It appears that some knowledge of Atlantic islands, such as Madeira, existed before the discovery and settlement of these lands, as the islands appear on maps as early as 1339. From a portolan dating to 1351, and preserved in Florence, Italy, it would appear that the islands of Madeira had been discovered long before being claimed by the Portuguese expedition of 1418. In Libro del Conocimiento (1348–1349), a Castilian monk also identified the location of the islands in their present location, with the names Leiname (modern Italian legname, cognate of Portuguese madeira, “wood”), Diserta and Puerto Santo. Indeed the move by Portugal to claim the Madeiran islands was probably a response to Spains efforts at the time to claim and subdue the Canary Islands.

However humans never recorded the discovery of Porto Santo Island, or the other Madeira Islands, until 1418 when Porto Santo was accidentally discovered after captains were storm blown into its sheltered harbor. They were in the service of theHenry the Navigator. João Gonçalves Zarco and Tristão Vaz Teixeira had been ordered by King John I to discover new territory west of Africa, and had been sent off-course by a storm while making the volta do mar westward swing return voyage. The island’s name Porto Santo (en: “Holy Harbour”) was derived from the sailors’ stories of their discovery of a sheltered bay during the tempest, which was interpreted as divine deliverance. The first Portuguese settlers arrived in the 1420s.

Bartolomeu Perestrelo, a member of the team that later explored the Madeira Islands, became the first Captain-donatário of Porto Santo, by royal award in November 1445. It was he who released a female rabbit that had littered on the voyage, with her offspring, which multiplied catastrophically in a xeric island ecosystem that had evolved in isolation and had never known a flightless mammal. The loss of the native flora laid the island slopes open to erosion and colonization by European weedsthat accompanied the settlers.^[4] As a result, “the Porto Santo of 1400 is as lost to us as is the world before the Noachian flood”.

During the first centuries of settlement, life on Porto Santo was harsh, owing to the scarcity of potable water and the depredations of feral rabbits; there were also constant attacks by Barbary Coast pirates and French privateers.

The New World explorer Christopher Columbus married the Portuguese noblewoman Filipa Moniz Perestrelo, the daughter of Bartolomeu Perestrelo. For a while they lived on Porto Santo. The home is now a museum.

On 23 September 1433, the name Ilha da Madeira (English: Madeira Island, or literally island of wood) was first used in a document, followed by other papers and maps. The name given to the islands corresponded to the large dense forests of native laurisilva trees that covered the island at the time of settlement.

Grain production began to fall and the ensuing crisis forced Henry the Navigator to order other commercial crops to be planted so that the islands could be profitable. The planting of sugarcane, and later Sicilian sugar beet, allowed the introduction of the “sweet salt” (as sugar was known) into Europe, where it was a rare and popular spice. These specialised plants, and their associated industrial technology, created one of the major revolutions on the islands and fuelled Portuguese industry. The expansion of sugar plantations in Madeira began in 1455, using advisers from Sicily and financed by Genoese capital. (Genoa acted as an integral part of the island economy until the 17th century). The accessibility of Madeira attracted Genoese and Flemish traders, who were keen to bypass Venetian monopolies.

By 1480 Antwerp had some seventy ships engaged in the Madeira sugar trade, with the refining and distribution concentrated in Antwerp. By the 1490s Madeira had overtaken Cyprus as a producer of sugar.

Sugarcane production was the primary engine of the island’s economy, increasing the demand for labour. African slaves were used during portions of the island’s history to cultivate sugar cane, and the proportion of imported slaves reached 10% of the total population of Madeira by the 16th century.

Barbary corsairs from North Africa, who enslaved Europeans from ships and coastal communities throughout the Mediterranean region, captured 1,200 people in Porto Santo in 1617. After the 17th century, as Portuguese sugar production was shifted to Brazil, São Tomé and Príncipe and elsewhere, Madeira’s most important commodity product became its wine.

The Museum The Sugar City makes known to visitors the cultural consequences of economic cycles.

The Museum The Sugar City wants to establish itself as reserves in Funchal everyday memory, between the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries, through the archaeological remains that excavations might help to rediscover.

The exhibition, located in the basement, combines two aspects, the findings from the excavations in the old houses of João Esmeraldo and artistic heritage and built reflecting the economic power of the Sugar Cycle.

In the space where once stood the Manueline Casa de João Esmeraldo – Flemish who settled in Madeira at the end of the fifteenth century to produce and trade Sugar – was inaugurated on 15 June 1996 the Museum Centre The Sugar City, current The Sugar City Museum.

Archaeological excavations 1989 in the same space, have uncovered a large and important testimonies from estate of everyday life between the sixteenth and seventeenth century, part of which is on display in the museum, highlighting forms of sugar, faience Portuguese and farthings of the reign of D. Afonso V.

They also stress a rare set of Manueline measures, accountants and silver objects drawn with the coat of arms of the city of Funchal. They are also worthy of attention from the parts of the East, which include two copies of Chinese porcelain of the seventeenth century, high technical and artistic quality.

Address: Caminho da Pedra de Eira, 9200-031 Caniçal

Phone: +351 291 961 858

Mora information in English: http://www.museudabaleia.org/en/o-museu/whaling-history.html

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The presence of pieces of furniture of the eighteenth and nineteenth century, Hepplewhite, Sheraton, the end of the Victorian style of the century, due to the presence of a British colony, linked to the business of wine and after Embroidery, who knew expand its influence on the Island.

The English decorative styles were certainly prevalent in the upper classes of the Island. Small household ornaments fled, however, the rigid relationship with Britain opening up to other production centers such as the Portuguese mainland and France.

Rua Visconde de Anadia, 44  
9050 – 020 Funchal
Phone: 291 211 600

Quinta das Cruzes is associated will figure of João Gonçalves Zarco, since it was in these surroundings that established his second home.

This property has undergone several changes over the centuries, becoming the eighteenth century, an emblematic “Quinta Madeirense”.

We can find in this museum, various works of art, Portuguese and foreign furniture, mostly English, as well as several pieces of Jewellery, Jewellery, Ceramics and Sculpture.

In the initial core of works, the focus is on works of Joaquim Rodrigo, António Areal, José Escada, Helena Almeida, Artur Rosa,  among others.

This institution has been developing a procurement policy, lying represented in its collection the most outstanding Portuguese artists, including some born in Madeira Island:  Fernando Calhau, António Palolo, Lourdes Castro, João Queiroz, Michael Biberstein, Patrícia Garrido, Martha Teles, Rui Sanches, Pedro Cabrita Reis, Ana Vidigal, Gäetan, Eduardo Batarda, Daniel Blaufuks, Miguel Branco, Calapez, Pedro Casqueiro, Rui Chafes, José Pedro Croft, Ilda David, Jorge Molder, José Loureiro, Álvaro Lapa, Ana Hatherly, Vieira de Silva, João Vilhena, Pedro Gomes, Pedro Proença and many others.

The activity of this museum focuses primarily on temporary exhibitions, sometimes in partnership with other institutions, or providing visibility through changing exhibitions, the artists represented in its collection, including existing local artists in its collection.

Installed in the Palace Promenade, once belonging to the Counts of Calçada, and leased from the 40s by Dr. Frederico de Freitas, known collector and art lover. Attorney and notary, this Madeira gathered a valuable legacy of works of art, which left the region after his death in 1978.

In order to expose the collections received, the executive Madeira acquired the Casa da Calçada to turn into a museum. In 1988 is inaugurated the House Museum Frederico de Freitas, with precious cores sculpture, painting, engraving, Furniture, Ceramics, Glass and Metals.

Ten years after opening to the public the House of Tiles, built especially to house the eclectic and extensive tile collection, from which you can follow the evolution of this type of ceramic tiles from the early days to the present.

The taste for all kinds of objects, especially those linked to the island of Madeira, made of Augusto Frederico de Freitas careful and dedicated collector. When you came to live in this house, found more than enough space to install the hundreds of pieces that had collected throughout his life. You can find a bit of everything in this house, since English style furniture, ivories, paintings, ceramics, religious images to a valuable collection of tiles.

When he died, as written in his will, left the collection to the Autonomous Region, and the Government started the house restoration work in order to open it as a museum. The table always set in the dining room, the flowers in the jar and the conservatory always cared give us the feeling that still lives there even someone.

With the invaluable action of Dr. Günther Maul, eminent taxidermist and scientist of German origin, who served as Director of function of this museum between 1943-1981, the Museum now has a growing collection of mounted animals and other biological and geological specimens distributed over 6 rooms. Currently, 78 are exposed species of fish, poultry 247, 14 land and marine mammals, sea reptiles 3, 152 insects and other invertebrates, 19 species of plants and a representative collection of rocks and minerals islands, as well as marine fossils of Porto Santo.

The Museum of the study collections currently reach more than 41,166 copies. Having in principle the fauna of knowledge, flora and geology of the Madeira archipelago, the Museum since its creation showed a regionalist aspect, presenting only species caught in the archipelago. Develops actions harvest of species of Madeira’s natural heritage and scientific information projects in zoos, botanical and geological groups to ensure a better understanding of Madeiran natural heritage as well as its dissemination. Still holds shares in Environmental Education.

The Municipal Aquarium, located on the ground floor of the Palace of São Pedro, the Aquarium with 15 display tanks in which are represented the most important elements of Madeira coastal marine fauna.

Museu de História Natural do Funchal
Rua da Mouraria, n.º 31
9004-546 Funchal
Madeira

Phone: +351 291 229 761