Fort of Santo António do Monte Brasil


The Fort of Santo António, also known as the Redoubt of Santo António, is located on the peninsula of Monte Brasil, in the civil parish Sé, in the municipality of Angra do Heroísmo, along the southern coast of Terceira, Portuguese archipelago of the Azores. It is part of the complex of defensive structures of the Fort of São João Baptista, that crossed-fire with the Fort of São Sebastião in the defense of the Bay of Angra.

History

The redoubt was constructed following the Portuguese succession crisis of 1580 by the Corregedor of the Açores, Ciprião de Figueiredo e Vasconcelos, from the defensive plans of Tommaso Benedetto, after attacks by French corsair Pierre Bertrand de Montluc in Funchal, and the 1566 attack and defense of Angra.
Francisco Ferreira Drummond, registered that:
In the 1595 engraving "A Cidade de Angra na Ilha Iesu Xpo da Terceira que esta em 30 Graos", by Jan Huygen van Linschoten, the fort was depicted.
In the context of the installation of the Captaincy-General of the Azores, its state was reported in the 1767 dispatch::"17 — Redoubt of Santo António. This redoubt has seven batteries, of which there are found 21 pieces, 18 in bronze...and three of iron, of the same condition: it requires another 12 pieces with its repairs. This is the principal defence, which is at the entrance to the port. In the lower battery the lower wall angle is ruined, requiring repair."
Sousa, in 1822, while writing of the port of Angra referred: "...and Santo António in the west, of the same force ..."

Architecture

By the 20th century, little of the fort survived; segments of the walls and bunker are the only elements of this redoubt that remain on Monte Brasil.