The Man Who Chose Vila Viçosa

Why did the most powerful family in Portugal hold its court here, and not in Bragança, which gave it its title, nor in Lisbon? The answer lies in no treaty and no battle. It lies in two men who loved this valley.

The first was Nuno Álvares Pereira, the Constable, the hero of Aljubarrota. In 1384, Vila Viçosa had been handed to Castile through treachery, and it was Nuno's squires who helped win it back. Nine days after Aljubarrota, King João I gave it to him, without his asking. And Nuno kept it in a very particular way. When he gave his daughter, Beatriz, a dowry to marry the king's illegitimate son, he gave her lands all over the kingdom. But he took Vila Viçosa out of the dowry. He kept it for himself. He rebuilt the chancel of the Augustinian convent, placed his arms there, and enlarged the dormitory for the friars.

On 4 April 1422, in Borba, Nuno signed the gift that decided everything: he gave Vila Viçosa, along with Borba and Arraiolos, to his grandson, Fernando. And then he did the most extraordinary thing of his life: he stripped himself of everything he owned, entered the Carmelite Convent as a simple friar, under the name Nuno de Santa Maria, and died poor by his own choice. Father Espanca summed it up in a single sentence: having given the crown to kings, he gave kings to the crown, through the family of Braganza.

The second man was that grandson. Fernando was Count of Arraiolos, he had richer and more important towns, and he was not even the family heir: he was the second son. But, says the chronicler, he fell in love with the beauty of this gentle valley, and chose it as his seat. He settled in the palace of the Alcáçova, inside the castle, and made this town his home.

Then chance did the rest. His elder brother, heir to the House of Braganza, died without legitimate children. And Fernando, the second son who had simply chosen a beautiful place to live, suddenly inherited the entire house and became Duke of Braganza. Since his seat was already in Vila Viçosa, here he kept it. And here the family's court remained for two centuries, until the day one of his descendants left these walls to become King of Portugal.

Everything you will see in this town, the Palace, the pantheon, the Tapada, the convents, was born here: of an old soldier who would give this land to no one, and of a grandson who found it beautiful. The Braganzas could have made their home anywhere. They stayed where someone, one day, fell in love.