A Man buys an Island in Portugal and Establishes his Own Kingdom
56-year-old Renato Barros, bought a tiny island off the coast of Madeira and proclaimed himself Prince Renato II of the Principality Pontinha.
Perhaps Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s The Little Prince is far more embedded in the collective imagination than we think, and perhaps this the most charming example. 56-year-old Renato Barros, bought a tiny island off the coast of Madeira and proclaimed himself Prince Renato II of the Principality Pontinha, as he decided to name his island.
In fact, Pontinha is the size of a one-bedroom house, and it only has four citizens: Barros, his wife and their two children. In addition to his Portuguese passport, Renato has a Pontinha passport numbered 0001. His princedom is one of the purest to have ever existed: Renato II is at times a gardener, policeman, guard or simply the sovereign observer of his rock in the middle of the sea.
He does not believe in borders and allows tourists to visit every day; even if, he points out, he sometimes needs to be there alone in order to rest from Portugal’s great extremes. “I am whatever I want to be – that’s the dream, isn’t it?” says the prince. “If I decide I want to have a national song, I can choose it, and I can change it any time. The same with my flag – it could be blue today, red tomorrow. Of course, my power is only absolute here, where I am the true sovereign.”
Barros had the opportunity to buy the island fourteen years ago, when the wealthy British family that owned it wanted to sell it for 25,000 Euros because they had no use for it. At the time nobody wanted to buy it, but when this eccentric Portuguese found out, he decided it was exactly what he needed. There was just one problem: he didn’t have the money.
He tried to find partners to buy it; however, they all took him for a madman because he wanted to spend so much money on what was essentially a big rock with a cave, a platform, without electricity or running water. Finally, this odd character gathered enough money by selling practically all of his possessions. When the King of Portugal originally sold the island in 1903, he signed a document selling all the island’s “possessions and domains”. Hence, Barros knew exactly what he was doing: acquiring absolute, unfettered, liberty to be the king of his own domain. The royal document meant he could do as he wished with it; open a restaurant or a movie theater… But no one thought he would want to open a country. And that’s what he did.
What came next is even more endearing. As the Royal Sovereign of the Principality of Pontinha, Renato II paid a diplomatic visit to the governor of Madeira. In response, the governor threatened to cut off his electricity if he didn’t sell the island back to the state. Barros simply installed a solar panel and a small windmill to generate his own electricity.
Even though Pontinha hasn’t gotten the official rights of a country, the international community, including the government of Portugal and the United Nations are reviewing its case.
Pontinha means “a point”. “All change in the world begins with something very small, and this is my country – just a little point,” says Prince Renato II.
Related Articles
When ancient rituals became religion
The emergence of religions irreversibly changed the history of humanity. It’s therefore essential to ask when and how did ancient peoples’ rituals become organized systems of thought, each with their
Seven ancient maps of the Americas
A map is not the territory. —Alfred Korzybski Maps are never merely maps. They’re human projections, metaphors in which we find both the geographical and the imaginary. The cases of ghost islands
An artist crochets a perfect skeleton and internal organs
Shanell Papp is a skilled textile and crochet artist. She spent four long months crocheting a life-size skeleton in wool. She then filled it in with the organs of the human body in an act as patient
A musical tribute to maps
A sequence of sounds, rhythms, melodies and silences: music is a most primitive art, the most essential, and the most powerful of all languages. Its capacity is not limited to the (hardly trivial)
The enchantment of 17th-century optics
The sense of sight is perhaps one the imagination’s most prolific masters. That is why humankind has been fascinated and bewitched by optics and their possibilities for centuries. Like the heart, the
Would you found your own micro-nation? These eccentric examples show how easy it can be
Founding a country is, in some ways, a simple task. It is enough to manifest its existence and the motives for creating a new political entity. At least that is what has been demonstrated by the
Wondrous crossings: the galaxy caves of New Zealand
Often, the most extraordinary phenomena are “jealous of themselves” ––and they happen where the human eye cannot enjoy them. However, they can be discovered, and when we do find them we experience a
Think you have strange reading habits? Wait until you've seen how Mcluhan reads
We often forget or neglect to think about the infinite circumstances that are condensed in the acts that we consider habitual. Using a fork to eat, for example, or walking down the street and being
The sky is calling us, a love letter to the cosmos (video)
We once dreamt of open sails and Open seas We once dreamt of new frontiers and New lands Are we still a brave people? We must not forget that the very stars we see nowadays are the same stars and
The sister you always wanted (but made into a crystal chandelier)
Lucas Maassen always wanted to have a sister. And after 36 years he finally procured one, except, as strange as it may sound, in the shape of a chandelier. Maassen, a Dutch designer, asked the