Brazil

BRAZIL. - The Estados Unidos do Brasil, a federal republic of 20 states, 5 territories and 1 federal district, covers by itself a little less than half of the whole of South America (8.5 million sq km), thus ranking among the largest territorial units in the world.

I. GEOGRAPHY

Extending over 40° both in latitude and in longitude, Brazil comprises regions of very varied character, which can nevertheless be gathered into three great zones. To the N., for over 3 million sq. km., stretches the Amazonian plain, with a very hot and humid climate, slight temperature range and rain all year round; covered by the imposing equatorial forest (selvas) and furrowed in every direction by rivers rich in water that constitute a vast network of navigable waterways (50,000 km.; the Amazon is navigable upstream for 4,100 km.). The internal median zone corresponds to a plateau equally very extensive, inclined on the whole from the E. and from the S. toward the W. and N., where tabular forms of modest altitude prevail (800-1,600 m.). The climate there is less extreme, with a dry season (verão) that grows longer as one proceeds toward the south, and a rainy summer season. The vegetation passes from the forest bare of green in the dry period (catingas) to the savanna with sparse trees (campos), more or less luxuriant with shrubs (carrascos) and grasses, or even to the steppe, when the rain fails (serrôa). The plateau rises on its eastern edge in raised borders (serras) that dominate the coastal strip steeply or push right down to the sea; this is the most populous and richest zone of Brazil. To the NE. and E. (as far as the State of Paraná) the climate remains distinctly tropical, with temperature extremes and heavy rainfall, whereas from Paraná to the Paraguayan border temperatures decrease, summer is the driest season and conditions become more favorable to human settlement, especially behind the coastal region, which is locally unhealthy and everywhere covered with luxuriant vegetation (araucarias S. of the Tropic).

The population of Brazil (48 million inhabitants, today) is made up 62% of creoles and whites, descendants of ancient colonists (Portuguese) and recent ones (immigrants after 1820; among the latter, having come from every part of the world, Italians rank first and today number probably no fewer than 2 million), 3% of Amerindians (of the Indios bravos of the Amazon basin there are some still refractory to every civilizing influence) and the rest of negroes (imported from the 16th century to 1851 for plantation work) and mulattoes, descendants of ancient slaves (slavery was abolished in 1888), numerous especially in the tropical coastal regions. The population is very unevenly distributed: 4/5 of it is gathered in the coastal and sub-coastal countries, while vast tracts of the country are no less depopulated than the Sahara (Brazil could perhaps make room even for 600-700 million inhabitants). Of the 15 cities with over 100,000 inhabitants, 10 are coastal and only one (Manaos) is in the interior regions far from the Ocean. Two of them exceed a million inhabitants: the capital Rio de Janeiro (2.3 million, with the suburbs, in 1945) and São Paulo (1.4 million, of whom over 200,000 Italians); there follow Recife (Pernambuco, 385,000 inhab.), Salvador (Bahia, 230), Porto Alegre (Rio Grande do Sul, 300), Belo Horizonte (Minas Gerais, 226), Belem (Pará, 231), etc. The official language of Brazil is Portuguese.

As for religion, no state religion is recognized, but almost the entire population is Catholic.

A federal republic since 15 Nov. 1889, Brazil has had a new constitution, promulgated by the Constituent Assembly on 18 Sept. 1946, in which it is defined as a presidential and federal Republic with bicameral representation.

The subdivision of Brazil into States and Territories has undergone variations after 1942; the table that follows reflects the most recent situation (after 3 Feb. 1947):

Giuseppe Caraci

II. ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY

From the 15th century onward the history of Portuguese and Spanish colonization in America unfolded in parallel with that of Portugal and Spain; the well-known changes followed thereafter, which makes it possible to distinguish three clearly distinct epochs in the civil and religious history of B.: B. as colony, B. as empire, B. as republic.

1. B. as colony

It may almost be said that the religious history of B. began even before its discovery; and not only thanks to the maritime crusade undertaken by Portugal alongside Spain, and to the bull Inter coetera (4 May 1493) with which Alexander VI divided the globe between these two great naval powers, but especially because of the right of patronage that the Portuguese kings, as grand masters of the Order of Christ, held over the lands conquered by them. It was therefore easy to foresee the religious future of B., when the Portuguese admiral Pedro Álvares Cabral, on his voyage to India, having discovered it (22 April 1500), immediately had a Mass celebrated there and baptized the new conquest with the name Terra de Vera Cruz.

The movement of catechization and the care of souls, modestly begun by the Franciscans and the secular clergy, grew in proportions thanks to the evangelical expeditions of the Society of Jesus, which from 1549, with the names of Nóbrega, Anchieta, Navarro, Blessed Ignatius de Azevedo, Vieira and others, bound its history indissolubly to that of B. Great indeed was the influence of the Jesuits on the civil and religious formation of the colony, until they were expelled by the Marquis of Pombal (1760). It was they who laid the foundations of the most opulent cities; they cooperated in the defense of the vast territory against the attacks of corsairs; they catechized the natives, gradually grouping them into small villages. Nor did they fail to induce them to recognize the sovereignty of the kings of Portugal, while at the same time vigorously protecting their freedom against the greed of the colonists. They also opened the first schools, for the indigenous peoples, the mixed-race and the Portuguese; they built colleges, churches, bridges and roads, finally shedding their own blood, if only to give to Christ and to civilization that immense and promising land.

Alongside the Jesuits, the Benedictines (from 1582), the Carmelites (1584), the Capuchins (1612) and others worked effectively in B. Meanwhile, already from 1551 with the Super specula of Julius III, the hierarchy had also been constituted, with the erection of the first diocese of S. Salvador (or Bahia), from which, later elevated to metropolitan status in 1676, the dioceses of Rio de Janeiro and Olinda originated. A year later the diocese of Maranhão was erected, suffragan of Lisbon, as was that of Belem do Pará, created in 1719. The dioceses of San Paolo and Mariana, on the other hand, created in 1745, belonged to the ecclesiastical province of Bahia, the which extended as far as Angola in Africa. In this colonial period, B. was targeted by the Calvinists; the French attacked Rio de Janeiro (1555-67), while the Dutch attacked the Brazilian northeast (1630-61), aspiring to the formation of a Protestant state in South America. But such attempts had no sequel, since after more or less lengthy struggles, the invaders were vigorously repelled by the patriotic ardor and particularly by the religious fervor of the people, wounded in its holiest traditions. An index of popular religious culture is sacred architecture, which flourished in the 17th and 18th centuries with the typical colonial style.

Under the government of the Marquis of Pombal, chief author of the suppression of the Society of Jesus, and reformer of the University of Coimbra (1772), the Catholic religion suffered a very hard blow. Among the evils that followed, one must note a deficient religious instruction of the people in general and the formation of a Jansenist and regalist higher clergy. Caused more than anything else by the ideas of the era, there were the separatist revolutions of Minas Geraes (1789) and Pernambuco (1817), in which several priests took part.

The last years of colonial B. were marked by an event unique in the history of America. After much indecision, the regent of Portugal, the future John VI, in order to escape the captivity that Napoleonic policy was preparing for him, chose Rio de Janeiro as the new seat of his court (1808-21). Here he was followed by Msgr. Lorenzo Caleppi, who by force of circumstances became the first nuncio and later (1816) the first cardinal on American soil. The colony, elevated to the rank of united kingdom, drew great advantages from the administration of John VI; nor did religious B. gain any less, under the immediate gaze of the representative of the Holy See.

2. Imperial B

When John VI found himself forced to return to Lisbon by a constitutionalist revolution, he entrusted the government of B. to his son Peter, not without foreseeing an imminent separation of B. from Portugal. Barely a year later, Peter proclaimed the independence of B. (Sept. 7, 1822), declaring himself the first emperor. The beginnings of the new empire were turbulent, nor did the disorders cease when the emperor, abdicating in favor of his son Peter II, still a minor, entrusted the government to a regency of liberal tendencies. From the very beginning of the autonomous regime, Catholicism, the official religion, had to suffer because of the turmoils, both on account of the regalism of the government, which accentuated the patronal rights inherited from the kings of Portugal, and on account of the open opposition to the Curia of Rome, and on account of the clergy, much inclined to politics and little sound in doctrine. The prototype of this state of affairs was the priest and government man Antonio Feijó. During the prosperous reign of Peter II (1840-1889), if on the one hand the Church benefited from the erection of three new dioceses (Diamantina, Porto Alegre and Fortaleza in 1854, while the prelatures of Cuiabá and Gojaz had become bishoprics in 1826), on the other hand it was the victim of the liberalism of the emperor himself and of the Freemasonry of the ministerial cabinets, which promoted the famous "religious question," whose epilogue was the trial, condemnation and imprisonment of two heroic bishops, Vital Maria de Oliveira, bishop of Olinda, and Antonio De Macedo Costa, bishop of Belem do Pará, guilty solely of having fulfilled their pastoral duty, defending the freedom of the Church (1873). Toward the end of the empire the clergy gradually became more educated and more numerous, to which also contributed the arrival of other religious Orders, such as again the Jesuits, the Lazarists, the Salesians, etc.

3. Republican B

A very brief military revolution sent the old emperor into exile, and proclaimed the republic of the United States of B. (Nov. 15, 1889). According to the liberal principle, the Church was separated from the State (Jan. 7, 1890). The Brazilian bishops raised a collective protest, but soon realized that in practice that law brought the Church liberation from the all-too-heavy protection of the State. Leo XIII immediately recognized the new republic (1890), which greatly favored, from that time on, a mutual understanding that still exists today between State and Church in B. Diplomatic relations with the Holy See were maintained, and while the representation of the Brazilian government at the Vatican was elevated to the rank of embassy, the pontifical representation in Rio de Janeiro was raised to a first-class nunciature (1909). Among other manifestations of the Brazilian government's understanding for the high mission of the Catholic Church, one must recall the invitation made to the Holy Father Leo XIII to preside over the arbitration for the border question with Bolivia (1903), the official reception given to the then Card. Eugenio Pacelli, pontifical legate returning from the XXXIV International Eucharistic Congress of Buenos Aires, the official celebrations of the 4th centenary of the Society of Jesus (1939) and those of the 50th anniversary of Rerum Novarum.

4. Present state of Catholicism in B

B. currently has 17 metropolitan sees, 64 suffragan dioceses, 25 prelatures nullius, 2 apostolic prefectures, it being worth noting that the last two archbishops of Rio de Janeiro were invested with the cardinal's purple

(1905 and 1930). Thanks to the reform of the seminaries promoted by the Holy See, there exists today a more numerous and better formed diocesan clergy. The great regional seminaries number 3, the major metropolitan ones 9, the minor episcopal ones 34 and the preparatory ones 7. Since 1934 the Pontifical Brazilian College has been operating in Rome, maintained at the expense of the national episcopate. Furthermore, 14 religious orders, 27 congregations and 3 male religious institutes carry out their beneficial work in B., flanked by 11 orders, 18 third orders and 87 female congregations. The religious devote themselves principally to education, as well as to the care of souls and to missions, both popular ones and those in the apostolic prelatures and prefectures. In the devotional life of the people, worthy of note are the developments of the Franciscan Third Order, of the Apostleship of Prayer, of the youthful Marian Congregations, of the missionary leagues in Catholic colleges. The eucharistic life is fostered by means of the Eucharistic Crusade, of the so-called Easters of the various social classes, and is promoted by great manifestations of faith, such as the imposing national Eucharistic Congresses of Rio de Janeiro (1922), S. Salvador (1933), Belo Horizonte (1938), Recife (1939), São Paulo (1942) and by perpetual adoration by day and by night in Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, Belo Horizonte and Fortaleza.

Numerous are the Catholic works, such as the Brazilian Catholic Action; the workers' circles; the centers of higher culture Dom Vitali; the association of Catholic journalists, with newspapers, periodicals and publishing houses; the film censorship commission; the Catholic radio stations or those that at least broadcast the "Catholic hours"; the charitable achievements of the various confraternities, among which the Conferences of St. Vincent de Paul stand foremost.

Maurilio Cesar de Lima

III. ART

With the Portuguese occupation, the particular forms of art cultivated until then in the territory of Brazil by the Indians, such as mosaics of brightly colored feathers, died out; architecture, on the other hand, acquired the greatest importance, through religious and military buildings. At first, in fact, it was military architects who supplied the plans for palaces and churches. In the second half of the 16th century the Jesuits first transplanted there simple architectural forms drawn from classicizing Mannerism; then they brought there Italian and Portuguese Baroque, making the latter sumptuous and overloaded, especially in church interiors. Active in this period were the sculptor Diogó Jacome and the architects Antonio Pires, Manuel Fernandes and Francisco dos Santos, authors of numerous monasteries. The residences of the governors and viceroys had no artistic value. In the 17th century there are in Brazil the monk Eusebio de Mattos (1629-92), a skilled painter of Bahia, of whom no work has survived, and two Flemings, Franz Post and Van Eckout, who, during the Dutch domination, were the first to paint tropical landscapes from life.

In the 18th century the principal churches were built: the richest, with decorations of gilded wood, were those of Minas Geraes. In 1735 Sà-e-Faria designed the plan for the cathedral of Bahia and the church of the Military. In 1751, on the commission of the governor Gomes Freire de Andraze, the Carioca aqueduct with a double order of arches was built, along with numerous fortresses. In 1760 João Batista Primoli raised the church of St. Michael.

Antonio José da Silva, called l'Alejandinho (b. around 1750 at Sabara Minas) directed the construction of many churches of S. Juan del Rey and sculpted in steatite twelve statues of prophets for the church of N. S. di Maltonsinhos at Congonhas do Campo. Other 18th-century sculptors of Rio were Domingo da Conceição, Simão da Cunha, Gaspar Ribeiro and, later, Valentin de Fonseca y Silva b. at Minas Geraes (1750-1813), who was also a skilled goldsmith and exercised great influence: there remain by him in Rio a Passion (church of the Military), the altar of St. Francis with the magnificent lamps, the interior of the churches of S. Bento and S. Rita, completed by Martinho de Brito, two medallions and a small tree in bronze, which, placed in the public park, contributed much to his fame. His pupils were Francisco de Paula Borges, José Carlos Pinto, A. J. Vallasques and the Jesuit Teofilo.

The painter José Joaquim da Rocha frescoed at Bahia the church of the Conception: from his school came Franco Vellasco (1778-1833), known for his portraits, and Chagas called Cabra, who sculpted statues of religious subject pervaded by a deep and human sorrow.

Subsequently the artistic primacy passed from Bahia to Rio de Janeiro, which had already had its first painter in a Benedictine of Flemish origin, known under the name of Ricardo do Pilar (d. ca. 1700); by him there has remained a marvelous Christ raising his hands to heaven (monastery of S. Bento): his disciple was José de Oliveira, b. at Rio, who studied in Portugal. He decorated the hall of the ancient viceregal palace, the Cathedral, the church of St. Francis of Penance and the dome of the imperial chapel, and influenced Francisco Muzzi, the friar Francisco Solano, Leandro Joaquim (portraits and sacred works including the St. Cecilia of the church of the Parto), the prolific Juan de Sousa (cloister of the Carmelites) and the effective Manuel da Cunha, a freed slave who completed his studies in Europe and who died in 1809 (Deposition of the imperial chapel, St. Andrew of the church of St. Sebastian, decorations of numerous chapels of Rio and portrait of the count of Bobadella).

Manuel's disciples were the mulatto Ray Mundo da Costa y Silva (Cena) who was also an architect, José Leandro Carvalho, d. in 1846 at Angrados Reis (portraits of John VI, St. Anne, Virgin of Carmel with the imperial family), and his son, a painter of flowers, d. in 1838, Antonio Alves, Domiciano Pereira Carreto and the many-sided Manuel Dias de Oliveira Brasiliense (d. in 1831) nicknamed the Roman for having studied in Rome. Worthy of note in this period are also the miniaturist M. S. Gentil and F. P. Amaral (d. in 1830), a pupil of Leandro Carvalho (frescoes of the castle of Boa Vista and of the library).

With the establishment of the Portuguese court at Rio de Janeiro (1808) the arts received a new impulse and a vital renewing breath, also because, in 1816, John VI, on the advice of the count of Barca and the baron of Humboldt, wishing to institute a school of Fine Arts, invited to Brazil French artists, led by J. Le Breton (d. in 1819). In 1831 the Academy was closed and resumed functioning only in 1837 on the initiative of the minister Vasconcellos; from 1816, however, the French influence is manifest in almost all painters. A little later the Roman influence began; and the first to feel it were Enrique José de Silva, the portraitist Claudio Brandier (d. in 1857), Correia de Lima, Simplicio Rodrigues de Sá Correa, Luna and Manoel de Aranjo Porto Alegre (1806-76) celebrated for their historical paintings. While the preceding artists had drawn their inspiration especially from episodes of the Bible, of mythology, of ancient history, from the exploits of the first colonizers and from the life of the Italians, after Brazil's victory over Paraguay the epic genre and the struggles of the homeland also offered a rich source of inspiration.

Pedro Americo, b. at Parahiba in 1845 and d. in 1905, can be considered the first great Brazilian artist. He studied in Paris, was a friend of Gide and Lefebvre, preferred religious subjects, and especially biblical, allegorical, and patriotic ones. Some battle paintings, besides a self-portrait (Uffizi), are in Italy.

The whole new generation of painters studied in Paris, Rome and Munich: Oscar Pereira da Silva, Estebanda, Firmino Monteiro, Rodolfo Amoedo, a disciple of Cabanel (Jacob, Jesus at Capernaum), Decio Villares, a dazzling colorist and also a sculptor (subjects drawn from the Holy Scriptures and portraits of women of the Venetian type). The Italian influence is clear in the paintings (also watercolors and pastels) of Enrico Bernardelli, with an attractive and luminous coloring and an original technique.

The principal work of Zeferino da Costa consists of the frescoes of the church of the Candelaria at Rio (biblical scenes), influenced by the Italian painters of the Renaissance.

Among the notable sculptors are Manuel Chiaves Pinheiro (1822-84), a disciple of Ferrez (statues of Pedro II, St. Sebastian, groups in plaster), who had among his disciples Rodolfo Bernardelli, brother of the painter, who in Rome completed his first important work (the imposing Christ and the Adulteress); to his efforts is due the construction of the palace of Fine Arts and of the National Gallery at Rio.

Architecture, influenced by that of the great European metropolises, has had devotees such as Souza Agmar, Francisco Bicalho and Carlos Samparo. Since 1936 the "Serviço do Patrimônio Histórico e Artístico Nacional" has been constituted, which, besides creating numerous museums, tends to direct the art of the country toward genuine and spontaneous forms.

Relics of the ancient Brazilian religious art are found jealously guarded in the diocesan museums of S. Paulo, Salvador, Campanha and Mariana. Contemporary sacred art in Brazil is proud of the gigantic statue of Christ the Redeemer, erected by overcoming various technical difficulties at Rio de Janeiro, on the summit of Corcovado at 700 m. of height, by the engineer Heitor da Silva Costa (in 1931). The statue, which rises on a pedestal of 8 m., is 30 m. tall and measures 28 m. with its arms open; it dominates the abysses, the forest, the city and the sea, and has become a worthy symbol of Catholicism in Brazil.

Fabia Borroni

IV. LITERATURE

Only toward the end of the first quarter of the 16th century did Brazil become the goal of a widespread effort not only of exploitation but also of enlightened colonization, and this especially through the work of the Society of Jesus, which through fervent preaching of the Gospel and through teaching contributed greatly to the formation of the Brazilian national spirit.

Indeed, among the first writers of Brazil, though entirely adhering to the forms of Portuguese culture, not a few are Jesuits, such as the Portuguese Father Anchieta (1530-97) (v.), a noble figure of a humanist and delicate poet, the most ancient writer of Brazil, and Fernão Cardim (1540-1625), whose Narrativa epistolar de una viagem e missão genitica pela Bahia, Ilhéos, Porto Seguro etc. usefully crowns, together with the precious collection of geographical, historical, economic observations etc. handed down by the Tratado descriptivo do Brasil (1587) of Gabriel Soares de Sousa (d. 1591), those celebrated Diálogos das grandezas do Brasil in which the life of the young colony is mirrored in every detail, and to whose author, Bento Teixeira Pinto, is also owed a dramatic Relação do naufragio que fez... Jorge de Albuquerque Coelho and a mediocre Prosopopéa (1601) in the Camonian taste. In the travail of the struggles gloriously sustained against the Portuguese, English and Dutch, the spiritual physiognomy of Brazil is finally defined: the concept of nationality is by now affirmed precisely in the Historia da Custodia do Brasil (the most ancient history of Brazil), written by Friar Vicente do Salvador (1627), in which the expression "Brazil" no longer has merely a geographical content, but has its own new historical and social meaning.

The intense cultural flowering with which, by now, especially Bahia is being adorned is attested by the progress made by prose, particularly in the work of Manoel de Moraes, Diogo Gomes Carneiro, Eusebio de Mattos (1629-92), a learned and eloquent Jesuit, and finds its first truly Brazilian accents in the short poem dedicated by Manoel Botelho de Oliveira (1626-1711) to the Ilha de Maré; in the multiform songbook of Gregorio de Mattos (1623-96), of mostly satirical and moralizing tone, and therefore a most useful aid to the knowledge of contemporary society and life, poetry finally assumes a distinctly personal imprint. The development of the economy, especially as a consequence of the degree of perfection reached by the extractive industry, is accompanied at the beginning of the 18th century by a more widespread cultural activity; and while the Academies (of the esquecidos, of the felizes, of the selectos, of the renascidos etc.) multiply more or less ephemerally, for which poetry is reduced to an idle exercise of subtleties and quibbles (let the example suffice for all of the ponderous poem Eustachidos by Friar Manoel de S. Maria de Itaparica (1704-81), in which poverty of imagination is equaled only by bad taste; prose, on the other hand, gives us with the allegorical tale of Nuno Marques Pereira (1652-1728) a narrative on whose moralizing background not a few observations of a folkloric and scenic character insinuate themselves, in which, precisely, lies the greater interest of the work, while in the acute Reflexão sobre a vaidade dos homens by Mathias Aires Ramos da Silva de Eça (1705-96) it offers an elegant book of philosophical-moral content, whose value was nevertheless understood only much later; and finally in the Historia da America portuguesa (publ. in Lisbon in 1730) it gave, even in the almost total absence of critical sense and geographic precision, the concrete testimony of a notable and sincere effort at coordination. It should not be forgotten that an Alexandre de Gusmão (1695-1753) reveals himself in the same age as an ingenious imitator of Molière, and that Antonio José da Silva, nicknamed o judeu (b. in Rio on 8 May 1705 and d. in Lisbon on 19 Oct. 1739), belongs to Brasil by birth, a skilled creator of a brief but delightful comic theater.

The high degree of culture reached, in the meantime, particularly in the region of Minas Gerais, is translated into the luxuriant flowering of poetry of the school that takes its name precisely from that region, the "mineira" (and whose members almost all ended their lives tragically, swept up in the Inconfidência conspiracy, 1789), and is summed up in the names of José Basilio da Gama (1741-95) and José da S. Rita Durão (1722-84), both epic poets, the first author of Uruguay (1769), a poem of notable spontaneity of inspiration and vividness of coloring, the second of Caramurú, a poem more classical in tone and rich in intense and broad Camonian reminiscences, as well as written in a more copious and brilliant language; of Claudio Manoel da Costa (1729-80), also the author of an epic poem (Villa Rica), cold and colorless, but a most skillful Arcadian versifier and admirer of Camões and Petrarch; of Thomaz Antonio Gonzaga (1744-1810), the greatest lyric poet of his time, sincere author of the most beautiful love canzoniere ever written in the Portuguese language (Marília de Dirceu) and, most probably, also of the anonymous and celebrated Cartas chilenas, a most refined satirical poem directed against the governor Luiz da Cunha Menezes (published partially in 1845 and complete in 1863); and José Ignacio Alvarenga Peixoto (1744-93), more superficial but of an easy and colorful imagination; and Manoel Ignacio da Silva Alvarenga (1749-1814), last representative of the "mineiro" group, an elegant Arcadian, sensitive however also to the beauties of the Brazilian landscape; nor should the spontaneous and popular muse of Domingos Caldas Barbosa (1740-1800) be forgotten at the same time, author of a poetic collection A viola de Lereno (the author's Arcadian name), which was given a warm reception, and Domingos Vidal Barbosa, and Bento de Figueiredo Tenreiro Aranha and a few others besides.

However, only in the 19th century does Brazilian culture enter a decisively national phase, to whose formation contribute abundantly both political events (the transformation of the colony into a kingdom, first, and the proclamation of its independence, later, with the consequent agitations and reforms) and greater commercial and economic contacts with abroad: poetry remains still, it is true, faithful to the by now abused Arcadian forms (and only appear worthy of some mention Fr. Antonio Pereira da Sousa Caldas [1762-1814], of a sorrowful and almost romantic sensibility finally calmed in a complete abandonment to the Catholic faith, Friar Francesco de S. Carlos (1763-1829), a notable orator and author of a muddled poem on the Assumption of the Virgin, and José Eloy Ottoni (1764-1841), an easy and elegant Arcadian poet, translator also of the Proverbs of Solomon and the Book of Job, and, finally, and principally, José Bonifacio de Andrade de Silva (1765-1838), a multifaceted intelligence of scientist, orator, active politician, vigorous poet, fine moralist, who to the predominant recollection of Juvenal knows how not rarely to superimpose that of Anacreon. Prose writers, on the other hand, worthy of mention are, among others, José da Silva Lisboa (1756-1836), a cultured and skillful writer on politics and economics, among whose works, important in content and in size, one may recall the Historia dos principais successos políticos do Império do Brasil (1818), the Constituição moral ou deveres do cidadão (1825), the Causa da religião e disciplina ecclesiástica do celibato clerical (1828); Mariano José Pereira da Fonseca (1773-1848), author of a collection of maxims and reflections (publ. in 1837), which more than once brings La Rochefoucauld to mind; José Feliciano Fernandes Pinheiro (1774-1847), and, in particular, Francisco Mont'Alverne (1784-1850), an eloquent preacher to whom belongs the merit of having introduced into Brasil the study of European philosophy, and Hippolito José da Costa Pereira Furtado de Mendonça (1774-1832), the first notable journalist of Brasil, a lively polemicist and ardent supporter of national independence: names, these, of the first rank, surrounded by those of other worthy, though less widely known, representatives of Brazilian thought in the period of the struggles for independence, such as Friar Francisco de S. Thereza de Jesus Sampaio (1778-1830), a good orator, Friar Joaquim do Amor Divino Caneca (1779-1825), orator, poet and journalist, Balthazar da Silva Lisboa (1776-1840), historian, jurist and naturalist, Manoel Ayres do Casal, a notable geographer and historian, Antonio de Moraes Silvas (1775-1824), a distinguished lexicographer, and many others.

Poets generally termed "of transition," such as Maciel Monteiro (1804-68), of refined lyrical taste and translator of Homer and Virgil, and Salomé Queiroga (1810-78), of bucolic predilections, immediately precede the greatest exponents of the first Brazilian Romanticism, namely José Domingos Gonçalves de Magalhães (1811-82), viscount of Araguaia, a serene and optimistic poet, sustained by a sure faith, whose two collections of lyrics Suspiros poéticos and Saudades (1836) announce, albeit in emphatic and oratorical forms, the new orientation of poetry, and are rich and varied in meters and rhythms, animated by a sincere religious and patriotic inspiration; to them were added, besides the tragedy Antonio José, too faithful to old classical schemes, the Confederação dos Tamoyos (1856) with marked local color, a short poem Urania, etc.; Porto Alegre (1806-1879), whose youthful poem A voz da natureza (1835) shows new forms of thought and style, while the Brasilianas (1863) are burdened with religious and patriotic preoccupations, and from an unbridled imagination were born the 40 cantos of the poem Colombo (1866). Antonio Gonçalves Dias (1823-64) is, finally, the first true Romantic poet, a sincere singer of the Brazilian land, which he exalted in delicate and limpid verses of frank pantheistic intonation, and whose resigned and nostalgic spiritual attitude is strangely matched by the soft and restless tone of Manoel Antonio Alvares de Azevedo (1831-52), whose Lyra dos vinte annos initiates a refined and fanciful poetry, sorrowful and ironic, in which a thousand influences intertwine, from Byron to Musset, to Heine. Close behind him follow Laurindo J. da Silva Rabello (1826-1864), rebellious and pessimistic, of moving sincerity, and L. José Junqueira Freire (1832-55), a tormented and restless spirit but of fine lyrical sensibility, and Casimiro de Abreu (1837-60), sincere and sentimental, who in his limpid and colorful verses reveals himself anxious for a calm and never-attained happiness; finally Antonio de Castro Alves (1847-71), a declaimer and magniloquent, whose voice knew how to rise high and noble to vindicate human rights and strike at cruel social prejudices, and has in this way profoundly influenced national poetry. Many other names too are, albeit in differing measure, not deserving of oblivion.

The defining of the naturalist tendency in poetry, though attested in more than one case (Martins Junior, Lucio de Mendonça, Celso Magalhães, Augusto de Lima, etc.), did not find in B. a deep adherence, so that it was soon overwhelmed by the Parnassian virtuosity of Gonçalves Crespo, of Luis Guimarães, measured and refined, an admirer of Lamartine and Musset, as of Heine and Vigny, of Carducci as of Stecchetti; of Machado de Assis, discreet and nostalgic in his precise realistic inspirations, expressed with metric and rhythmic freedom; of Theophilo Dias, an elegant and eloquent lyric poet, whose art gathers Romantic reminiscences in recherché and precious forms, but always preoccupied with an exact correspondence between thought and form (Cantos tropicaes, Fanfarras, Lyra dos verdes annos), and even more so of Raymundo Correa, a keen investigator of psychological motifs but at the same time a refined and aristocratic describer of natural impressions, of soft sensibility and timid delicacy; and finally Alberto de Oliveira, one of the greatest, who in colorful and imaginative verses, permeated with subtle melancholy, portrays the face of the Brazilian landscape (Canções românticas, Meridiones, etc.), and Olavo Bilac, of Epicurean and sensual accent but of refined simplicity, and Luis Delfino and Luis Murat, a Romantic epigone of Victor Hugo-like verbosity and grandiosity.

But against Parnassian composure, also in B. the Symbolist wave breaks in the last years of the century with the contradictory and obscure, yet delirious with human emotion, poetry of Cruz e Souza, with that of B. Lopes, of Romantic and Parnassian education, in a first phase limpid and picturesque, but destined to lose itself in sonorous affectation. The same artistic direction is followed by E. de Menezes, F. Pacheco, A. de Guimarães, and finally Mario Pederneiras, at last capable of freeing art from artifice, and of sincerely singing with elegant simplicity the sweetness of intimate life, the enchantment of tropical nature, all daily reality in a form free of emphasis and ornament.

Prose, on the other hand, from the first attempts of Teixeira e Souza (1812-61), creator in a certain sense of the popular novel, and of Joaquim Norberto de Souza Silva (1820-1891), historiographer and playwright, with Joaquim Manoel de Macedo (1820-82) organizes itself along the lines of the sentimental and ingenuous national novel (Moreninha, Moço louro, etc.), sensible and chaste, of respectful Catholic imprint, correct and pleasant in style, to arrive at expressing in the prose of José de Alencar (1809-77) the fresh emotions aroused by a profound intuition of nature, in a series of novels (As minas de prata, O sertanejo, etc.), written in an energetic and nervous form, and often, as is particularly the case in Iracema and Guarany, entirely free of rhetoric.

A kind of Brazilian Balzac is, in a certain way, to be considered Manoel Antonio de Almeida (1830-61) for the Memorias de un sargento de milicias (an exact picture of the middle bourgeoisie at the beginning of the century), while Bernardo Joaquim da Silva Guimarães (1827-85) turns a keen and loving eye to the vast countryside of the country's interior

(Mauricio, Escrava Isaura, O ermità etc.) following a tendency that would continue to become ever more accentuated in the work of Franklin Tavora (1842-88), almost entirely inspired by country life (O cabeleira, Casa de palha, Lourenço etc.), and in the more refined and sober work of A. Escargnolle Taunay (1843-99), of a rich and lyrical imagination that is brought out above all in the Retirada da laguna and in the measured and restrained forms of Innocencia.

Depth of thought, fineness of psychological intuition and observation, sobriety of form, subtle irony, make Joaquim Machado de Assis (b. June 21, 1839, d. Sept. 29, 1908), of romantic education, the most significant representative of the naturalist tendency. The anxious investigation of the human document, seen with the eye of a humorist, leads him to a pessimistic vision of life, which faith in human goodness manages at least in part to redeem, while his art ascends gradually from the still uncertain forms of the Contos fluminenses (1870), of Resurreição etc., to the perfect ones of the Memorias póstumas de Braz Cubas (1880), of D. Casuuro (1900) etc. More superficial, Aluizio de Azevedo, from Uma lágrima de mulher to O Mulato (1881), his first success, to Casa de pensão, O homem, O cortiço, renders in impressionist forms, but of beautiful coloring, the tumultuous and complex life of the people, with its coarse vices and violent passions. A soft sensibility, at times rendered with beautiful notes of poetry, is revealed by Julio Ribeiro in Padre Belchior de Ponte and Carne; restless and moved before the fatality of destiny is Raul Pompeia (1863-95), who revealed himself in Atheneu (1888) as an original and precise observer. Disciples of these greater writers are the contemporaries, from Coelho Netto to Medeiros e Albuquerque, to Xavier Marques, who with greater penetration and precision take up the work of the romantics from Alencar to Taunay: among these, Affonso Arinos and Coelho Netto look with intent eye upon the humble life of the countryside, while Euclides da Cunha and Graça Aranha study ethnographic problems with passion.

And now a few words on scientific prose. In the field of history and erudition, A. de Varnhagen (1816-78) already carried out conscientious work based on precise archival research, from the Florilegio da poesia brasileira to the Historia geral do Brasil, to the Historia da Independencia, useful contributions to the history of colonial B. On the other hand, the emphatic Pereira da Silva (1817-98) is nothing but a sincere but historically imprecise popularizer, and the already mentioned Joaquim Norberto de Souza Silva is falsified by a misguided sense of patriotism, while João Francisco Lisboa (1812-63), in pure language and subtly ironic forms, treated political, ethnographic and social problems with acuteness. Historians are also Alexandre de Mello Moraes (1816-82) and Joaquim Caetano da Silva (1810-73), the latter a good cultivator also of philosophy and medicine. But only around 1870 did B. truly enter the circle of international culture with that select minority of minds to which the so-called Recife movement is owed: and just as the abolitionist campaign stands at the center of a more secure study of political and social problems, so precise criticism defines methods and aims in the penetrating work of Tobias Barreto, in the lively polemic of Silvio Romero, critic and poet, philosopher and politician of European culture, in that of Araripe Junior, a disciple of Taine, acute and paradoxical but capable of subtle criticism, in José Verissimo, a disciple of Sainte-Beuve and Brunetière, scrupulous but incapable of a comprehensive vision. In the hands of Joaquim Nabuco, a refined humanist and lucid thinker, history takes on plastic and brilliant forms in the rapidity of its vision and the persuasive force of its eloquence. A reactionary journalist, Eduardo Prado, well-known author of the Illusão Americana, demonstrates in elegant and assured essays a full understanding of the Brazilian political and social problem, intimately linked with the ethnic one, and openly wages battle against North American expansionism.

The significance of Brazilian theater is minimal; born, one might say, with Antonio José by Gonçalves de Magalhães (1838), of purely historical value, it would go on improving its technique with L. C. Martins Penna (1815-48), a prolific author of dramas, comedies and tragicomedies, and would be cultivated, but without notable results, by França Junior, Agrario de Menezes, Augusto de Castro, only to decline into futile and light forms of straightforward French imitation (Valentim Magalhães, Moreira Sampaio etc.), and to clothe itself only with Arthur Azevedo in traditional romantic forms with an easy and spontaneous humor; fine comedies are owed to Machado de Assis.

Jole Scudieri Ranqueri

V. SCHOOL SYSTEM

The Brazilian constitution of Sept. 18, 1946, taking into account the 1940 census, which showed illiteracy rates ranging from 40 to 72 percent, established that elementary education was to be compulsory and given in the national language, requiring industrial or agricultural enterprises to maintain free elementary education.

Religion constitutes an optional subject of instruction and corresponds to the pupil's religion (Brazilian Constitution 18, IX, chap. 5). Schools depend either on the Federal Union or on the individual States or on the federal districts or on the municipalities.

Private schools are permitted. Elementary schools ("Escuelas de primera enseñanza") are divided into 11,342 state, 2,532 municipal, 3,421 private, 302 Italian elementary schools, 1,200 elementary schools of other ethnic groups and 17 missionary elementary schools. To these must be added the 10,000 detached classes in which, since 1947, elementary education has been given to those enrolled between the ages of 15 and 25. Secondary schools ("Escuelas de segunda enseñanza") are divided into 2 federal, 24 state, 3 municipal, 298 private, 8 Italian, 1 missionary. Normal schools, regulated by decree-law no. 8530 of Jan. 2, 1946, are divided into the "Corso reggenti dell'insegnamento primario," which provides for the training of elementary teachers and lasts 4 years, the "Corso di formazione dei professori primari," which lasts 3 years, and the "Corso di specializzazione e di amministrazione scolastica." The classes of the individual [schools] are divided according to sex or may be mixed. There are 24 state schools and 15 private ones.

There are furthermore vocational schools divided into 6 federal, 38 state, 7 municipal, 46 private, 2 missionary, and artistic-industrial schools divided into 2 federal, 7 state, 4 municipal, and 15 private, craft schools divided into 2 federal, 2 state, and 8 private, 3 agricultural schools, 2 federal nautical schools, 9 commercial schools, 94 various military schools and 17 primary schools of the navy divided into 14 purely primary schools and 3 model schools.

Higher education is given in the federal university (Universidade do Brasil) and in the state Universities of Recife, Bahia, Belo Horizonte and Porto Alegre. Famous are the two Catholic ones, of which the first, run by the Jesuits, is in Rio de Janeiro and the second, run by the Benedictines, is in São Paulo. To the latter is attached a faculty of Philosophy, Sciences and Letters of the Regular Canons of Augustine. Besides the complete universities there exist various university institutes (faculties) of jurisprudence in Rio, Recife, Ceará, São Paulo, Goyaz, Pará, Bahia, Belo Horizonte, and Porto Alegre; of medicine in Rio, Bahia, Belo Horizonte, Juiz de Fora, Porto Alegre, São Paulo; of pharmacology in Ouro Preto and Pará; polytechnic schools in Rio, Ouro Preto, São Paulo, Bahia, Recife and Porto Alegre. Catholic university institutes besides the aforementioned universities are: the faculty of philosophy "Paula Frassinetti" of the Sisters of St. Dorothy in Recife, the faculty of Philosophy of the Jesuits in Recife, and the faculty of Philosophy of the Marist Brothers in Porto Alegre. There are also the "Escuela nacional de bellas artes" in Rio, an "Escuela de música de maranon" in Tarã, Academies of Fine Arts in Pará, Bahia, Paraná and São Paulo, where there is also a Conservatory. A "School of Social Service" exists in Rio and Recife. - See Pl. II.

Miroslav Stumpf