Lisbon
Lisbon (Portuguese: Lisboa) is the capital city of Portugal. During the Renaissance, a guild of the Assassin Order was based in the city and received aid from Ezio Auditore da Firenze's Italian guild.[1]
History
Lisbon is one of the oldest cities in Europe, with a history that stretches back to its original settlement by the indigenous Iberians, the Celts, and the eventual establishment of Phoenician and Greek trading posts (c. 800–600 BC), followed by successive occupations in the city of various peoples including the Carthaginians, Romans, Suebi, Visigoths, and Moors. Roman armies first entered the Iberian peninsula in 219 BC, and occupied the Lusitanian city of Olissipo (Lisbon) in 205 BC, after winning the Second Punic War against the Carthaginians. With the collapse of the Roman Empire, waves of Germanic barbarian tribes invaded the future Portugal, and by 500 AD, the Visigothic Kingdom controlled most of Hispania.
In 711, Moors, who were mostly Berbers and Arabs from the Maghreb, invaded the Iberian Peninsula, conquering Lisbon in 714. What is now Portugal first became part of the Emirate of Córdoba and then of its successor state, the Caliphate of Córdoba. In 1147, after a four-month siege, Christian crusaders under the command of King Afonso I captured the city and Christian rule returned. In 1256, King Afonso III moved his capital from Coimbra to Lisbon, taking advantage of the city’s excellent port and its strategic central position.
Lisbon flourished in the 15th and 16th centuries as the centre of a vast empire during the period of the Portuguese discoveries, This was a time of intensive maritime exploration, when the Kingdom of Portugal accumulated great wealth and power through its colonisation of Asia, South America, Africa and the Atlantic islands.
Knowing that King Manuel I might have connections to the Templars, the Assassins traveled to Lisbon and interrogated one of the men in his council, who revealed that Manuel did indeed serve the Templar cause. They also learned that Manuel was preparing to send a fleet, led by Vasco da Gama, to Calicut. This prompted the Assassins to warn their brothers in India.[1]
Shortly after that, they learned that Manuel was forcing all Jewish people to either convert to Christianity or leave the city, but had also closed the city borders, making it impossible to escape. Anyone who refused to convert was beaten or even killed. The Assassins arranged for three ships to take the Jewish citizens out of Lisbon, though it was not enough and the Assassins were forced to kill many guards that had found out about their plans.[1]
Knowing that they could not get all the citizens out in time, they provided them with weapons and light armor, training them in tactics such as stealth, surprise, intimidation and shock. The civilians seemed eager to fight their king, as very little of them accepted the offer to travel to Italy with the Assassins.[1]
In November of 1755, the then-Assassin Shay Cormac was sent to Lisbon by his Mentor, Achilles Davenport to retrieve a Piece of Eden inside a First Civilization Temple below the Carmo Convent. When Shay had removed the Piece from it's pedestal, the defense mechanisms of the Piece triggered a massive earthquake in the city, collapsing structures and killing civilians. Shay managed to escape from the disaster, and sailed back to the Thirteen Colonies.[2]
During the Peninsular War, (1807–1814) Napoleon’s forces began a four-year occupation of the city in December 1807, and Lisbon descended with the rest of the country into anarchy. After the war ended in 1814, a new constitution was proclaimed and Brazil was granted independence. The 20th century brought political upheaval to Lisbon and the nation as a whole. In 1908, at the height of the turbulent period of the Republican movement, King Carlos and his heir Luís Filipe were assassinated in the Terreiro do Paço. On 5 October 1910, the Republicans organised a coup d'état that overthrew the constitutional monarchy and established the Portuguese Republic.
Gallery
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Lisbon prior to the earthquake -
Shay Cormac running through Lisbon during the earthquake -
Lisbon following the 1755 earthquake
