Museums and Palaces

The Portalegre Municipal Museum is located in the Diocese Seminary building ordered by Brother Amador Arrais late in the 16th century. Restructured in 1765 by bishop João de Azevedo, his coat of arms is on the façade featuring all the characteristics of a noble 18th century residence.

The collection is made up of religious pieces originally found in the convents of Portalegre, in particular, the Convents of São Bernardo and Santa Clara in addition to private collections donated to the Museum. They include the collection of Dr. Cayola Zagallo, responsible for founding this museum in the 1960´s, local citizen Herculano Corvelo (for the around 800 depictions of Saint Anthony from the 15th century onwards), Abel Santos (paintings completed while he lived in the city in the mid-20th century) and José de Andrade Sequeira, a Naval Medical Captain, who collected snuff boxes and Chinese porcelain while on his voyages.

In terms of the religious art, highlights include the low-relief gothic "Piety" (15th century), the Italian origin high-reliefs in ivory (18th century), the Indo-Portuguese Our Lady of Conception (17th century) and the the picture of Our Lady of Patience (16th century), in which Christ is sat in a thoughtful pose.