{"id":10581,"date":"2025-12-22T15:31:27","date_gmt":"2025-12-22T15:31:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.findportugal.pt\/lisboa-1755-o-terramoto-que-abalou-deus-o-mundo-e-a-razao\/"},"modified":"2026-01-23T18:23:40","modified_gmt":"2026-01-23T18:23:40","slug":"lisbon-1755-the-earthquake-that-shook-god-the-world-and-reason","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.findportugal.pt\/en\/lisbon-1755-the-earthquake-that-shook-god-the-world-and-reason\/","title":{"rendered":"Lisbon, 1755: the earthquake that shook God, the world and reason\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text css=””]<\/p>\n

By<\/em>\u00a0 \u00c1lvaro Reis<\/strong><\/h5>\n

[\/vc_column_text][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1766505640283{margin-right: 100px !important;}”]<\/p>\n

In a single moment, the earth shook and with it, faith, reason, and the order of the world. The earthquake devastated the city, but also shook the conscience of Europe.<\/h3>\n

[\/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height=”30px”][vc_single_image image=”10520″ img_size=”full” css=””][vc_empty_space height=”50px”][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1\/4″ offset=”vc_hidden-xs”][vc_empty_space height=”30px”][vc_custom_heading text=”\u201cLisbon was a city of priests, prostitutes, and palaces.\u201d” font_container=”tag:h4|font_size:26|text_align:left|line_height:1.5″ google_fonts=”font_family:Playfair%20Display%3Aregular%2Citalic%2C700%2C700italic%2C900%2C900italic|font_style:400%20italic%3A400%3Aitalic” css=”.vc_custom_1766504518246{margin-right: 30px !important;}”][vc_custom_heading text=”Voltaire” font_container=”tag:h4|font_size:20|text_align:left|line_height:1.5″ google_fonts=”font_family:Playfair%20Display%3Aregular%2Citalic%2C700%2C700italic%2C900%2C900italic|font_style:700%20bold%20regular%3A700%3Anormal” css=”.vc_custom_1766505677282{margin-right: 30px !important;}”][\/vc_column][vc_column width=”3\/4″][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1766505729516{margin-right: 100px !important;}”]<\/p>\n

The city before the abyss: gold, lust and contradiction<\/strong><\/h3>\n

On the morning of November 1st, 1755, Lisbon was an imperial capital and a mirror of its contradictions. Bathed in the light of the Tagus and enriched by the gold of Brazil, it was a city of opulence, devotion, superstition, and decadence. The heart of the empire pulsed through Baroque churches, convents, palaces, and taverns. Piety was ostentatious, but fervour lived alongside public vices, stark inequality, and a worldly sensuality that both seduced and scandalised foreign travellers.<\/p>\n

Voltaire, who would later write about the disaster with lucid irony, described Lisbon as \u201ca city of priests, prostitutes, and palaces.\u201d It fascinated Enlightenment thinkers for its Catholic exoticism and horrified them with its inquisitorial violence and clerical extravagance. For many, Lisbon stood as a symbol of colonial wealth and moral ambiguity.[\/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height=”50px”][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1\/2″ offset=”vc_hidden-xs”][vc_single_image image=”10535″ img_size=”full” css=””][vc_empty_space height=”35px”][\/vc_column][vc_column width=”1\/2″][vc_single_image image=”10526″ img_size=”full” css=””][vc_empty_space height=”50px”][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1\/4″][\/vc_column][vc_column width=”3\/4″][vc_column_text css=””]<\/p>\n

The earthquake as a metaphor for evil<\/strong><\/h3>\n

The earthquake, followed by fires and a massive tsunami, devastated the city centre and killed an estimated 60,000 people. But more than a natural disaster, it triggered an existential tremor across Europe. As Portuguese writer Vasco Gra\u00e7a Moura<\/strong> put it, \u201cNever had the demon of fear spread so fast and so coldly across the Earth.\u201d<\/p>\n

Goethe<\/strong>, who was six years old at the time, would later recall the quake in Poetry and Truth<\/em> as his first confrontation with metaphysical suffering. Lisbon\u2019s ruin became a universal reference. Philosophers, poets and theologians reacted in a chain of essays, verses and debates.<\/p>\n

The rational optimism of Leibniz<\/strong>, with his idea that we live in \u201cthe best of all possible worlds,\u201d was severely questioned. Voltaire<\/strong> responded with Po\u00e8me sur le d\u00e9sastre de Lisbonne<\/em> (1756), a scathing attack on providence and a denunciation of theological cruelty:<\/p>\n

[\/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height=”35px”][vc_custom_heading text=”\u201cWill you say, \u2018This is result of eternal laws
\nDirecting the acts of a free and good God\u2019?
\nWill you say, seeing this mass of victims,
\n\u2018God is avenged, their death is payment for their crimes\u2019?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2014 Voltaire, Poem on the Lisbon Disaster” font_container=”tag:h4|font_size:20|text_align:left|line_height:2″ google_fonts=”font_family:Playfair%20Display%3Aregular%2Citalic%2C700%2C700italic%2C900%2C900italic|font_style:400%20italic%3A400%3Aitalic” css=””][vc_empty_space height=”50px”][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”10547″ img_size=”full” css=””][vc_custom_heading text=”\u00a9The 1755 Earthquake (1756-92), Joa\u0303o Glama (MNAA)” font_container=”tag:p|font_size:12|text_align:left” google_fonts=”font_family:Fira%20Sans%3A300%2C300italic%2C400%2C400italic%2C500%2C500italic%2C700%2C700italic|font_style:300%20light%20regular%3A300%3Anormal” css=””][vc_empty_space height=”25px”][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1\/4″][\/vc_column][vc_column width=”3\/4″][vc_column_text css=””]<\/p>\n

God, the Devil and the punishment of a city<\/strong><\/h3>\n

In Portugal, the dominant narrative was one of divine retribution. The Inquisition amplified sermons of guilt. Friar Manuel da Epifania claimed the disaster was the result of God\u2019s wrath. Theological rhetoric replaced scientific inquiry. The burning of churches and the death of worshippers were seen by many as divine punishment for a morally decadent society.<\/p>\n

As Vasco Gra\u00e7a Moura noted, \u201cThe city became a theatre of guilt, full of penitential sermons, public processions, and staged sorrow.\u201d This was still a world in which evil was explained by the Devil and earthquakes by the wrath of Heaven.[\/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height=”50px”][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1\/4″][vc_empty_space height=”20px”][vc_custom_heading text=”This was still a world in which evil was explained by the Devil and earthquakes by the wrath of Heaven.” font_container=”tag:h4|font_size:26|text_align:left|line_height:1.5″ google_fonts=”font_family:Playfair%20Display%3Aregular%2Citalic%2C700%2C700italic%2C900%2C900italic|font_style:400%20italic%3A400%3Aitalic” css=””][vc_empty_space height=”5px”][\/vc_column][vc_column width=”3\/4″][vc_single_image image=”10551″ img_size=”full” css=””][vc_empty_space height=”5px”][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1\/4″ offset=”vc_hidden-xs”][\/vc_column][vc_column width=”3\/4″ offset=”vc_hidden-xs”][vc_empty_space height=”35px”][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1\/4″][\/vc_column][vc_column width=”3\/4″][vc_column_text css=””]<\/p>\n

A European debate: reason versus faith<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Outside Portugal, the earthquake sparked a continental debate. A young Immanuel Kant<\/strong> published three short essays attempting to explain the phenomenon through natural causes rather than divine will. For Kant, the Lisbon disaster was a call for empirical reasoning.<\/p>\n

Rousseau<\/strong> responded to Voltaire<\/strong> with a more tempered view, suggesting that man suffers less because of nature than because of crowded cities and artificial lifestyles. This was the beginning of a new critique of urban progress as a hidden cause of modern suffering.<\/p>\n

Alexander Pope<\/strong>, David Hume<\/strong> and other thinkers revisited the \u201cproblem of evil\u201d with new urgency. Lisbon became an emblem of instability, human limitation, and the failure of all-encompassing explanations.[\/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height=”35px”][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1\/4″][vc_empty_space height=”20px”][vc_custom_heading text=”Outside Portugal, the earthquake caused an intellectual shockwave.” font_container=”tag:h4|font_size:26|text_align:left|line_height:1.5″ google_fonts=”font_family:Playfair%20Display%3Aregular%2Citalic%2C700%2C700italic%2C900%2C900italic|font_style:400%20italic%3A400%3Aitalic” css=””][vc_empty_space height=”5px”][\/vc_column][vc_column width=”3\/4″][vc_single_image image=”10555″ img_size=”full” css=””][vc_empty_space height=”50px”][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1\/4″][\/vc_column][vc_column width=”3\/4″][vc_column_text css=””]<\/p>\n

Lisbon rebuilt and modernity born from the ashes<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Under the leadership of the Marqu\u00eas of Pombal<\/strong>, Lisbon was rebuilt with a rationalist, enlightenment spirit. The Baixa Pombalina emerged with orthogonal streets, anti-seismic building codes, and a vision of orderly, modern progress in stark contrast to the Baroque chaos of old.<\/p>\n

The reconstruction was also political. Pombal\u2019s famous order, \u201cBury the dead and take care of the living,\u201d became the mantra of a new era. The Portugal that rose from the ruins was less mystical and more modern, less clerical and more secular.[\/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height=”35px”][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”10553″ img_size=”full” css=””][vc_empty_space height=”35px”][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1\/4″][\/vc_column][vc_column width=”3\/4″][vc_column_text css=””]<\/p>\n

The philosophical legacy: between chaos and meaning<\/strong><\/h3>\n

The Lisbon earthquake was not just a geological event. As Theodor Adorno<\/strong> later wrote, it was a \u201cfoundational moment of modernity.\u201d It marked the end of blind trust in the moral purpose of suffering and the beginning of a demand for human responsibility and rational understanding.<\/p>\n

From Lisbon onwards, the West began to ask whether meaning must be constructed, not received. Whether silence from God was a theological mystery, or a philosophical turning point.<\/p>\n

[\/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height=”35px”][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1\/4″][\/vc_column][vc_column width=”3\/4″][vc_separator color=”custom” css=”.vc_custom_1765973463032{margin-top: 20px !important;margin-bottom: 20px !important;}” accent_color=”#A7A7A7″][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1766505596699{margin-top: 0px !important;}” el_class=”extra-text”]Main sources and references:<\/strong><\/p>\n

    \n
  • \n
      \n
    • Vasco Gra\u00e7a Moura, Poema sobre o Desastre de Lisboa<\/em> (Ass\u00edrio & Alvim, 2005)<\/li>\n
    • Voltaire, Po\u00e8me sur le d\u00e9sastre de Lisbonne<\/em> (1756)<\/li>\n
    • Goethe, Dichtung und Wahrheit<\/em><\/li>\n
    • Immanuel Kant, On the Causes of Earthquakes<\/em> (1756)<\/li>\n
    • Theodor Adorno, Negative Dialectics<\/em><\/li>\n
    • Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Letter to Voltaire on the Lisbon Earthquake<\/em> (1756)<\/li>\n
    • Ant\u00f3nio Vieira, Serm\u00f5es<\/em> (indirect references to punishment and providence)<\/li>\n
    • Alexander Pope, Essay on Man<\/em> (cited in period texts)<\/li>\n
    • Engraving: \u201cLisbon after the Earthquake\u201d (18th-century German print)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

      [\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_column][\/vc_column]<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      Lisboa, 1755. O terramoto destruiu a cidade e abalou a f\u00e9 da Europa. Voltaire, Kant e Rousseau enfrentaram o sil\u00eancio de Deus e o peso da raz\u00e3o. Uma reflex\u00e3o profunda sobre o Mal, o Iluminismo e a cidade que renasceu dos escombros.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10521,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_themeisle_gutenberg_block_has_review":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[198,200],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10581","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cultur","category-history"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nLisbon, 1755: the earthquake that shook God, the world and reason\u00a0 - Find Portugal<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Learn how the Lisbon earthquake of 1755 shook not only the city but the entire philosophical foundation of Europe. 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