In the 19th century the image of Leiria changed, namely after 1880. The city gained an urban appearance after the disappearance of the Palace of the Vila Real; the construction of the D. Maria Pia Theatre; and the construction of the Public Garden in the Rossio, Leiria’s former beach, transformed into a great Agora after the river regularisation in the early 18th century. At the end of the century Ernesto Korrodi settles in Leiria where he will have a decisive role in the physiognomy of the city with his studies and proposals for the reconstruction of the castle published in 1898.
