António Augusto Carvalho Monteiro and Quinta da Regaleira

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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production of iHeartRadio. Hello and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly Frye and I'm Tracy V. Wilson. The Quinta de Regalia, a spectacular and unusual estate in Portugal, was a passion project for its owner, Antonio Augusto Caravario Montero, and he is usually described as this rich eccentria coup chose to use his money building his dream home, which he absolutely did. But he also was an accomplished naturalist, something that's been largely ignored until recent years, and he was a philanthropist, so he seems like an interesting person to talk about. Also, heads up, Portuguese is a very difficult language for both of us, and compounding that difficulty, minutes ago we recorded a podcast that was about Spanish speaking people. So we've just been seeing very similar looking yes name structures that are pronounced very differently with Portuguese phonemes. Yeah, Portuguese always sounds so beautiful when I hear it spoken, and then I will try to phonetically say the same things and I'm like, well, no, that was painful and ugly. Yeah, so bear with us if Portuguese is a leguage you speak. We know we're bad at it. Yeah, we're doing our best. We are doing our best. Antonio Augusto Carvagio Montero was born in eighteen forty eight in Rio de Janeiro to a very wealthy family. Often Antonio is referred to as Montero dos Miliois, with milioice meaning millions, but his father also had that nickname before him. This father, Francisco Montero, had moved from Lagos Wierra, Portugal, to Brazil when he was thirteen to try to avoid the future that his family had planned for him, which was the priesthood. Francisco married Teresa de Carvallio, whose family had also moved to Brazil from Portugal, and in the process married into a fortune. When Antonio was thirteen, the family moved back to Portugal and lived in a few places around Lisbon, including a palace which they acquired when the royal who owned it went bankrupt. Yeah, there are a lot of very fancy domiciles getting put up for auction in this story, which is a little, to my mind reflective of Portugal's kind of waxing and waning of various fortunes and political parties. So Antonio got his degree in law in eighteen seventy one at the age of twenty two. But he also had done a healthy amount of studying in other subjects, and he did quite well in them. He was a really good scholar. He won honors in his agriculture and mineralogy courses, and he learned to speak and write French, German, Greek and Latin, so much as one speaks Latin fluently. Two years after receiving his law degree, Carvallio Montero married Perpetua Augusta Peererra de Medo, and the couple spent the early years of their marriage back in Brazil, Andtonio is said to have made this move so he could make an entomological study in South America. In eighteen seventy six, they moved back to Lisbon, where he continued his scientific pursuits. He joined a number of scientific organizations, including the Royal Spanish Society of Natural History, the Zoological Acclimatization Society of Paris, and the Geographical Society of Lisbon, among many others. In eighteen eighty two, he published a paper on Lepidoptera in the journal of Mathematical, Physical and Natural Sciences of Lisbon. In it, he detailed the discovery of a new butterfly found in the mountain range Sara dea Strela. Throughout his life, Carvallo Montero used his ample wealth and his scientific knowledge to collect all manner of specimens, particularly shells, butterflies and moths. He was praised for the quality of his specimen preservation of these specimens that he collected personally, but he also acquired the collections of other entomologists over the years and amassed just a huge assortment of species that he kept very meticulously. His shell collection totaled more than ten thousand pieces, and his work in these fields as a collector and cataloger led to his nomination to the Lisbon Academy of Sciences, with notes in his recommendation from other scientists that his efforts had really helped advance the work of others in the fields. And in eighteen ninety three Carvio Montero purchased a large piece of property in CenTra, Portugal known as Quinta de Regalaira CenTra, which is roughly twenty four kilometers or fifteen miles northwest of Lisbon had long been the summer getaway for wealthy inhabitants of por Chico's capital, and over the years it had been called all kinds of romantic names. The Romans had called it the Mountain of the Moon, and Lord Byron had referred to it as an Eden in his poem Child Harold's Pilgrimage, one of Lord Byron's least favorite people. Britain's poet laureate Robert Southey called it quote the most blessed spot on the whole inhabitable globe. Cintra is a picturesque place that sits on a mountain slope on the north face of the CenTra Mountains, known and in Portuguese as the Sata da CenTra. The property that Antonio bought at Centre has a recorded history that goes back to the sixteen hundreds. It had changed hands a number of times between the end of the seventeenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth century. In sixteen ninety seven, it was purchased by a man named Jose Leite. Next, in seventeen fifteen it went to auction and was bought by Francisco Alberto de Castro, who named it Quinta ded Tore. It is also sometimes referred to as Quitta de Castro. During the time that he owned it, Castro updated the property by harnessing water supplies from the mountain springs to give Quita de Torre running water. Then in eighteen thirty it passed from the Castro family to Manuel Bernardo Lopez, and then ten years after that, in eighteen forty, a wealthy heiress Ermelinda Allen, who would become the Baroness de Regualaire, purchased the property and eventually renamed it. She built a massive home and a chapel there. But then once again, at the end of the nineteenth century, it went up for auction and that's when Antonio went after it. And once he had that estate, he also purchased adjoining parcels of land to expand its footprint. He acquired all this land because his plan was to build a beautiful and impressive estate, including a new palace. He consulted with an architect named aure Lusseaux on the plans for his grand design. Carvio Montero had a clear idea of what he wanted and a checklist of needs for this estate, and he wanted them all to be built in a Portuguese Late Gothic style known as Manuelin. Lusseau drew up plans based on all of their meetings over the course of eighteen ninety five and eighteen ninety six, but his work wasn't quite what Antonio had envisioned. The two men parted ways, and Carvio Montero sought out a different designer. He found his collaborator in an Italian architect and designer named Luigi Manini. Manini, who was the same age as Cavallo. Montero, had been an opera set designer at Teatro la Scala, and he had moved to Lisbon in eighteen seventy nine, and these two men clicked, and after Antonio had described his vision to Luigi, the Italian designer started translating those ideas into plans which were all approved. Coming up, we'll talk about the common belief that this entire project was in support of Antonio's involvement with the Templar Masons, but first we will pause for a sponsor break. It has long been believed that Carvarrio Mantero was very interested in the Templar Masons. That is, of course, the Knights Templar, which began in the twelfth century as a group of warriors who served as protection for Christian pilgrims en route to the Holy Land. This combination religious and military force gained a great deal of power and influence in Europe, including the favor of the Pope, who decreed that the Knights Templar were exempt from taxes. This is obviously a very abbreviated story of them, but over time the organization became incredibly wealthy and held a lot of real estate, and after the Crusades, the Knights Templar ran into a variety of problems, including many of their men being executed, and they were officially dissolved as an order in thirteen twelve, once again on order of the Pope, but the group persisted in secret, and many rumors of their activities, holdings, and power have also persisted. For example, the group is said to possess a number of deeply significant religious artifacts, like the Holy Grail and the Shroud of Turin, and this has led to the order being included, sometimes obliquely, in pop culture references. The Grail Night, for example, in Indiana. Jones and the Last Crusade is an indirect reference, and the Da Vinci Code and National Treasure also reference them. The Knights Templar have also been intertwined with Freemasonry in various historical theories and ideas, and sometimes they're called the Templar Masons, as we mentioned just a moment ago, and sometimes in modern parlance. All of these names kind of get used interchangeably. There are also named variations by region, and over time. In some discussions of the order, the concept has and on a less Catholic specific spiritual tone and one which is inclusive of all Christian denominations and even non Christians. Additionally, King Denny of Portugal also asked for papal approval to create his own religious military to protect the newly formed kingdom that was after the Knights Templar were dissolved, and it's said that he really used his permission to do this to reorg existing Templars that were in Portugal into a new group under his leadership. So a lot of folks believe that Carvile Mantero was the Templar Mason himself, and there are a lot of aspects of his grand estate that do seem to back up that belief. But to be clear, as we're discussing this, there's not outright evidence. There's like no piece of paper, no letter mentioning interest or membership. I mean a lot of times organizations like these were secretive, but you can still find some kind of documentation. In this case, there's lots and lots of imagery and iconography baked into the design of his palatial home, and people have interpreted that imagery and iconography as being templar Masonic. That brings us back to the design and architecture of Quindo di Reglarra. This piece of land had been a templar property that had been donated to the Order by King Alfonso Enriquees, and Carvio Montero knew this history when he bought it at that auction. So from eighteen ninety eight to nineteen eleven, Manini and Carvalio Mantero worked on this massive project. And as we just noted, the design of everything that Luigi Minini created for the estate is full of symbolism and iconography, and it references both Christian and pagan ideology. For example, there are eight pointed stars that incorporate what many believe to be the templar cross. To create four of the points, as well as a central circle. Some history orians have interpreted all of this as representing the eight original templars and their grand master. Even the layout of the estate is meant to invoke this idea of ascension, as it has multiple levels which kind of lead uphill, intending to offer guests and inhabitants this sort of tangible representation in a walkable way that represents the search for enlightenment. The gardens contain their own surprises. There's a copse of Scandinavian serpent trees down one garden path that appears to end at a boulder, but the boulder is reportedly easily moved with a light push. Doing so reveals two doors. This leads to the detail of the estate that captures most people's attentions and imaginations, and that's the initiation well. This well is actually two wells, although it's usually referred to with just a singular name, and this structure is not designed or intended to collect water, but it's instead built for a spiritual journey. It's sometimes called an inverted tower, which is apt. It has staircases spiraling down the outside edges of the well, so nine flights of them going thirty meters into the earth. Each flight is said to represent one of the nine founders of the Templar order, and this inverted tower is believed to have been used in Templar initiations. So the theory is that initiates would be blindfolded and brought to the top of this well that Carvarrio Montero had designed, and then they would be set upon its downward spiral staircase path. As one of these people traversed the nine flights down, he would be holding a sword close to his chest, and upon reaching the bottom of the well, the initiate would then enter into a dark labyrinth, and then the initiate would have to find his way out of the subterranean labyrinth. There are multiple paths you can take, and he would have to find his way out of them and into the light, and then proceed to the nearby chapel to officially become part of the brotherhood. And the chapel, which was redone by Manini, like many other places on the estate, includes a number of Templar crosses in its decoration, and one section of the exit of this labyrinth features stepping stones that lead across a pool of water that is fed by a waterfall fountain. It's quite beautiful, but it's said to represent the steps of Jesus walking on the water. So this whole process of going down the inverted tower and through the labyrinth and then out into the light to the chapel is said, like the layout itself to have represented the passage through darkness into the light of enlightenment. But here's the thing, this all sounds super cool. We don't know for sure if it was ever used in this way, even if that was what Antonio had intended for it. Yeah, those inverted towers, like they remind me of stepwells that have been a method of cooling the air in very hot places, right, Like that's and I'm like, maybe this is very if so he went the extra distance to make it look really cool and ornate, Yeah, okay. In addition to decor elements that are believed to be references to the templars, there are also references to the epic poem Luciids, written by Luis de Camoige and published in fifteen seventy two. The narrative begins with the voyage of Vasco da Gama and tells the story of Portugal and its history. The entire design aesthetic incorporates a wide range of ideology and visual form, always seeming to suggest a cohesive worldview that offers spiritual insight. In addition to Christian, pagan and templar symbology, they are also visual references to ancient Egypt and the writings of Dante's Inferno. But the features and buildings that Quinta de Regulaira also reflect Carvio Manterro's love of nature. In some cases there are clear flights of fancy, as is the case of the Beast Gary, which is populated by statues of all kinds of hybrid animals. But in other parts of the property there's more practicality, like there's a spacious greenhouse constructed so that orchids could be grown on the property. The Gothic Revival style that's in play throughout all of the buildings gives them this almost fairy tale quality. There are within some of them quaint murals showing seventeenth century lords and ladies at leisure. There are grottos and caves to get lost in. There is carved marble absolutely everywhere, and all of this incredible architecture is surrounded by four hectares. That's a little less than ten acres of land which has been made into a massive part with its own gardens and forests and lakes and gazebos and walking paths. When you look at the palace from the front of it, you can see the chapel, which is very impressive in its own right off to the left. But what's more striking is the way all of this sits in its own lush landscape. The palace is positively surrounded by greenery of varying heights, to the point that from some angles it almost looks like it's dripping with plants, although then if you have the straight on view, the facade looks clean. Luigi Manini designed all these spaces in addition to his work on the palace and the estate at Cintra. Massive as it was, was not his only project he had going on at the time. He was simultaneously working on the South Carlos National Theater in Lisbon. Some historians suggest that the theatrical nature of Quinta de Regualaira is in part due to the fact that Menini was also really deeply involved in working on a theater at the same time, but really, his resume had already been full of similarly styled projects, although none of them so grand in scale and opulence as his work with Carvile Montero. In just a moment, we're going to talk about some of the other things that were happening in Antonio's life besides his palace construction in the first decade of the nineteen hundreds. But first we'll hear from the sponsors that keep stuff you missed in history class going. Although this grand estate we've been describing is the thing that Carvario Montero is most known for today, he was in the news for other reasons and also had additional personal projects going on while it was being constructed. For example, in February nineteen oh five, a story ran in papers in the US and Europe about a very unique watch. That story read quote the firm of Leroy and Coe, who presented a miniature watch to Miss Roosevelt, have just finished a still more remarkable watch, sold for four thousand dollars. It has two dials, one showing the time and phases of the moon, the date for four hundred years, the months, seasons, solstices, and equinoxes. There is a chronograph for scientific observations, a reminder of the time of winding up, and indications of the means solar time and equation of time. There is also a thermometer, hygrometer, aneroid barometer, the hours of sunrise and sunset, the night sky, or firmament, et cetera. Artistically, the watch is also a masterpiece, the case representing the fates and time. The watch has been made to satisfy Count de Carvalio Montero of Lisbon and Rio Digenio, Brazil, and has occupied the leisure of m. Juneaude, the maker for seven years. So that watch, incidentally is real. It's one that you can today see photographs of. It was featured in a number of newspapers in the US and Europe in nineteen fifty eight, when it became part of the collection of a museum in Besensent, France, which sits on the French border with Switzerland. While that watch was being worked on, Carvio Montero was also corresponding with Philagen Weitzmann, a Belgian ornithologist, who wanted the millionaire's help with something. This actually ties them to our prior episode on how the European naturalist community learned about the o'capi episode. I think is from twenty twenty two. This had just come to the attention of non Africans a few years prior to this exchange of correspondence. In nineteen oh one. Weitzmann's writing suggests that an o'copy specimen could be procured from the Belgian Congo for a zoological museum in Lisbon if Carvio Montero were to use his money and influence to gain the favor of a fish in Congo. And it seems that Carbio Manterro did try to get a specimen for the Lisbon Zoological Society, but that was unsuccessful. This is a story which has only come to light in recent years, and as an article in National Geographic Portugal from twenty twenty two points out work being done by the Culture CenTra Foundation to piece together more of Carbio Materro's story is shifting his historical identity away from one of just a wealthy eccentric with little connection to reality to just a more nuanced picture that shows his interests in things like naturalism and entomology. There's a really interesting photograph in that article that shows up in another Portuguese language biography of him, and it's like him in front of a bunch of entomological tools and equipment, but all of the commentary on the picture is always like you could tell he's rich because nobody had all this stuff. So he was definitely leveraging his fortune to help him in these pursuits. But he wasn't just like a rich guy blowing money on weird things. This effort to bring Diocopi, which was considered an important specimen to Portugal, was not the only time that Antonio Carvalio Montero used his money for philanthropy or the betterment of the greater good. He founded garden spaces, and he worked with others to create a fund to offer assistance to tuberculosis patients, as well as work on ways to fight it. The name Carvalio Montero is given to various streets and public spaces in both Brazil and Portugal, in part because of the philanthropy that he did. Just as Antonio's house was being completed, he faced new challenges in his country's shifting politics. He had been a devoted supporter of the monarchy, but as far back as eighteen eighty nine, the monarchy had struggled with anti monarchy sentiment. This grew over the years that followed as the monarchy made decisions that made it appear weak, like capitulating to demands from Britain that Portuguese colonial holdings in Africa be handed over to them. Portugal acquiesced to this request because it owed its ally Britain a lot of money. Yeah, this is also we will once again caveat like a pretty high level look at what was going on in Portugal politically at this time. But anger and dissatisfaction with the monarchy continued, and in nineteen oh eight, King Carlos the First was assassinated, as was his son Louis Philippe. His other son, Manuel the Second became king, and he tried to make some changes that would address some of the people's concerns and alleviate some of the tension in the country. But people really wanted Portugal to just cut its ties with Britain. Most citizens felt that Britain had manipulated Portugal and they wanted nothing more to do with their alliance. Manuel the second his advisers felt that cutting off their relationship with Britain would weaken the country more than fortify it. Plus there was also still that money problem. The two years after Carlos the First was killed were fraught and filled with violence, and ultimately, Manuel the Second fled to Britain and Portugal was declared a republic. All of this was presumably difficult for Antonio Carvio Mantero. We know he continued to believe that the monarchy should be reinstated because he was arrested in nineteen thirteen for suspected involvement in a plot to kill Republican politician Alfonso Costa Carveo. Mattero was accused of sheltering a participant in this plot. This is an accusation that he met with absolute outrage. He was openly Royalist, but he never admitted to having been involved in the murder plot, and he was released several weeks after his arrest. Nineteen thirteen continued to be difficult for Antonio, though wife Perpetua Augusta, the mother of his two children, died on Christmas Day that year, and the next several years of his life are not very well documented. We know only that he lived at his estate during them, and then in the autumn of nineteen twenty he had a fall, and he didn't really recover from it. He died at home on October twenty fourth that year. After Antonio died, his heirs were left with his impressive but odd estate, and they reportedly really didn't care for it. They sold his papers and his personal effects, and then they left the building vacant. Over time, it fell into disrepair, and then in nineteen forty seven, Carvio Montero's airs were bankrupt. They sold the property to try to make some money. It was purchased by Valdemar Doret and he had it restored. In nineteen eighty seven, the Quinta de Regallera was once again up for sale. The Gothic revival home had been valued by Sotheby's at three point seven eight million dollar. They also said that it was priceless, but that was the number they were willing to put on it, and it's unclear how this amount actually compared to the cost of building it, as Carvaria Monteo never recorded what he had spent on construction, decor and landscaping, or if he did, those documents were no longer available. Most press about the house being for sale this time around mentioned that a lot of people in the area were hurrying to visit it before it might be entirely closed off, so presumably at that time the private owners allowed people to visit and walk the grounds. At that point, no one was living in the palace itself, but a member of the Dore family was living in what had been the estate's stables, which had been converted into living quarters. The other thing that the press really built up about Carvio Montero's estate was that it was a spooky, possibly haunted affair. It's written about in ways that sound almost similar to all the lore around the Winchester Mystery House. One write up noted quote behind its ornate facade, Regularra reveals an uncommon feast of esoteric symbols, hidden passages, and secret underground chapels where the rights of the condemned fourteenth century knights templars were believed to have been performed. That same ride Up goes Onto lists some of the odd architectural features of the house. It quotes Fernando Dorra, one of Aldemar Dorre's heirs. Dorray told journalists that he believed that carvill Mantero intended for the house to be both his paradise on earth and the place he would return to after his death, pointing out a high tower that stands in the middle of the garden but which has no access points to get in. Locals had claimed to have seen the ghost of its prior owner in the tower during full moons. At the time, the Doray family mentioned that a Japanese firm was interested in the property and hoped that was who it would be sold to. That deal did come to pass, but the fears of the locals were also realized. The Aoki Corporation, which was a construction company, closed the site to visitors. Aoki may have intended to renovate and reopen the property, but they never did, likely due to finance issues they were facing at the time. Yeah, they eat not too long after. In the decade that followed, got kind of subsumed into another big conglomerate because of their finance problems. In nineteen ninety five, the cultural landscape of CenTra became a UNESCO World Heritage Site. UNESCO describes the significance of this site in part as follows quote. In the nineteenth century, CenTra became the first center of European Romantic architecture. Ferdinand the second turned a ruined monastery into a castle, where this new sensitivity was displayed in the use of Gothic, Egyptian, Moorish and Renaissance elements, and in the creation of a park blending local and exotic species of trees. Other fine dwellings built along the same lines in the surrounding Seta created a unique combination of parks and gardens which influenced the development of landscape architecture throughout Europe. This cultural landscape is an exceptional mixture of natural and cultural sites within a distinct framework. Seen from a distance, it gives the impression of an essentially natural landscape that is distinct from its surroundings, a small chain of forested granite mountains rising over the hilly rural landscape. When seen from closer at hand, the Seta reveals a surprisingly rich cultural evidence, spanning over several centuries of Portugal's history, and of course, as part of the makeup of CenTra, the Quinta de Regalaira is part of the World Heritage Site. After the UNESCO listing, the CenTra Town Council acquired Quinta di Rigulaira from Aoki and started its own restoration of the property. In nineteen ninety eight. It was open to the public and quickly became a popular tourist destination. Visitors can walk the path of the initiation well the caves at the bottom are now illuminated. It's considered by Portugal to be a public interest property and it's planned to remain open in perpetuity, charging a small fee to visitors, and people do flock there. Prior to the start of the COVID nineteen pandemic, the estate received more than one million visitors a year. We don't have numbers that Holly has been able to find for sort of post twenty nineteen, twenty twenty years, but it sure is on my list now. Yeah. Yeah, it's really pretty. I really really I'm into it. I have so many thoughts about all of the things, the freemasonry, the decor, all of it. I also have listener mail. Yeah, this listener mail is from our listener Erica, and it is about our VidCon Quizzling episode. Erica writes, I was ex I did to listen to the episode you did last week on vidcom Quizzling, even though it's not a happy topic, because it connected both to my growing up Norwegian American we love stories of Norwegian resistance to the Nazis and my dissertation which deal with Norwegian American identity in the United States. One part of my dissertation focused on Sons of Norway, a Norwegian American fraternal society. I got to read through lots of great archival material, including a set of amazing pamphlets called Why Sons of Norway. The nineteen forty two pamphlet had a new section called History's Blackest Chapter about the Nazi invasion of Norway and did a lot of work to portray Norwegians as uniformly hating the Nazis. The author of the pamphlet refused to mention Quizzling by name, only saying about him quote, what may be termed a fifth column was a very small group, which in reality would have been a minor nuisance if there had been no Nazi invasion. In fact, there may not even have been that group if it were not for one man, whose name we refrain from mentioning because that very name has become an international opprobrium. This is on page three of that pamphlet. It was really interesting to hear more about Quisling's life, and it was an interesting chance for me to go back and think about how Norwegian Americans at least have been invested in keeping his story a footnote almost from the very start, thanks to the wonderful work you do bringing the lesser known parts of history to a wide audience. Best Erica, this is a very cool piece of information. I do think this is like one of those great examples of very carefully selecting narrative information, because what this pamphlet says is not wrong. There wasn't a lot of support for Quizzling. That was part of why it all fell apart, but there was enough that he got in, so it's interesting. I super appreciate this little bit of additional perspective on the whole thing. So thank you, Erica. That sounds amazing your work in this effort. If you would like to write to us with interesting tidbits, you can do that, or even non interesting tidbits, even you know, as we always say, animal pictures welcome here. You could do that at History podcast at iHeartRadio dot com. You can also subscribe to the podcast Easiest Pie on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Stuff you missed in history class is a production of iHeartRadio. 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