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This article analyzes Chinese laudatory couplets — specifically 牌匾 (plaques), 錦旗 (brocaded banners), and 镜框 (frames) — found in the collection of Dr. António do Nascimento Leitão, a collector associated with the Luso-Chinese milieu of Macau. The author argues that these epigraphic artifacts are not merely decorative objects or local "curiosities," but rather concrete means of producing and circulating social recognition, moral competence, and religious/professional legitimacy within the Chinese communities of South China, whose memory is reactivated through celebratory writing. Methodologically, the study undertakes a documentary and interpretative reading of the textual content and material framing of the pieces, cross-referencing categories of devotion and popular imagery — such as protective figures, deified heroes, and stellar spirits — with the sociocultural function of formulas of praise. As a result, it is observed that the texts of the couplets organize symbolic hierarchies and project a cosmology of protection and prosperity, articulating the collector’s individual memory with collective practices of veneration and credentials of merit. The conclusion is that Leitão’s collection functions as a hybrid cultural archive, in which the identity and continuity of traditions are preserved and recontextualized within the Macanese context.

João de Pina-Cabral’s *Between China and Europe: Person, Culture and Emotion in Macao* is presented as a distinctive contribution to historical and social anthropology, extending the author’s earlier work on Macanese identity and its shifting relation to Portuguese and Chinese heritages. The review emphasizes the book’s central analytic claim: Macao’s social history is repeatedly reconfigured by “incidents” that alter Portuguese–Chinese governance and, in turn, transform how Macanese people understand their own cultural practices. Drawing on field-based insights and sustained historical observation, the study links well-known turning points—particularly the consolidation of formal colonial rule in 1846 under Ferreira do Amaral and its reversal in 1966–67—to symbolic sites and commemorative practices, including statues of colonial figures and monuments whose meanings exceed their official intentions. The review highlights Pina-Cabral’s ability to connect political events to lived emotion and collective memory, showing how local accommodation, resentment, and cultural nuance emerged under changing imperial pressures. Key findings thus foreground the performative power of material symbols (even when plans fail) in mediating personhood, emotion, and cultural affiliation between China and Europe across the nineteenth, twentieth, and early post-1999 periods.

The article critically examines the so-called "(de)cannibalization" of the Portuguese during the first Sino-Portuguese contacts in the context of Ming dynasty China, particularly the recurrence, in Chinese sources, of descriptions of alleged cannibalism practiced by the Europeans. The authors argue that such narratives should not be taken as direct evidence, but understood as products of historiographical and political-discursive processes: the circulation of accounts, subsequent reinterpretations, and the possible instrumentalization by Canton authorities and anti-Portuguese imperial censors. Methodologically, the text reconstructs the genesis and evolution of Chinese information, making a systematic comparison between different Chinese chronicles and compilations and contemporary Portuguese records. Based on the analysis of a set of references—including the work *Yueshan Congtan* (attributed to Li Wenfeng)—the authors demonstrate how the allegation may derive from ambiguous geographical references, local rumors, and successive rewritings, sometimes without verifiable basis. It is concluded that the "official rumor" of cannibalism functioned more as a mechanism of legitimation and othering than as historical testimony, contributing to correct historiographical readings that reproduced these sources without questioning.

The article analyzes the references to Chinese silk found in European printed documentation from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries, discussing how this news coverage helped shape perceptions, desires, and commercial practices within the European sphere. Starting from the observation that silk frequently appears in works of the period and that, although trade involved it as a commodity, its value extended beyond a strictly economic logic, the author argues that the printed circulation of "news" about silk also functioned as a mechanism for producing imaginaries about the East, reinforcing the prestige of China as a region of wonders and artistic excellence. Methodologically, the work carries out a historiographic and documentary reading of European editorial production, organizing the contents into thematic nuclei to identify how the origin, material qualities, forms of circulation (including circuits and entrepôts), and social uses associated with the fabrics are described. As a result, it concludes that Chinese silk, even when compared with less expressive European textiles, was perceived as incomparable in lightness, resistance, color, and plasticity, fueling demand among civil and religious elites. Thus, printed documentation not only recorded the presence of the product but also intensified its capacity to impact European society, articulating consumption, status, and cultural fascination.

This research reexamines the circulation, authorship, and material drift of the "Macao Hymno" (also known as "Ao Leal Senado e ao povo de Macau"), a municipal hymn whose score remained for decades either missing or disassociated from its archival records. Against the traditional attribution suggesting that Melchor Vela was a native of Macao, the article demonstrates, on the basis of journalistic and administrative documentation from the late nineteenth century, that the composer was Spanish, despite maintaining close ties with Portuguese communities in Shanghai and Hong Kong and with the president of the Leal Senado, António Joaquim Basto. The investigation draws primarily on minutes of the sessions of the Leal Senado, press reports (including references to Vela's participation in concerts and to the reception of the hymn), and the analysis of material evidence in the manuscript itself (for example, linguistic traces in technical terms). It concludes that the hymn was composed around 1896–1897, offered to the Leal Senado, and immediately performed in concert, but that it never became officially consolidated as a municipal "song"—probably owing to its non-Portuguese origin and the absence of printing, despite the decision to lithograph copies. Finally, the article reconstructs the subsequent trajectory of the manuscript up to the Historical Archives of Macao, clarifying how cataloguing failures and documentary losses contributed to its long invisibility.

The article investigates the tradition of "wind bands" in Macao, framing it as a historical phenomenon of transnational circulation and as a cultural device of memory and local identity. Starting from gaps in the available musicological bibliography—especially concerning wind formations in Portugal—the author proposes a historical-cultural reading that links the arrival and consolidation of bands in Macao to European models, particularly the circuits of French influence on the organization and repertoire of military and civilian bands in the nineteenth century. Methodologically, the study is based on secondary source research and historical-cultural contextualization: it reconstructs the evolution of the concept of "banda" in Europe (from functions of signaling and escorting processions to more complex instrumental ensembles), describes the transformation of the military prototype into municipal and philharmonic bands, and, by historical analogy, explains the mechanisms of transmission to the Macanese context (including the presence of bands associated with education). It concludes that the persistence of bands in Macao is not solely due to institutional continuity, but to the capacity of these formations to materialize European models adapted to local dynamics, contributing to music education, community cohesion, and the construction of a shared cultural identity.

The article analyzes the group of Macao's *shenshi* (gentry) in the mid-Qing dynasty (18th–19th centuries), arguing that their influence transcended the local sphere and articulated with the political, economic, and cultural circuits that structured the city's external relations. Drawing on the classical typology of the *shenshi* in imperial China — divided into upper and lower categories according to the pathways of access to status (examinations, merit-based appointments, and purchase of office) — the study reconstructs the trajectories of the literati and officeholders linked to Macao, with particular attention to the *juren*, the *gongsheng*, and the *zhengtu*, as well as figures promoted through purchase. Methodologically, the research proceeds through a prosopographic analysis, tracing careers, titles, and offices referred to in biographical and documentary sources (including, among others, examination records and works attributed to the individuals in question). Comparison with the Chinese interior allows the author to interpret the Macanese case as a microcosm of social mobility and of the reproduction of prestige. The study concludes that the composition of the group reveals the coexistence of meritocracy and mechanisms of institutional investment, with the upper category concentrating administrative power and literary reputation, while the purchase pathways expanded access to networks of authority that helped shape Macao's social space.

The article argues that the "Historic Centre of Macau" should be understood as the historical result of prolonged contact between East and West, initiated by the Portuguese maritime presence in the mid-sixteenth century and consolidated by nearly five centuries of commercial and cultural interaction. It contends that Macau's strategic location at the mouth of the Pearl River, within a context of intense maritime trade networks, facilitated the circulation of people and knowledge, enabling the accumulation of material and immaterial influences from multiple traditions. The analysis emphasises Macau's role as a gateway for the West to China and as an international window for Ming China, in a process associated with the relaxation of trade restrictions and a cultural openness that reconfigured economic and social practices. Methodologically, the text organises the heritage argument through the articulation between the historical function of the port and urban evidence, identifying the network of streets and squares and the succession of more than twenty monuments and architectural typologies that materialise cultural fusion. It concludes that the inscription of the Historic Centre on the UNESCO World Heritage List (2005) precisely recognises that mutual tolerance and that exceptional legacy of cultural exchange.

This article analyzes the decline of the Portuguese State of India within the context of the strategic and economic shift in the Indian Ocean, emphasizing the manner in which this crisis was reflected in Macao. It is argued that, in the face of the growing structural fragility of the "pepper empire" in the seventeenth century — exacerbated by the dispersion of positions, corruption and bureaucratic-military disorganization, rising maintenance costs, and the European naval offensive — the survival of Macao came to depend on strategies formulated in Spain and Portugal through the arbitrismo movement. Based on a critical reading of arbitrismo documents attributed to Duarte Gomes Solis and Jorge Pinto de Azevedo, the study compares diagnoses and proposals addressed to the royal authority, seeking to identify which measures were advocated and which specific needs were felt in the Macanese settlement. Methodologically, the research articulates textual analysis with historical contextualization, situating the proposed solutions within the conjuncture of Luso-Spanish rivalries and Dutch and English competition. It concludes that the "arbítrios" reveal both the perception of an imperial system in retraction and the attempt to rationalize Macao's role as an entrepôt and logistical node, while simultaneously exposing the material and political limits of the reforms imagined to curb the loss of routes, revenues, and capacity for control.

The article analyzes the Dutch attempt to conquer Macau in 1622, placing it within a broader international framework of the early decades of the seventeenth century. The author argues that the episode cannot be explained solely by European naval rivalries or local Portuguese strategies, but must be understood in light of the transformation of political and economic conditions in East Asia, as well as the official responses of Beijing and the Tokugawa shogunate to external pressures. The research articulates a macro-historical context (post-1600 reorderings in Japan, the decline of Ming power in coastal areas, and the intensification of illicit trade) with the inter-Asian maritime dimension, highlighting networks of circulation formed by Chinese and Japanese merchants, adventurers, and corsairs. Methodologically, the text mobilizes a relational reading between state policies and transnational commercial dynamics: it examines how Japanese authorities calibrated the “sakoku” in view of the economic role of the Chinese (including communities and routes that sustained trade with China) and how the European presence—Portugal and Spain against Holland and England—transformed the balance of forces in the seas of Asia. It concludes that the Dutch attack must be interpreted as a convergent result of European competition in a reconfiguring Asian environment, mediated by the interests and limitations of regional empires.

This article reconstructs the trajectory and commercial networks of the Cai and Qiu family firms in Canton between 1730 and 1784, arguing that the expansion and resilience of these groups depended both on mercantile alliances and on strategies of identification and succession within a fragmented and polysemic documentary environment. The methodology is based on the "cross-reading" of European and colonial records—especially Belgian mercantile diaries and ledgers (the Ostend General Company of the Indies), Dutch resolutions and account books, and English sources—comparing variant spellings of names, family relations (father, partners, and "sons" in lists and inventories), and chronologies inferred from events such as marriages and the commencement of commercial activities. Van Dyke shows that "Hunqua" appears repeatedly with multiple nominative possibilities, requiring careful discrimination among individuals sharing the same surname, branches, and associated family names. From this disentangling, the study more confidently attributes to Cai Hunqua (identified in Dutch series as "Young Honqua" and later "Tjayhonqua") a central role in trade with European companies and in the consolidation of a lasting alliance with the Suqua/Chen. It concludes that, by mapping genealogies and encoding onomastic ambiguities, it is possible to recover the internal functioning of mercantile houses and their long-term connections within the Atlantic-Asian system.

The article analyzes the role of Portuguese navigation and Asian commerce in Macau, taking as its starting point the codex “Relação do commercio em os diferente portos da Azia…”, written by Francisco Inocêncio de Souza Coutinho (1779). Arguing that this source, although known, has been insufficiently studied, the author seeks to fill this historiographical gap through a comprehensive reading of the text and the corresponding biographical contextualization of its author within the Pombaline era. The methodology combines a historical survey of Souza Coutinho’s profile and motivations with a systematic analysis of the content: identification of the instruments and systems supporting trade (including the monetary system and units of measurement and their equivalences), examination of references to navigation to Macau and the periodicity of routes, as well as discussion of customs duties and commercial circulation. Particular attention is given to the articulation between Chinese imports and exports from Canton/Macau to Asia, Africa, and Europe through the Portuguese network. The conclusions underscore the geo-strategic vision of the author and the formulation of proposals to overcome the fragility of the mercantile system in the East, situating them within the Asian economic-commercial framework of the mid-18th century and highlighting the utility of the Overseas Historical Archive for Luso-Asian history.

The article analyzes the nature of Portuguese trade in China between 1513 and 1520, the early phase of Sino-Portuguese relations, arguing that mercantile activity cannot be understood solely as diplomatic preparation (or as an extension of the episode of ambassador Tomé Pires), nor reduced to a framework of unstructured smuggling. The author reviews the bibliography that tends to focus on Tomé Pires and the identification of Tamão, pointing out the absence of a systematic study dedicated to the modalities, motivations, and framework of Portuguese transactions. Methodologically, the research draws mainly on Portuguese sources, cross-referencing them with Chinese documentation when available, to characterize the flows of goods and the conditions of commercial contact. Based on the account of Jorge Álvares’s expeditions and subsequent missions (1515–1516, 1517–1518, 1519–1520, and 1520–1521), the text demonstrates that the Portuguese traded with partial authorization from local authorities, operating primarily from ports such as Tamão, with restrictions on movement to Canton. The conclusions highlight a trade based on reciprocity and the strategic value of European goods—especially pepper and other spices, as well as products associated with armaments—in exchange for textiles, porcelain, and high-prestige goods, as well as the importance of formal factors such as the deposit of a padrão and the presence of lucrative cargoes. The interruption of this phase is explained by the expulsion after the conflicts of Tunmen (1521) and Xicaowan (1522).

The article presents, in the form of a critical review, “Five Books to Reflect on the History of the Misericórdias,” bringing together reference studies on the genesis, consolidation, and circulation of the Misericórdias in the Portuguese space and, in particular, on the Asian continent and archipelagos. The central argument maintains that the institutionalization of mercy cannot be understood merely as the export of a charitable model; rather, it is a process of political-social construction, mediated by local networks and different configurations of power. Through a comparative reading of four historiographical works and a commemorative catalog, the text highlights how doctrinal “discovery” and royal patronage favored the creation of urban structures aimed at social harmonization, monopolization of charity, and organization of confraternal elites, connecting devotion and sovereignty in the culture of royal absolutism. Methodologically, the contributions emphasized in the article value the integration of space into research strategies, allowing the distinction of rhythms and particularities by region. As results, the article concludes that the Misericórdias expanded simultaneously with the dynamics of the empire, adapting to contexts such as Goa and Macau, where their permanence depended on the capacity to accommodate colonial societies, in contrast to more brief local experiences vulnerable to Dutch competition.

The article analyzes the Santa Casa da Misericórdia de Macau as a key institution in the articulation between charity, power, and the dynamics of the “nuptial market” in a colonial and mercantile context. Building on the historical function of the Misericórdias in the reconfiguration of assistance since the late 15th century, the author argues that, in Macau and other Portuguese Asian enclaves, the local specialization of charitable practice was not limited to responding to relief needs; rather, it contributed to managing social hierarchies and reproducing distinctions, especially by framing Christianized groups and urban marginalities through assistance, disciplinary, and organizational mechanisms. Methodologically, the text articulates a historical-institutional reading and documentary analysis based on the records and commitments of the Misericórdia itself, situating them within the broader trajectory of the imperial network of Misericórdias and the regime of negotiated sovereignty that characterized the Portuguese presence in Asia. As a result, it is demonstrated that the Misericórdia, by organizing resources, reputations, and opportunities, operated as a social infrastructure that conditioned matrimonial alliances, strengthened patronages, and integrated relevant sectors into the colonial moral economy. Thus, the institution emerges less as a merely philanthropic body and more as a mediator between inclusion/exclusion, authority, and social reproduction in societies marked by the expansion of trade and the weakening of traditional forms of solidarity.

The article examines the role of the Misericórdias in the context of Portuguese enclaves in Southeast Asia between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, arguing that these confraternities were central to the production of Christian sociability and the stabilization of colonial hierarchies in territories where Portuguese sovereignty was frequently negotiated. Starting from the conquest of Malacca (1511) and the subsequent framework of routes and transits between Goa, Hormuz, and the Spice Islands, the author shifts the focus from historiography centered on “discoveries” and military campaigns to the social and institutional history of colonial daily life. Methodologically, it articulates historical reconstruction with a comparative reading of local experiences (Malacca, Ternate, Tidore, Ambon, Solor, Larantuka, and other waypoints as far as Timor), linking the persistence of the Misericórdias to the absence of municipal institutions and the predominance of military and commercial power. The main conclusions emphasize that, despite limited resources and the reduced number of Portuguese, the Misericórdias helped formulate a “Portuguese identity” primarily subordinated to Christendom, operating through social discipline, discrimination, and assistance, and functioning simultaneously as a technology of conversion, a mechanism for framing elites, and an instrument of institutional continuity for the empire.

This article proposes the "Misericórdias" as an intrinsically multidisciplinary research topic, articulating religious, institutional, and social history with studies on the circulation of charity and mechanisms of colonial power in the Portuguese sphere of Asia. Drawing on a historical-qualitative analysis of the origins and expansion of the confraternities, the author argues that the rapid establishment of the Santas Casas, driven by royal patronage and metropolitan normative frameworks, functioned simultaneously as an instrument of urban pacification, regulation of devout lay life, and a strategy for consolidating social hierarchies. Methodologically, the discussion mobilizes documentary comparison centered on the Compromissos: the Compromisso of Lisbon (1516) and its successive adaptation in overseas contexts, with particular emphasis on the Compromisso proper to the Misericórdia of Goa (1595) and on the regulations of the Misericórdia of Macau (drafted in 1627). As a result, it becomes evident that the normative texts were not mere exported models, but instruments for the local reconfiguration of assistance practices, conditioned by demographic compositions, cultural differences, and relations among Christian populations, converts, and subaltern groups. The article concludes that, in light of Marcel Mauss's theory of the gift, charity operated under discriminatory logics, selectively favoring recipients and strengthening elite powers, revealing charity as a social technology of colonial domination.

This article analyzes the Misericórdia of Isla Hermosa (Taiwan, 1632–1642) as a lay initiative and as an institution of Portuguese inspiration, yet situated in a particular colonial context—that of a presidio and an unstable civil community. The author argues that the local Misericórdia should not be directly compared with other Misericórdias of the Portuguese empire, nor with the long-standing experience of Manila, for it differed in duration, social structure, and its role in the actual conditions of the settlement's survival. The methodology rests chiefly on a critical reading of the available documentation, centered on a single principal document, supplemented by secondary references. On the basis of this evidence, the text reconstructs the institution's genesis and its ties to the Dominicans. Its main promoters are identified as Fr. Jacinto Esquivel and Governor Juan de Alcarazo, whose actions appear linked to concrete needs of assistance and to apostolic strategies. Among the conclusions, it is highlighted that the Misericórdia took shape in a liminal space between mission and military administration, functioning as an instrument for organizing charity (including a projected infant school) and as a mechanism for financing Dominican work, before disappearing after a decade.

The article reconstructs, in a panoramic fashion, the history of the Misericórdia of Goa and proposes a reinterpretation of its functioning in light of Marcel Mauss’s theory of the gift, highlighting the centrality of the notion of reciprocity. The analysis maintains that the brotherhood’s charitable works should not be understood merely as religious charity, but as a social and political device intimately articulated with the strategies of the Portuguese colonial state within the context of the “Empire of India.” Methodologically, the text combines historical reconstruction with an interpretative reading inspired by Mauss, considering the mechanisms by which Christian assistance operated selections, rewards, and frameworks of conduct. It concludes that, in Goa — a territory under Portuguese sovereignty particularly relevant since the seventeenth century — the Misericórdia assumed a twofold importance: on the one hand, a progressive monopoly on charity; on the other, the construction of a network of relations marked by asymmetry and discrimination, converting local subalternity into disciplined adherence to the colonial order. Thus, the “gift system” reveals itself as a means of “inviting” submission to political, economic, and military power, through the rigorous control of welfare institutions (from poverty to hospital care), producing social identity and unity structured by Catholic ethics and by reciprocity rendered, in practice, obligatory.

The article investigates the origins and early years of the Misericórdia of Manila (1594–1625), arguing that the institution emerged as an institutional solution for the management of care for the poor and the sick in a colonial context marked by fragmented welfare networks. The research reconstructs the process of formation based on local precedents of charity, especially the role of clerical initiatives and lay figures connected to the practice of the “acts of mercy,” before the consolidation of a brotherhood along the lines of the Iberian tradition. The work then articulates the Portuguese inspiration of the Houses of the Misericórdia—as a confraternal model with statutes, Marian patronage, and a logic of articulation between local elites and organized charity—to explain the plausibility of its adaptation in Manila. Methodologically, the analysis is historical-institutional and comparative: it describes the passage from informal and hospital relief to a stable form of organization, examining continuities and transformations in the modes of fundraising, administration, and distribution of resources. It concludes that, in its early years, the Misericórdia of Manila was consolidated through cooperation between religious authorities, civil benefactors, and preexisting hospital structures, favoring a transition from episodic care to a more regular administration of assistance to needy Spaniards and, progressively, to vulnerable populations in the urban space of Manila.