Profile

Writers’ route through Porto ( Raul Brandão )
5 April, 2021 / ,

He was born at no. 12 of what was then Rua da Bela Vista, in Foz do Douro, on March 12th 1867 – the street that later adopted the writer’s name – Raul Brandão.

Being a descendant of fishermen, and Foz being the place where he spent his adolescence and youth, the sea was a recurring theme in his work, as in Os Pescadores.

He was a Portuguese military man, journalist and writer, famous for the realism of his descriptions and the lyricism of his language.

He left an extensive literary and journalistic work that greatly influenced literature in the Portuguese language.
His work influenced so much that the Azorean Islands are known by a colour code that was part of his work “The unknown islands”.

With Júlio Brandão, also an author, he was a playwright, writing Noite de Natal, which went on stage at the D. Maria II National Theatre in 1899.

Raul Germano Brandão was one of the greatest landmarks of Porto’s literature. He died at the age of 63 on December 5th 1930.

He received several honorary initiatives, such as a monument erected in his honour, in the garden of Passeio Alegre

The 150th anniversary of his birth was celebrated with the publication of three works of the writer, one of them with unpublished texts, the last book that Raul Brandão wrote but that had never been published.

Abel Salazar
13 November, 2020 / , ,

Abel de Lima Salazar was not only the doctor and scientific researcher, until today known for his achievements, but also a writer, art critic, essayist and visual artist. Despite his name being inextricably linked to Porto, Guimarães was the city that saw him born on July 19, 1889.

Student of excellence, Abel Salazar finishes the medical course at the Medical-Surgical School of Porto presenting his inaugural thesis “Essay on Philosophical Psychology” which ends up classified with 20 values.

At the age of 30, 3 years after completing his studies, he is appointed Full Professor of Histology and Embryology at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Porto, eventually founding and directing the University’s Institute of Histology and Embryology, still in operation today.

His research work was quickly recognized and disseminated, reaching worldwide fame, due to numerous publications of articles in scientific magazines, Portuguese and foreign.

As a researcher, he contributed, in particular, with works related to the structure and evolution of the ovary, creating the now famous, and still used, Salazar’s tano-ferric staining method.

However, the work so intense that he developed, even in very adverse conditions, led to an exhaustion and the interruption of this activity, for a period of four years.
He would then end up dedicating himself diligently to the elaboration and publication of scientific texts, also focusing on the artistic practice of which he was a notable representative, especially in painting, engraving and hammered copper.

This multifaceted man, whose motto was “The Doctor who only knows Medicine, nor Medicine knows”, one of the greatest Portuguese intellectuals of his time, only in 1941, was reinstated at the University, in the laboratory of the Faculty of Pharmacy of Porto.

He died in 1946, in Lisbon, where he was being treated for lung cancer. He was 57 and a heavy smoker. The body was transferred to the city of Porto, where it was deposited at the Prado Repouso Cemetery.

Nowadays, its name is immortalized through the Institute of Biomedical Sciences Abel Salazar, the square, where the Santo António Hospital is located , Secondary Schools and the Abel Salazar House-Museum.

Learn about Siza Vieira through his work
7 October, 2020 / , ,

The most renowned Portuguese architect has designed  created homes, museums, schools and even a metro station in the area of ​​greater Porto.

The Casa de Chá/Restaurante da Boa Nova and the Piscina das Marés, both in Leça da Palmeira, are two of the most famous works of this architect. Dating from the 60s, an early stage of his career, both are located in the hometown where he was born. In addition, in Matosinhos, the Monument in honour of the poet António Nobre, the esplanade of Leça da Palmeira or the swimming pool of the Quinta da Conceição are other examples of the work of the Pritzker Prize winner.

In Porto there are also several public spaces designed by Siza Vieira, such as the Faculdade de Arquitetura da Universidade do Porto (Porto Faculty of Architecture), the Museum of Contemporary Art of the Serralves Foundation; projects which were completed in the 90’s. Siza Vieira’s trait also exists in social housing, such as the San Vittore district or the neighborhood of Bouça, in office buildings and even the tomb of the poet Eugenio Andrade.

Among his most recent works and more visible to the general public are, for example, the renewal of the Avenida dos Aliados and the metro station of Sâo Bento, both located in the city centre.

Siza Vieira is also responsible for the new Chapel Afurada in Vila Nova de Gaia, which will soon be built. Marco de Canaveses, Gondomar and Vila do Conde are also cities with projects created by the architect.

Ricardo Jorge – Precursor of the National Health System
21 September, 2020 / , ,

Ricardo de Almeida Jorge was born in Porto, on May 9, 1858.
He attended the Porto Medical-Surgical School between 1874 and 1879, finishing his medical course at the age of 21, with a dissertation “The nervousness in the past” Starting his professional life at the Faculty of Medicine and Surgery of Porto. In 1880, he taught Anatomy, Histology and Experimental Physiology at the same Faculty and competed for the position of substitute professor in the Surgery Department of the same school. He elaborates a work on Driving Locations in the Brain, at a time when neurology was taking its first steps. Not delaying clinical practice, he travels abroad several times, attending the lessons of the neurologist Charcot.
Meanwhile returning to Porto, he published several articles in scientific journals and set up the first microscopy and physiology laboratory in Porto.
As neurology was his first interest, he left a monumental work, covering diverse subjects, focusing most of his legacy on the specialties of Hygiene and Epidemiology. His style goes beyond a man of science, as we can see in a comment by Camilo Castelo Branco of whom he was a friend “The style of Ricardo Jorge dismay everything that is known in parliamentary oratory, academic dialectics, civic eloquence of clubs and even in pulpit oratory … ”, in the work Serões de S. Miguel de Seide.
The studies carried out on hydrotherapy and Ricardo Jorge’s interest in thermalism and hydrology (carrying out some experiments on the effects of alkaline fluorides and in thermal waters) follow, in 1888, the exploration contract for fifty years, of Caldas do Gerês , where he held the position of clinical director between 1889 and 1892. Companhia das Caldas do Gerês, with no vocation for business activity, went bankrupt in 1893.initiative.
He received the Armando Basto (1954), António Carneiro (1955), Henrique Pousão (1957) awards. He was also distinguished with the Medal of Cultural Merit of the Chamber of Cerveira (1982) and with the gold medals of the Chambers of Porto, in 1988, and of Gaia, in 2002. He is represented in public and private collections, among which: Museum do Chiado; Machado de Castro Museum among others. In 2006 he presented an anthological exhibition of his work at Casa-Museu Teixeira Lopes, in Vila Nova de Gaia
On June 10, 2006, he was made Grand Officer of the Order of Merit.
Several debates about the installation of cemeteries in Porto, led Ricardo Jorge to give a series of conferences (1884), in a contesting attitude to what the health authorities thought about social hygiene, contributing to a great debate. It was a fundamental moment in the evolutionary process of public health in Portugal.
At the invitation of the Porto City Council, he was part of a study on the health conditions of the city, preparing a report published in 1988. He was appointed Porto’s municipal doctor in 1891, receiving another invitation in 1892 to administer the Municipal Health Services. and Hygiene of Porto and the Municipal Laboratory of Bacteriology.
In 1895 he was appointed Professor of the Chair of Hygiene and Legal Medicine at the Medical-Surgical School of Porto.
The studies of Ricardo Jorge, Arantes Pereira and the Count of Samodães, helped to influence Queen D. Amélia in the creation of the National Assistance to Tuberculosis and the construction of sanatoriums for the sick.
In 1899 Porto was hit by an outbreak of bubonic plague (in theory extinct in the West since 1700). Ricardo Jorge makes the diagnosis reporting to the competent authorities the outbreak of the epidemic. International aid was immediately requested and two hundred tubes of “Yersin” serum were ordered from the Pasteur Institute in Paris. Although several people were vaccinated by Dr. Calmette, among whom Ricardo Jorge’s own children, knowing this very well the conditions for the development of the plague, put in place strict sanitary measures and elimination of the disease-transmitting agents such as rats and fleas (for each large rat delivered to a police station, 20 reis were paid for each small 10), in addition to preventive measures for the eradication of the pest (isolation of patients and disinfection of houses where pathological cases were found)
The Health Council enacted a sanitary cordon around the city, defended by the army, however, the economic damage resulting from isolation and the instigation by some political groups led to a population revolt, resulting in some violent episodes.
Although protected by the authorities and counting on the solidarity of the doctors of Porto Ricardo Jorge leaves for Lisbon where he is appointed Inspector-General of the United Kingdom’s Health Services, hygiene lens at the Lisbon Medical-Surgical School and member of the Higher Council for Hygiene and Health .

In 1899 he created that of the Directorate-General for Health and Public Benefit and the Central Hygiene Institute, later Instituto Superior de Higiene (which today bears his name).

We can say that Ricardo Jorge at the end of the 19th century gave rise to a deep reform in public health in Portugal, in all aspects that are within his reach (academic, legislative and research)

The political instability of the First Republic did not allow the development envisioned by Ricardo Jorge and it was only during the Estado Novo with Marcelo Caetano as President of the Council of Ministers that a new impetus to health issues was given, the health model presented by Baltazar Rebelo de Sousa and Gonçalves Ferreira, key to the creation of the future National Health System.

An interesting curiosity was the fact that he banned coca-cola in Portugal (in 1927 as Director-General of Health), as reported after taking notice of the advertising slogan created by Fernando Pessoa “First you get strange, then you get involved”. It was only in 1977 that this ban was lifted.

He was active until almost the end of his life, intervening and participating in a meeting of the International Hygiene Office three months before he died in Lisbon, on July 29, 1939.

Jaime Isidoro
17 September, 2020 /

Porto was the main theme of his paintings

Born on March 21, 1924, he studied drawing and painting at the Soares dos Reis School, in Porto, and his first individual exhibition in 1945, in the city of Porto, in the then designated Salão Fantasia (on Rua 31 de Janeiro).

Porto was the main theme of his paintings, mainly watercolors.

In parallel with his career as a painter, he maintained a wide range of activities as a cultural animator, gallery owner and teacher, being connected to important moments in the visual arts in the city of Porto and in the country. He promoted the International Art Encounters in the 1970s and edited the Revista de Artes Plástica, which counted on the collaboration of important Portuguese critics and artists, showing a particular interest in the realization of innovative cultural projects.

In 1978, he founded the Vila Nova de Cerveira Art Biennial, in Alto Minho, which would become the main art biennial in the country. In the last years of his life, Jaime Isidoro was also linked to the biennial, being chairman of the general assembly table of the Cultural Development Core Project, which organizes the Cerveira initiative.
He received the Armando Basto (1954), António Carneiro (1955), Henrique Pousão (1957) awards. He was also distinguished with the Medal of Cultural Merit of the Chamber of Cerveira (1982) and with the gold medals of the Chambers of Porto, in 1988, and of Gaia, in 2002. He is represented in public and private collections, among which: Museum do Chiado; Machado de Castro Museum among others. In 2006 he presented an anthological exhibition of his work at Casa-Museu Teixeira Lopes, in Vila Nova de Gaia

On June 10, 2006, he was made Grand Officer of the Order of Merit.

Amadeo de Souza Cardoso
16 December, 2019 / ,

Amadeu de Souza-Cardozo (1887-1918), born in Manhufe, Amarante, attends Fine Arts in Lisbon and travels to Paris where he attends the Viti Academy of Anglada Caramassa, devoting himself entirely to painting. He became Friend of Modigliani, Brancusi, Archipenko, Juan Gris, Robert and Sonia Delauney. In 1912 he exhibits at the Salon des Indépendants and at the Salon d´Autonne. Exhibits some works at the Armory Show (USA) in 1913.

In 1914, he meets with his friends Gaudi and the sculptor Sola in Barcelona returning to Portugal that year due to the start of the war, settling in the farm in Manhufe with Lucia Pecetto with whom he later marries in Porto.

Dies in Espinho in October 1918, victim of the Spanish flu.

Amadeo de Souza-Cardozo, is the main reference of the museum to which it gives its name, located in a space of the building that housed the Dominican convent of S. Gonçalo de Amarante

Miguel Veiga – An illustrious portuense
29 June, 2019 / , ,

Miguel Luís Kolback da Veiga was born in Oporto on June 30th, 1936, where he died on November 14th, 2016.

An illustrious portuense lawyer, Miguel Veiga was famous for his careful, almost literary production of his procedural pieces and for the brilliant way he presented himself in court.

From early on, he integrated academic movements of opposition to the regime of Salazar, which prevented him years later to be admitted as a university professor.

After the April revolution, in May 1974, he was responsible, alongside with Francisco Sá Carneiro, Magalhaes Mota and Francisco Pinto Balsemão, for the founding of the Popular Democratic Party, now Social Democratic Party, of which he was a member until his death and one of its most brilliant members, even when in order to disagree directly with the course followed. Therefore, against the indications of his party, he was a supporter of Mário Soares in his first candidacy for President of the Republic and, more recently, Rui Moreira, current mayor of Porto.

Although requested to do so, he never exercised governmental functions. He said, in response to invitations received, “not wanting to lose his freedom or leave Oporto,” city of his passion.

Alongside his work, civic and political intervention of high level, Miguel Veiga was still a lover of the arts, from literature to painting, from cinema to sculpture, collecting contributions that often illustrated his public interventions.

The name of Miguel Veiga is important to the history of portuguese democracy, for the search and affirmation of the values ​​of freedom and justice, for the frontality, independence and firmness of character that is so much a part of the good men of Oporto.

Miguel Veiga was also the author of several legal and cultural essays, and a voice present in the written press where throughout his life he collaborated.

He is Grand Officer of the Order of Liberty and received the Medal of Honor from the City, the highest distinction of Porto.

D. António Ferreira Gomes: look for the good without fearing the penalty
15 December, 2018 / ,

It would be dishonest and even bizarre to deny the size and political impact of a figure like the former Bishop of Porto, D. António Ferreira Gomes (1906 – 1989) identified as a critic of the dictatorial regime of the Estado Novo in Portugal that was in force in 1933 until April 25, 1974. But it is easy to blur our gaze and diminish the person he was once if we look into it from a narrow perspective. To understand that in God one can find the liberating force, the confidence that gives gestures and words the emancipation of all the powers that pass (especially of those who believe them to be eternal), would prevent many mistakes. It is a mistake to reduce D. Antonio to a mere political figure and to read from there his gestures and his intentions.

The Bishop of Porto was a man of God, moved by the desire for faithfulness to the Church and his Social Doctrine. He did not want to be ahead of his time. It was because he was a man of his time that he learned to read the human, social and religious dramas of the days he lived. That is why he created so much resistance. The letter he wrote to Salazar, which eventually contributed to his ten-year exile (1959-69), reveals his ability to understand reality. Written on July 13, 1958, those lines intended to prepare a meeting with Salazar. It was a “pro-memory” through which D. António wanted to present to the President of the Council the themes and issues he would like to discuss at the meeting they would have.

The letter revealed his sensitivity to injustice. Following the Doctrine of the Church, he spoke of the need for the fruits of labor to be evenly distributed, recognized the Right to strike, denounced human miseries and opened the possibility of creating parties. He wished upon Catholics a political and civic formation that would enable them to participate consciously and freely in social life. The letter would eventually be revealed publicly. The Bishop of Porto has always denied any responsibility in this incident.

What D. António Ferreira Gomes moved were not fruitless games or the search to be a protagonist. From the deep and demanding reading of reality, freed from fears, because founded on God, he desired good and justice.

This spiritual way is often difficult to grasp. There are few who are able to understand the human being from such deep convictions and motivations. But only these sustain free men. And only those who are free find the detachment of seeking the good without fearing the penalty.

Francisco de Sá Carneiro – Bold in Life and Politics
7 November, 2018 / , , ,

If you arrived in Porto by landing at the Francisco de Sá Carneiro Airport, or if, walking through the streets of Antas, you met his statue in the square with the same name, this article is for you!

Born and raised in Porto in 1934, Francisco de Sá Carneiro is a Portuguese lawyer and politician who early stood out in opposition to the dictatorial regime in force at the time, of which the most outstanding expression was the struggle for the return of Bishop António Ferreira Gomes (whose statue can be admired next to the Clérigos Church) to the country. The Bishop had been exiled by Salazar’s Estado Novo.

In 1969, as an independent, Sá Carneiro was elected to the National Assembly of Portugal and soon became the face of the so-called Ala Liberal (Liberal Wing). He was responsible for several initiatives aimed at Portugal’s peaceful and progressive transition to a free and democratic regime.

Failing to implement his democratic, personalistic and humanist views, he resigned as deputy and returned to Porto, where he helped develop the idea of creating a social democratic party that would see the light of day after the revolution of the 25th of April of 1974, that ended the dictatorial regime. On the 6th of May of 1974, the Popular Democratic Party (PPD) – later, the Social Democratic Party (PSD) –, of which Francisco de Sá Carneiro was a co-founder and main promoter, was born.

As President of PPD, he was elected to the Constituent Assembly of 1975, which was responsible for the preparation and approval of the first Constitution of the Republic of the new democratic regime.

At the end of 1979, he created the Democratic Alliance, which came to win the next Legislative Elections. At the leadership of the largest government coalition since April 25, 1974, Sá Carneiro was named the Portuguese Prime Minister in January of 1980, a position he held until his unexpected and tragic disappearance on the 4th of December of 1980, when the plane in which he was traveling to Porto crashed in Camarate, in circumstances that, to this day, could not be ascertained.

His public side did not prevent him from living his own private life and risking criticism in a traditionalist country where divorce was not even allowed when he separated from his wife to join Snu Abecassis, the Danish founder of Don Quixote Publications, who would also end up dying in the Camarate accident. Bold as always in life, Sá Carneiro soon clarified: “If the situation is deemed incompatible with my duties, I’ll choose the woman I love.”

Considered by many to be a true good man of his city and country, with a particular nobility and straightforwardness of character, the death of Francisco de Sá Carneiro was an irreparable loss to Portuguese public life and his memory is still an inspiration today for all those who recognize, in his example, the greater form of being in life and politics, for all of those who know, as he did, that, “above Social Democracy, Democracy, and, above Democracy, the Portuguese People”.

António de Sousa Pereira – 20th Rector of the University of Porto
7 October, 2018 / ,

Graduate, master and doctor in Medicine by ICBAS, it was in this faculty of the University of Porto where he developed his entire academic career. In April of this year, he was elected by the General Council as Rector of the University of Porto for the 2018-2022 period.

António Manuel de Sousa Pereira was born on October 17, 1961, in the parish of Ramalde, Porto. Graduate, master and doctor in Medicine by ICBAS, it was in this faculty of the University of Porto that developed his entire academic career, having provided the tests of aggregation in the area of ​​Anatomy in the year 2000. Four years later, and already as a Professor, he was to be elected for the first time as director of the faculty.

He is a member of the National Council of Ethics for Life Sciences elected by the Assembly of the Republic, Vice President of the Strategic Council of the Portuguese Institute of Oncology of Porto, member of the Board of Directors of the Centro Académico Clínico ICBAS / Centro Hospitalar do Porto and of the Strategic Council of the Centro Hospitalar de Vila Nova de Gaia / Espinho.

Among the positions he held, both inside and outside the academy, he was also President of the National Board of Education and Medical Education of the Order of Physicians, consultant to the Government of the Dominican Republic for the evaluation of the Reform of Medical Schools (2016- 2017), and member of the Board of Directors of ORPHEUS – Organization of PhD Education in Biomedicine and Health Sciences in European System (2013-2016).

As a researcher, he collaborated within the scope of his doctoral thesis with the organization and computerization of a Population-Based Oncology Registry, which constituted the first population-based cancer registry made in Portugal. In recent years, he has developed his research activity in the area of ​​university management and health policies. Among other international projects, he coordinated and participated in the study “Guidelines for Accreditation and Quality Assurance of Health Care Units Used for Teaching in Undergraduate Medicine” in partnership with Imperial College.

Outside of the University, António de Sousa Pereira, 56, is still a man very connected to Porto where he was born and studied almost always: in youth he studied at Liceu Alexandre Herculano and later ICBAS at U. Porto for his undergraduate, master’s and PhD. He is a supporter of FC Porto, although he admits that he does not often go to Estádio do Dragão; among his favourite dishes are the ” Tripas à moda do Porto”, especially if they are made by his mother.

Married and father of two children, he lives near the Douro River and occupies his free time with an old passion: a collection of old cameras. He was a chess player and is still a federated pistol shot athlete.