On 14 April 2014, the Lisbon City Foundation celebrated 25 years of active service to the city and the Portuguese-speaking world.
The ceremony was presided over by the Mayor of Lisbon, António Costa, alongside Guilherme de Oliveira Martins, President of the Court of Auditors, who gave an account of the Foundation’s history and paid tribute to its founder, Nuno Krus Abecasis.
The event took place at the Foundation’s headquarters in Campo Grande, where a plaque commemorating its 25th anniversary was unveiled and tribute was paid to the scholarship holders who had completed their bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees, as well as to the companies that had sponsored their academic activities during the 2012/2013 academic year.
The Muslim expansion, comprising Arab and Berber forces, settled without difficulty in the welcoming region of Lisbon and the Tagus Valley. The conquerors drew upon the heritage of Greek and Roman civilisation, as well as their own traditions and influences from Hellenistic, Byzantine, Persian and Eastern cultures. Al-Ushbuna lived in accordance with the spirit of the age, when conflicts between the Christian and Muslim faiths were avoided.
Paintings by Pedro Castel’Branco that explore the challenges of the modern world, reflecting the search for new paths in the face of today’s unpredictability and transformations.
Manuel Fialho da Silva, Medieval Jewish Lisbon: For more than two millennia, several cities have existed, one on top of the other, with different names, but in the shadow of the same Castle Hill, from Roman Olisipo, Visigoth Olissipona, Muslim Al-Ushbuna, medieval Lixboa to the current Lisbon of the 21st century. It is very likely that Jewish families have lived permanently in all these cities.