Nery da Silva (Canon Vicente)

He was born in the last quarter of the 18th century and died in this city on 3 April 1860.

He was ordained priest around 1815 and, after holding various parish posts on this island, was appointed a canon of Funchal Cathedral (the Sé) (Sé do Funchal). He was a man of extraordinary talent and rare intellectual culture, qualities that showed themselves remarkably in his work as a journalist and author of several pamphlets, and also as an orator, a teacher and in the other posts he held.

He won extraordinary fame as a preacher, not only in Madeira but also on the mainland of the Kingdom (reino, i.e. mainland Portugal). This was due in good part to his rare and overwhelming eloquence, but above all to the freedom with which, from the height of the pulpit, he lashed out at the excesses of those in government and the abuses committed by the authorities, sparing not even the real or supposed excesses of his own superiors in the hierarchy. The sacred rostrum at times served him as a political stage, from which he struck at his adversaries or at those he believed to be his enemies and persecutors. It often happened that, alongside a remarkable beauty of language and passages of rapturous eloquence, his sermons revealed malicious insinuation, hostile aggression and even offence and insult aimed at persons of standing who were among the congregation. Once, in the church of Carmo (‘Carmel’), he violently attacked the governor José Silvestre Ribeiro while the governor was present, seated beside the diocesan prelate. On another occasion, in the Cathedral (Sé Catedral), he was ordered by the ecclesiastical authority to come down from the pulpit and was suspended from preaching, before he had even finished his sermon. His contemporaries state that these excesses of language stirred up against Canon Nery the ill will, and at times the persecution, of those struck by these veritable diatribes. They add, however, that the boldness and courage with which he spoke, the tribune’s eloquence with which he thundered his attacks from the pulpit, and the beauty and pithy elegance of his diction softened the effects of the orator’s errors and follies. He had many ardent defenders, who forgave him the unseemly outbursts of his fiery and aggressive eloquence.

We possess the pamphlets cited by Dr Rodrigues de Azevedo, but have no knowledge of the others, which must be extremely rare. They readily show that the pamphleteer was a match for the orator. Canon Nery was a contemporary of José Agostinho de Macedo, and it is to be supposed that Besta Esfolada and Tripa virada exerted a notable influence on the mind of our fellow Madeiran. It is hard to understand how the pen that wrote the remarkable poem Oriente and so many other marvels could also have produced those abominable diatribes. Allowing for the different circumstances of their surroundings, the same may be said of Canon Vicente Nery da Silva. He was a man of undeniable intellectual stature, but, carried away by his ardent and impetuous temperament, he said and wrote things that do little credit to his character, even though he was an austere priest, as Dr Álvaro de Azevedo calls him.

Vicente Nery was an enthusiastic champion of liberal ideas, and as such he was persecuted by the special judicial commission (alçada) that came to this island in 1828. He was arrested and sent to Lisbon, where he was held in confinement for some time.