Counsellor Miguel Dantas Gonçalves Pereira was a Portuguese parliament member, a Peer of the Realm, the mayor of Paredes de Coura, an office he held between 1882 and 1895, and the director of Misericórdia (charity service). He was responsible for the construction of the hospital, the city hall and the jailhouse. According to Narcizo Alves da Cunha, the first two buildings were designed by the writer Oliveira Martins, a friend of the Counsellor.
In Mantelães, where his father’s house where he was born, he built a small palace with an adjacent chapel, a garden with a fountain, and a “castle-like pigeon house” hidden by woods with exotic trees. The small palace faces the bridge over the Coura River and features a staircase with different sections. The chapel is to the right, while on the north side we find the farm land where Counsellor Miguel Dantas planted the vineyards.
Later, the property came into the possession of Bernardino Machado, the President of the Portuguese Republic between 1915 and 1917, who had married the daughter of Miguel Dantas Pereira. After he was overthrown by the Sidónio Pais movement, Machado went into exile, from where he would return in 1919 and begin a second term of office as President of the Republic in 1925. On 28 May 1926, Gomes da Costa dismissed him and he was forced to live in the palace until he died in 1944.
Location: Paredes de Coura
In Mantelães, where his father’s house where he was born, he built a small palace with an adjacent chapel, a garden with a fountain, and a “castle-like pigeon house” hidden by woods with exotic trees. The small palace faces the bridge over the Coura River and features a staircase with different sections. The chapel is to the right, while on the north side we find the farm land where Counsellor Miguel Dantas planted the vineyards.
Later, the property came into the possession of Bernardino Machado, the President of the Portuguese Republic between 1915 and 1917, who had married the daughter of Miguel Dantas Pereira. After he was overthrown by the Sidónio Pais movement, Machado went into exile, from where he would return in 1919 and begin a second term of office as President of the Republic in 1925. On 28 May 1926, Gomes da Costa dismissed him and he was forced to live in the palace until he died in 1944.
Location: Paredes de Coura
