This point sits inside the equestrian statue of King José I, the centerpiece of Lisbon's Praça do Comércio.
Last reviewed 4 October 2026 · A three-minute read · 43–1835
The short answer
Praça do Comércio in Lisbon holds the bronze equestrian statue of King José I, cast in a single pour of 38,564 kilos of bronze on October 15, 1774 by Joaquim Machado de Castro and Brigadier Bartolomeu da Costa, and raised in 1775 on the ruins of the earthquake-destroyed Ribeira Palace.
Lisboa - Praça do Comércio — 2007 · Harshil Shah from London, UK · CC BY-SA 2.0
1755 to 1775
A sculptor who never saw the king's face built this
The statue of José I of Portugal is a bronze king on horseback, standing where a royal palace once stood before it was destroyed. The earthquake of 1755 flattened the old Palácio da Ribeira and much of Lisbon with it. Out of that ruin came a plan to rebuild the city, and to put a monument to the king at the heart of it. Architect Eugénio dos Santos laid out the new square, now called Praça do Comércio, with the statue's pedestal already in mind. When he died in 1760, the job of actually making the statue fell to Joaquim Machado de Castro, a self-taught sculptor from Coimbra who had never built anything like it.
José I of Portugal refused to sit for his portrait. Machado de Castro had to work from coins stamped with the king's profile, and he gave the helmet a tall plume to pull the eye away from a face he had never really studied. The horse was modeled on Gentil, the king's own mount, shown trampling snakes underfoot.
The casting itself was the hard part. On October 15, 1774, workers at the Royal Arsenal poured 38,564 kilos of molten bronze into the mold in one continuous flow, directed by Brigadier Bartolomeu da Costa using methods borrowed from cannon founding. It was one of the first statues of its size cast that way anywhere in the world.
The finished bronze took four days to reach the square in May 1775, dragged by more than a thousand men along a road built just for the journey. Houses and even a church were torn down to clear its path. It went up on June 6, 1775, the king's sixty-first birthday. José I did not come to see it unveiled.
1777 to 1833
A fallen minister's face vanished from the pedestal
On the front of the pedestal, below the royal arms, sits a medallion of the king's chief minister, Sebastião José de Carvalho e Melo, known as the Marquis of Pombal. Sebastião José de Carvalho e Melo had driven Lisbon's rebuilding after the earthquake, and the sculptor honored him alongside the king. In 1777, after Sebastião José de Carvalho e Melo fell from power and lost royal favor, his portrait was chiseled off the pedestal. It stayed off for over fifty years. In 1833, someone put it back, and an inscription below the bust still records the restoration.
lore
Locals still call this square by its old palace name
Visitors sometimes hear the monument called the "Black Horse Square" statue, after an old English nickname for the plaza, Praça do Cavalo Preto. Locals call the square itself Terreiro do Paço, meaning Palace Square, a name that remembers the Ribeira Palace that stood here before the earthquake took it down. The statue faces the Tagus River, with the Rua Augusta Arch framing it from behind.
1810
The sculptor published his own account of the casting
Machado de Castro spent decades defending his own work. In 1810, he published a long account of how the statue was designed and cast, laying out the techniques in detail. Accounts differ on how fast the actual pour went. Some describe the molten bronze filling the mold in minutes, others stress the hours of preparation and adapted cannon-founding methods behind that single pour. Either way, the sculptor wanted the record straight: this was his statue, built with methods nobody in Portugal had tried before.
1760 to 1770
An international contest decided who would sculpt the king
Before any of the casting happened, the commission itself had been contested. An international competition was held to choose a design for the king's monument, and Machado de Castro won it. He was working from studies Eugénio dos Santos had left behind at his death, but the final shape of horse and rider was his own.
now
The bronze king still faces the river today
The bronze king and his horse still stand at the center of Praça do Comércio, facing the river, with the Rua Augusta Arch behind them. Stone steps and a low rail circle the pedestal, where visitors often sit and rest. The medallion of the minister who once vanished from the pedestal is back in place, readable by anyone who looks closely enough.
A bronze king on a bronze horse still faces the Tagus, with snakes crushed beneath its hooves.
Read the ground you are standing on
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Ancient
Roman to medieval periods
Excavations in the cloister of Lisbon Cathedral, northeast of here, have turned up Roman, Visigothic and medieval remains stacked beneath the church floor.
In November 1147, Christian forces under Afonso I besieged and captured Lisbon from its Moorish rulers, a turning point that shaped the whole district.
Lisbon Cathedral holds the tombs of King Afonso IV, who died in 1357, and Queen Beatrice of Castile, who died the same year, among other medieval nobles.
During a succession crisis in December 1383, a mob stormed Lisbon Cathedral, seized Bishop Martinho de Zamora, and threw him from the north tower, a short walk northeast of here.
The Ribeira das Naus shipyard operated here from 1500 until the 1755 earthquake, building and repairing the ships of Portugal's maritime empire a few steps from this square.
The Convento da Santíssima Trindade, built in the mid-13th century, was largely destroyed by the 1755 earthquake and what remained was demolished in 1835 to open a new road.
A 1794 painting shows the royal court gathered at the Terreiro do Paço, and in 1756 João Glama Ströberle painted the earthquake itself, giving two glimpses of this ground across six decades.
On October 15, 1774, sculptor Joaquim Machado de Castro and Brigadier Bartolomeu da Costa cast this equestrian statue of King José I from 38,564 kilos of bronze in one continuous pour, one of the first times it had been done anywhere in the world.
Starting May 22, 1775, over a thousand men hauled the finished statue to the square over four days, and houses and churches in its path were torn down to let it through.
The Ribeira Palace, the royal residence of Portugal's kings, stood on this ground until the earthquake of November 1, 1755 destroyed it, clearing the way for the square and statue that followed.
What happened at Praça do Comércio in 1774?
On October 15, 1774, sculptor Joaquim Machado de Castro and Brigadier Bartolomeu da Costa cast the equestrian statue of King José I from 38,564 kilos of bronze in a single continuous pour, using methods borrowed from cannon founding.
How did the statue get to the square?
Starting May 22, 1775, more than a thousand men dragged the finished bronze statue to the square over four days, and houses and even a church along the route were torn down to let it pass.
Who is shown on the pedestal besides the king?
A medallion of the Marquês de Pombal, the king's chief minister, appears below the royal arms; it was chiseled off in 1777 after his fall from power and restored in 1833.
Why is the statue sometimes called the Black Horse Square statue?
Visitors sometimes use that name after an old English nickname for the plaza, Praça do Cavalo Preto, though locals generally call the square Terreiro do Paço, recalling the palace that once stood there.
Who designed the statue and how was the design chosen?
An international competition was held to choose the monument's design, and Joaquim Machado de Castro won it, working from studies left by architect Eugénio dos Santos, who had died before the statue was made.
