the national recognition of the “greatest of us all,” as Ruy Galvão de Carvalho called him, is already remarkable, even more impressive is the importance attributed to Antero de Quental on the other side of the Atlantic, in the toponymy of Brazilian lands.

Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, two global metropolises of the Portuguese-speaking world, are the ultimate exponents of Antero’s universality.

In the “marvelous city,” we find a large “Praça Antero de Quental” in the heart of Leblon, the upscale neighborhood in the south between Ipanema and Copacabana, where the “Antero de Quental” subway station has even been built.

In the state of Rio de Janeiro, there is also a “Rua Antero de Quental” in Botafogo, in the municipality of Nova Iguaçu. Still, it is in the state of São Paulo that there are at least five streets named after the poet.

There is a “Rua Antero de Quental” in the city of São Paulo itself and others in the cities of Atibaia, Santo André, Santa Bárbara d’Oeste, and Itaquaquecetuba.

But if we go to other parts of Brazil, we find a “Rua Antero de Quental” in Fortaleza, capital of the state of Ceará, and in two cities in the state of Paraná – Curitiba and Ponta Grossa.

It is curious to note how Antero’s universality extends from Ponta Delgada to… Ponta Grossa.

José Andrade is the current Regional Director of Azorean Communities for the Government of the Azores.