Themed tour - Heraldry in the Tower of São Sebastião, now the Condes de Castro Guimarães Museum, by Miguel Metelo de Seixas
Heraldry provides vivid testimony to the regeneration that the town of Cascais underwent during the second half of the 19th century, when it became a privileged resort for Portuguese high society.
The heraldic symbols scattered throughout the town show how the court aristocracy appropriated its spaces, shaping them according to a pattern of dissemination that had the royal family itself as its epicenter, later spreading to the titular houses, the non-titular nobility, and the financiers who joined this elite.
The Tower of São Sebastião, built in the early 20th century by the banker Jorge O'Neill, is a perfect example of this mimetic behavior, both in the emblems placed there by its founder and those later introduced by the second owner, Manuel de Castro Guimarães, the first count of the same name.
Jorge O'Neill and Count Manuel de Castro Guimarães disseminated the signs of their genealogical and noble pretensions throughout this building, culminating, in both cases, in the creation of two coats of arms alluding to their ancestry. They were also knowledgeable collectors, particularly attentive to pieces bearing coats of arms.
Registration: 214 815 303 | mccg@cm-cascais.pt
More information: 214 815 303 | mccg@cm-cascais.pt
Organization: Cascais City Council | D. Luís I Foundation | Museum District
He holds a PhD in History and has been a researcher at the Institute of Medieval Studies/Faculty of Social and Human Sciences/New University of Lisbon since 2011, where he coordinated the research group “Images, Texts, and Representations” and taught various subjects at the same faculty, including "Mental Categories: Practices and Representations“ and ”Heraldry and Iconography of Power in the Middle Ages.“ He is currently a principal investigator in the Scientific Employment Stimulus program, with the project ”Heraldry in Portuguese early Overseas expansion: acculturation and resistance."
