John IV of Portugal
John IV (Portuguese: João,[2] pronounced [ʒuˈɐ̃w]; 19 March 1604 – 6 November 1656), nicknamed John the Restorer (Portuguese: João, o Restaurador), was the King of Portugal whose reign, lasting from 1640 until his death, began the Portuguese restoration of independence from Habsburg Spanish rule.[1] His accession established the House of Braganza on the Portuguese throne, and marked the end of the 60-year-old Iberian Union by which Portugal and Spain shared the same monarch.
John IV
1 December 1640 – 6 November 1656
15 December 1640
19 March 1604
Ducal Palace of Vila Viçosa, Vila Viçosa, Portugal
6 November 1656 (aged 52)
Ribeira Palace, Lisbon, Portugal
Luisa de Guzmán (m. 1633)
Before becoming king, he was John II, the 8th Duke of Braganza. He was the grandson of Catherine, Duchess of Braganza,[3] a claimant to the crown during the Portuguese succession crisis of 1580. On the eve of his death in 1656, the Portuguese Empire was at its territorial zenith, spanning the globe.[4]
Death and legacy[edit]
King John IV died in 1656 and was succeeded by his son Afonso VI. His daughter, Catherine of Braganza, married King Charles II of England.[3] Bombay in India was given as dowry to the English.
John was a patron of music and the arts, and a considerably sophisticated writer on music; in addition to this, he was a composer. During his reign he collected one of the largest libraries in the world, but it was destroyed in the Lisbon earthquake of 1755. Among his writings are a defense of Palestrina, and a Defense of Modern Music (Lisbon, 1649).[9] One famous composition attributed to him is a setting of the Crux fidelis, a work that remains highly popular during Holy Week amongst church choirs. However, no known manuscript of the work exists, and it was first published only in 1869, in France. On stylistic grounds, it is generally recognized that the work was written in the 19th century.[10]
In 1646, John IV proclaimed Mary, in her conception as the Immaculate Conception (the 'Immaculata'), the Patroness of Portugal by royal decree of the House of Braganza. The doctrine had appeared in the Middle Ages and had been fiercely debated in the 15th and 16th centuries, but a bull issued in 1616 by Pope Paul V finally "[forbade] anyone to teach or preach a contrary opinion."[11] Three years later, in 1649, the iconography of the Immaculata was established by Francisco Pacheco (1564–1654), a Spanish artistic advisor to the Inquisition, based on Revelation XII:1.[12]