Seminary

The Council of Trent, held in the city from which it took its name, ordered that every diocese should create an establishment for religious instruction and education, intended for the ecclesiastical training of those who wished to become priests, and especially of those who would devote themselves to parish life. In fulfilment of that decree, King Sebastian created the Funchal Seminary (Seminário do Funchal) by royal letter (carta régia) of 20 September 1566. The foundation took effect only later, in a year we cannot state precisely, but which fell within the period from 1573 to 1586. The establishment of this house of education is owed to the efforts of Bishop Dom Jerónimo Barreto, and he is rightly regarded as the founder of the Funchal Seminary.

It was first housed in a building on Rua Direita (‘straight street’), next to the dwelling of the prelate, who then had his residence there. At the end of the 16th century Bishop Dom Luís de Figueiredo e Lemos built the old bishop's palace (Paço Episcopal), a considerable part of which still survives, together with the adjoining chapel, now deconsecrated. The Seminary moved to a building next to this palace and to its outbuildings at the end of that century or the beginning of the next.

The construction of the new residence of the prelates, the one that can still be seen today in the former Rua do Bispo, led to the Seminary's move to the house on Rua do Mosteiro Novo (‘the New Convent’). This had been intended for a convent of nuns (volume III, page 398), but was never put to the use for which it had been built. The earthquake of 1748 left this building so badly damaged that it had to be abandoned, and the establishment moved into another house or houses, whose location we do not know, remaining there until the year 1788.

It was Bishop Dom José da Costa Torres who obtained from the government in mainland Portugal the transfer of the former Jesuit College (Colégio dos Jesuítas) for use as a seminary. This was granted by royal letter of Maria I dated 10 August 1787, and the solemn opening in the new building took place on 31 March 1788. The Seminary did not stay there long, because the occupation of Madeira by British troops in 1801 forced it to move again, back to the old house on Rua do Mosteiro Novo, once this had been suitably repaired.

When the governor and captain-general Dom José Manuel da Câmara failed to have the College (Colégio) building vacated, a serious conflict arose between him and the diocesan bishop, as already mentioned on pages 216 and 266 of this volume.

In the article devoted to the late and illustrious Bishop Dom Manuel Agostinho Barreto (volume I, page 130), we have already referred to the building raised within the convent grounds of the former Convento da Encarnação (Convent of the Incarnation) for the Diocesan Seminary. There the great prelate, spending his entire fortune, both inherited and acquired, endowed the diocese with a large and splendid building, which is one of the finest claims to glory of his episcopal administration. The Seminary began to operate in its new building in October 1909, but the law of 20 April 1911 suppressed the Seminary of this diocese, and the great building passed immediately into the possession of the State.

This institution of ecclesiastical instruction and education returned to its old house in Rua do Mosteiro Novo, where it operates at present. Before that it had spent some time in an annexe of our bishop’s palace, in Rua da Carreira (‘track’), and on a quinta (country estate) in the locality (sítio) of Trapiche, in the parish (freguesia) of Santo António (1921).

The royal letter of Sebastian of 20 September 1566, already cited, established the Seminary with twelve students and a rector, and gave it an endowment of 300,000 réis (old Portuguese money of account; 1$000 = 1,000 réis, 1:000$000 = one conto = 1,000,000 réis) for its upkeep, plus 45,000 réis for the salary of the master of grammar and plainchant. It is presumed that the students attended the humanities classes that the Jesuits maintained in this city until 1759. From that year until the lyceum (state secondary school) of this city opened in 1837, where the seminarians began to attend the relevant classes, we do not know whether the Seminary’s pupils had their own courses within the Seminary building itself.

With the arrival in this bishopric of the eminent prelate Dom Manuel Agostinho Barreto, the Seminary underwent a profound and radical transformation (volume I, page 130). In 1877 a complete preparatory course was created there, a larger number of pupils was admitted and the internal discipline was entirely reformed, so that the Seminary was placed on a par with the best-organised institutions of its kind.

From every point of view, the late Dom Manuel Agostinho Barreto is the true reformer and restorer of the Funchal Seminary, and this institution ought to be given the name of that illustrious and benevolent prelate.

It would be a flagrant injustice not to say that, to the good reputation the Seminary enjoyed in moral, religious and scientific terms in the last years of its existence, no one contributed more than Father Ernst Schmitz, who was its teacher and director for thirty years. Among other important improvements, he was responsible for creating a natural history museum of regional character (volume II, page 414), which alone suffices to make his distinguished name undying here in Madeira, as we have already emphasised in the cited article devoted to Bishop Dom Manuel Agostinho Barreto. The decree of 25 April 1927 declared unlawful the transfer of the Incarnação building to the District General Council (Junta Geral), but only six years later, after a stubborn struggle, was the Diocesan Seminary installed there once more, beginning its work in October 1933.