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U.Porto Memory

Rectory Building of the U.Porto - Background: reference works

Jail and Court of Appeal of Porto (Listed Building)

The Jail and Court of Appeal of Porto were established when the Philip dynasty ruled in Portugal. In 1603, Philip I ordered the construction of a building in Campo do Olival to accommodate these departments. The building was designed by Gonçalo Vaz and supervised by the Magistrate Manuel Sequeira Novais.

In 1750, there were plans to replace it with a new building, designed according to one of the two plans suggested by Nicolau Nasoni, but they did not materialise.

Years later, Eugénio dos Santos e Carvalho (1711-1760), one of the leading rebuilders of Pombaline downtown was asked to prepare new plans for the Jail and Court of Appeal of Porto, which was done at the initiative of João de Almada e Melo between 1765 and 1796.

This austere, irregular polygonal monument, which housed the headquarters of the Court of Appeal and served as a jail until the 20^th century, has two noble façades, one facing east, towards Rua de S. Bento da Vitória, which has a fountain and a grander frontage facing the old Alameda do Olival, now Campo dos Mártires da Pátria.

Inside the three-storey building we find the enxovias (cells) for the prisoners of a lower social status, the oratory open to the ground-floor patio, the Malta Rooms (15 individual cells), the Courtroom and the chapel.

Famous prisoners were arrested here. The Duke of Terceira, António José de Sousa Manuel de Meneses Severim de Noronha, was locked up in Malta Room No. 8; the Romantic writers - Camilo Castelo Branco and Ana Plácido -, occupied No. 12 and the Women’s Pavilion, respectively. No. 13 was taken up by Vicente Urbino de Freitas, doctor and teacher at the Medical-Surgical School of Porto, famous for the sad episode of "Crime da Rua das Flores".

The history of this building is linked to the University of Porto. In 1979, the building of the Jail and Court of Appeal was assigned to the U.Porto by joint decree of the Ministries of Finances and of Justice and Education and Scientific Research. The diploma supported its decision based on the fact that the University did not have a library or an archive serving the region. Furthermore, there was a need to create a space suitable for a "museum of prisons". This same diploma established that the development of a programme regarding the occupation of the building was the responsibility of the Rector, while the project for the Museum was up to the Ministry of Justice.
In May 1980, the Municipal Gas & Electricity Services warned the Rector that the building had no electrical installation, which was obviously no problem for the families that lived there! Doubts as to the ownership of the building apparently were not cleared since in 1980 the Rectory of the U.Porto asked whether it could simply use it, although shortly after the Directorate of School Buildings of the North reminded the Rector that he was responsible for caring and preserving the building.