The Quinta da Regaleira and the initiation well of Sintra

In Sintra a spiral staircase descends into the earth: the story of the Quinta da Regaleira, Carvalho Monteiro, Luigi Manini and the initiation well.

Among the damp hills of Sintra, a few kilometres from Lisbon, a well opens in the ground that has never held water. A spiral staircase descends along its walls for about twenty-seven metres, winding around a central void, down to a floor on which a compass rose with a cross is drawn. From there, tunnels cut into the rock lead towards grottoes and small lakes. This is the initiation well of the Quinta da Regaleira.

The millionaire and the set designer

The estate was bought in the 1890s by António Augusto Carvalho Monteiro, an extremely wealthy collector and bibliophile born in Brazil to a Portuguese family, whom Lisbon called Monteiro dos Milhões, Monteiro of the Millions. To transform it he turned to the Italian architect and set designer Luigi Manini, who had worked for years for the theatres of Lisbon. The main works took place in the first decade of the twentieth century.

The result is a palace in Neo-Manueline style, with spires, pinnacles and decorations recalling the age of the great Portuguese voyages and the style of the Jerónimos Monastery in Belém. Around it extends a park of about four hectares, scattered with chapels, towers, fountains, artificial grottoes and underground passages. Every element seems conceived as a theatre scene, in keeping with the experience of Manini, who had designed backdrops for opera.

Descent and ascent

The well is organised in nine successive landings, and many commentators have linked it to the nine circles of Dante's Inferno, a work Carvalho Monteiro collected with passion. The descent into darkness and the ascent towards light through the tunnels suggest a path of symbolic death and rebirth, a theme dear to initiatory traditions.

There is also a second well, called the unfinished one, with a straight staircase descending in successive flights. The two wells are connected by a system of galleries that emerges at different points of the park, sometimes behind a waterfall, sometimes beside a lake crossed on stepping stones. The visitor thus experiences a sequence of darkness and light, of enclosure and openness, which is the emotional heart of the whole garden.

Freemasonry, Templars and caution

Guides and popular books often associate the Quinta with Freemasonry, the Templars or the Order of Christ, the Portuguese heir of the Templars. Symbols of this kind are indeed present in the park, and nineteenth-century culture was steeped in esoteric Romanticism. However, there are no documents that precisely set out the patron's ritual intentions or any ceremonial use of the well. The interpretations should therefore be considered plausible readings of a symbolic language, not established facts.

The cultural landscape of Sintra was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1995, and the Quinta, purchased by the municipality in 1997, is now open to the public. Descending that spiral remains an experience that speaks for itself, beyond any theory. The architecture compels the body to make the journey the symbol describes: the descent into the depths, the crossing of darkness, the return to daylight.