Territory and communication networks at the and of 18th century. Ideas and projects of the general superintendent José Diogo Mascarenhas Neto

Abstract

This article focuses on the legal policy and on the model of adminstrative intervention of José Diogo Mascarenhas Neto in the beginnings of the General Superintendence of kingdom’s roads. We contextualize the dominant ideas on territorial planning and we also analyze the regulatory and administrative practice of José Diogo Mascarenhas Neto in the process of building the kingdom’s road network and launching the public postal service. In a state perspective, consistent with the modern system of territorial reordering, José Diogo Mascarenhas Neto normalizes two important branches of public administration, placing some of the most structurant reform programs concerning the communications system under the dependence of the Estate. These decisions ocurred in the end of the eighteenth century and they were supported by the absolute monarchy. Some years latter, without giving up the primacy given to the promotion of public works and education, he took liberty as an intrinsic condition of social and economic progress and adhered to liberalism. In the beginnings of the the nineteenth century, during his exile in Paris, José Diogo Mascarenhas Neto contributes, through the press, to the public debate on education and agrarian development, continuing to advocate for the economic progress of Portugal.