RI Day of Portugal flag raising – today

Today marks the official launch of RI Day of Portugal. A flag will be raised and official speeches made at the Portuguese Discovery Monument at Brenton Point State Park on Ocean Drive in Newport at 1pm.

Governor McKee is set to give remarks.

The event was canceled last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This, the 44th Celebration of the Rhode Island Day of Portugal, is a holiday celebrated yearly in June on every corner of the Portuguese-speaking world. Officially known as “Dia de Portugal, de Camões e das Comunidades Portuguesas” (Day of Portugal, Camões and the Portuguese Communities), it commemorates June 10th, the anniversary of the death of the revered Portuguese poet, Luís Vaz de Camões in 1580. Camões is best known for his epic poem, Os Lusíadas, which is a tribute to the golden age of Portugal’s maritime exploration and discoveries.

The epic poem was first published in 1572, and is widely regarded as the most important work of Portuguese literature and is frequently compared to Virgil‘s Aeneid (1st c. BC). The work celebrates the discovery of a sea route to India by the Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama (1469–1524). The ten cantos of the poem are in ottava rima and total 1,102 stanzas. Written in Homeric fashion, the poem focuses mainly on a fantastic interpretation of the Portuguese voyages of discovery during the 15th and 16th centuries.

The event is being held in coordination with the Portuguese Discovery Monument Foundation, and is the first time Newport will host the inaugural event. The flag will fly next to the American flag and recognizes the Portuguese communities’ importance to the State of Rhode Island.

The Portuguese Discovery Monument is a tribute to the Portuguese navigators of the Golden Age of maritime exploration, which spanned from the early 1400’s to the late 1500’s.　

The Monument is the crown jewel of the Portuguese Monument Foundation, whose mission is to support Portuguese-American communities. The Park is available for use by the public and the Foundation encourages those communities to discover all that the Park has to offer!

Other flag raisings will be held in Rhode Island in Bristol, East Providence, Coventry, Central Falls, Providence, and Cumberland.

For more details on the month of “A Day of Portugal” activities, go here: https://rinewstoday.com/ri-day-of-portugal-events-starting-june-6th/