Armoury

The 2nd Viscount of Pindela, Vicente Pinheiro Lobo Machado Melo e Almada, was born in Guimarães on April 23, 1852 and died in Pindela, Famalicão on April 14th 1922. He studied in Coimbra, where he graduated from Law School; he was also a Writer and a Genealogist.

Professionally, he followed a Diplomatic career: he was Governor of the Islands of São Tomé and Príncipe; Plenipotentiary Minister in The Hague and later Ambassador for Portugal in Berlin. It was he who convinced Emperor Wilhelm II of Germany to visit Portugal in 1905 during a time of enormous National and International political tension.

He inherited the title of Viscount from his father together with the Pindela House, which is located in the Parish of St. Tiago da Cruz in the Municipality of Vila Nova de Famalicão. He socialized with distinguished personalities from Culture, Politics and Diplomatic Service, such as Eça de Queiroz, Ramalho Ortigão, Count of Ficalho and Alberto Sampaio. His friend, the Poet and Diplomat, Antonio Feijó, was a frequent Pindela visitor.

Throughout his life, he gathered an important collection of weapons with which he decorated the rooms of his house.

It was Margarida Helena Felgueiras Cardoso Martins Meneses, the 3rd Viscountess of Pindela, who proposed the sale of the Weapons’ Collection of the 2nd Viscount of Pindela to the Presidency of the Council of Ministers. The proposal was taken up by the Ministries of Education and Finance whose decision was influenced by Alfredo Guimarães and possibly by Duarte do Amaral.

In 1942, the pieces were eventually integrated into the Collection of the Museum of Alberto Sampaio and, in 1959 they were moved to the Ducal Palace of the Bragança. This Collection, consisting mainly of swords and daggers, firearms and pieces of armour, ‘was one of the most important private collections of armaments ever gathered in Northern Portugal, in the nineteenth-century and early twentieth century.’ (Mário Jorge Barroca, “Medieval Armament in the Portuguese Territory,” 2000, 261).