Three researchers gathered at the Biblioteca Municipal António Salvado, in Castelo Branco, to revisit the life and legacy of D. João de Mendoça (1673-1736), Bishop of Guarda, jurist, collector and man of culture who assembled one of the most remarkable painting collections of his time. The session, promoted by the Associação Raia Gerações in collaboration with the Sociedade dos Amigos do Museu Francisco Tavares Proença Júnior, took place 290 years after the prelate's death, in an attempt to recover the memory of a personality still little known and insufficiently studied.
Pedro Miguel Salvado, heritage historian and director of the Museu Arqueológico do Fundão, recovered the memory of Luís Pinto Garcia, a researcher who in 1942 published a biography of D. João de Mendoça. Salvado also highlighted the bishop's importance in safeguarding heritage, noting that his attitude of valuing and preserving testimonies of the past was remarkably early for the eighteenth-century context, even anticipating the Charter of D. João V.
Ricardo Nunes da Silva, professor at the School of Arts of the Polytechnic University of Castelo Branco, revealed the extent of D. João de Mendoça's material and artistic universe based on the inventory of the Episcopal Palace. His heritage included books, paintings, crockery, carpets, numismatic pieces, silver and gold objects, reliquaries, relics, clocks and exotic objects, with a collection appraised at the time at approximately 30 million réis.
Pedro Rego da Silva, art historian and lawyer, focused on D. João de Mendoça's academic career, from his legal training as a doctor and professor of Law at the University of Coimbra to his progressive affirmation in the ecclesiastical career, tracing his trajectory from Estremoz and Évora to Guarda, Castelo Branco and Rome. The session ended with the reflection that much of the cultural history of the region remains to be studied, but that there are currently researchers with the capacity to develop this work.
