Bernardino Machado Museum will host the bilingual exhibition "I strongly embrace your idea. Bernardino Machado, José Leite de Vasconcelos and the Museums in Portugal", in three rooms on the ground floor of Palacete Barão da Trovisqueira. The exhibition, which was sponsored by the President of the Republic, will open on 14 October, at 18h00, and will remain open until 23 April 2023.
This exhibition aims to bring to the forefront Bernardino Machado and José Leite de Vasconcelos' reflections on the creation of museums in Portugal, highlighting the institution of the then Portuguese Ethnographic Museum, to whose foundation and development they are both linked. This work will highlight the documentary, ethnographic and archaeological collections of the Museu de Arqueologia and the Museu Bernardino Machado, as well as other cultural assets and documentation from institutions such as the Presidency of the Republic and the University of Coimbra, and from private collections related to the theme.
"I warmly welcome your idea. Bernardino Machado, José Leite de Vasconcelos and the Museums in Portugal" is the result of an application to the project ProMuseus - Financial Support Programme to Museums of the Portuguese Museums Network (General Directorate of Cultural Heritage / Ministry of Culture), of which the Municipality of Vila Nova de Famalicão, through the Bernardino Machado Museum, won together with the partners National Museum of Archaeology, located in the Jerónimos Monastery, in Lisbon, and the National Press - Casa da Moeda. The candidature resulted in a financing in the order of 30 thousand euros, which corresponds to about 60% of the total invested, being the remaining amount supported by the three partners involved.
"This exhibition, which is based on the estate preserved in the Bernardino Machado Museum, and on pieces from the National Museum of Archaeology collection, is itself an archaeological find, as it discovers, or rather, makes us discover, a heritage, and a notion of heritage", it is possible to read in the preface of the President of the Republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, in the exhibition catalogue.
In the words of the Mayor of Vila Nova de Famalicão, Mário Passos, the exhibition "is a happy initiative that makes proud the Municipality of Vila Nova de Famalicão and the cultural work that has been developed in the municipality, namely at the level of study, research and valorisation of its most preeminent figures, mainly those that, like Bernardino Machado, gave a net contribution for the evolution of Portuguese thought and culture".