{"id":19247,"date":"2025-09-30T10:36:37","date_gmt":"2025-09-30T10:36:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.palacioficalho.pt\/sem-categoria\/4-th-count-of-ficalho-1837-1903\/"},"modified":"2025-10-08T12:37:36","modified_gmt":"2025-10-08T12:37:36","slug":"4-th-count-of-ficalho-1837-1903","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.palacioficalho.pt\/en\/faces\/4-th-count-of-ficalho-1837-1903\/","title":{"rendered":"4 th count of Ficalho (1837-1903)"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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4 th count of Ficalho (1837-1903)<\/h1>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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At the end of the nineteenth century, Portugal experienced an intellectual and artistic revolution. Francisco Manuel de Mello Breyner (1837-1903), 4th count of Ficalho, was at the centre of it. As a scholar, he worked at the intersection of history and botany (he co-launched the Lisbon Botanical Garden) and was responsible for an important study about the sixteenth century naturalist Garcia da Orta (in 1886) and for the re-edition of his major work, Colo\u0301quios dos Simples e Drogas da I\u0301ndia. He was also a diplomat, a novelist, and an artist (his works that can be seen on a visit to the palace). He was, moreover, a member of a group of intellectuals called Vencidos da Vida (in English, \u201cdefeated of life\u201d), alongside with other Portuguese writers, historians, and journalists, like E\u00e7a de Queir\u00f3s<\/a>, Oliveira Martins and Ramalho Ortig\u00e3o.
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The latter described him as follows: 
<\/span>\u201cHe knew how to be a man of the court, a man of the countryside, a man of study, a naturalist, a man of letters, an artist, a poet, a historian, an agronomist, a mordomo-mor in the palace, a statesman in the state council, a legislator in the house of lords, a professor at the polytechnic school, ambassador at the court of Russia, president at the academy, farmer in Serpa, skilful driver of horses and cotillons, horse rider, hare hunter, partridge hunter, an equally skilled conversationalist among royal princesses and among muleteers and coachmen; speaking with equal ease the aristocratically sublimated language of the main courts of Europe and the harsh and raw language of the equerries and shepherds of his agricultural properties.\u201d
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online works<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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history<\/h4>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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