Casa do Marquês de Pombal
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N 39° 54.819 W 008° 37.660
29S E 531822 N 4418239
In this house Marquês de Pombal lived his last days and died, in 1782.
Waymark Code: WMVE32
Location: Leiria, Portugal
Date Posted: 04/07/2017
Views: 4
This is the house where Sebastião José de Carvalho e Melo, Marquês de Pombal, the prime minister of the kingdom, lived his last days and, in 1782, died.
Sebastião José de Carvalho e Melo, 1st Marquis of Pombal, 1st Count of Oeiras, popularly known as Marquis of Pombal, was an 18th-century Portuguese statesman. He was Secretary of the State of Internal Affairs of the Kingdom (the equivalent of a Prime Minister today) in the government of Joseph I of Portugal from 1750 to 1777. Undoubtedly the most prominent minister in the government, he is considered to have been its de facto head. Pombal is notable for his swift and competent leadership in the aftermath of the 1755 Lisbon earthquake. He implemented sweeping economic policies in Portugal to regulate commercial activity and standardize quality throughout the country, and was instrumental in weakening the grip of the Inquisition. The term Pombaline is used to describe not only his tenure, but also the architectural style adopted in Lisbon after the great earthquake.
Pombal, who was considered an estrangeirado, introduced many fundamental administrative, educational, economic, and ecclesiastical reforms justified in the name of "reason" and instrumental in advancing secularization in Portugal. However, historians argue that Pombal’s implementation of the ideas of the "Enlightenment", while far-reaching, was primarily a mechanism for enhancing autocracy at the expense of individual liberty and especially an apparatus for crushing opposition, suppressing criticism, and furthering colonial economic exploitation as well as intensifying print censorship and consolidating personal control and profit.
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