Virgílio Correia

Virgílio (or Vergílio) Correia Pinto da Fonseca (1888 –1944) was a Portuguese university professor, art historian, archaeologist, anthropologist, ethnographer, museum director, conservationist, amateur photographer, and journalist. Playing an active role in the excavations at the Conímbriga Roman settlement near Coimbra, he was also director of the Machado de Castro National Museum in Coimbra, achieving widespread recognition among his contemporaries. Early life Correia was born in Peso da Régua in the Vila Real District of Portugal on 18 October 1888. He graduated in law from the Faculty of Law of the University of Coimbra in 1911, having studied law as the result of parental pressure. Following a brief spell as a notary, a year later he became the curator of the National Museum of Ethnology in Lisbon after a competitive examination. He held that position until 1916, working closely with the museum's founder and director, the ethnologist, José Leite de Vasconcelos. From 1916 to 1921 Correia was curator of the National Museum of Ancient Art in Lisbon, again after a competitive exam, before taking up a teaching position at the University of Coimbra. He published Lisboa Préistorica (Prehistoric Lisbon) in 1912 and, from an early age, was involved with archaeological excavations, having identified the Roman villa of Freiria in Cascais municipality in 1912 and studied Megalithic sites in the Évora District from 1914. He published a book on the Neolithic sites of Pavia in the Mora municipality in 1921, which was considered a fundamental piece for understanding Megalithism.

Career Largely self-taught, at the Faculty of Arts of Coimbra University he initially taught aesthetics and art history and, from 1923, archaeology. In 1930 he began to teach history of the Ancient Orient and history of Classical Antiquity. He was to receive an honorary doctorate from the faculty in 1935. In 1933, he became director of the Machado de Castro National Museum in Coimbra, an art museum named after the Portuguese sculptor, Joaquim Machado de Castro. During his time in charge, he implemented a significant restructuring of the museum. He was also responsible for compiling an inventory of art in the Coimbra District and supervising the national art inventory, which was published posthumously as the multi-volume Artistic Inventory of Portugal. He contributed to the archaeological excavations of the Conímbriga Roman settlement near Coimbra, between 1930 and his death in 1944, and also carried out research in Italy and Morocco. The Cheruskia During World War One German ships in Portuguese ports were seized, which led Germany to declare war on Portugal in 1916. One of the around 70 ships, the steamship Cheruskia, which had sailed from Basra in modern-day Iraq, had a cargo of 448 crates with objects found during excavations carried out by the Deutsche Orient-Gesellschaft, a German association dedicated to the study of the Near East. The objects, which included ceramic fragments, seals, stelae, glazed bricks, vases and small sculptures, sections of columns, bronze rings, and bracelets, had been collected by teams headed by Walter Andrae. They were destined for museums in Germany but remained in Portugal until 1926. Having inspected the crates, Correia argued strongly that the contents should be sent to Germany, believing that scientific work should always be respected. This was in contrast to the official Portuguese position, which was initially that they should be treated as enemy merchandise and sold and, later, that the items should be kept and entrusted to the University of Porto to establish an Assyrian museum. His role in supporting the return of the collection and in preventing its theft and dispersal while the crates were in storage at the Port of Lisbon won admiration from German archaeologists. Eventually, the collection was returned to Germany, with the Portuguese government receiving a selection from archaeological and ethnographic collections in German museums.

Brief imprisonment Correia was an intellectual who did not usually involve himself in politics. However, he was a strong defender of the republican values of freedom and access to education and culture, a Freemason, an agnostic and a defender of civil liberties. In the early 1930s, he was imprisoned in the Cadeia do Aljube prison in the centre of Lisbon for eight days, after being accused of harbouring Commander Francisco Aragão e Melo, an opponent of the Estado Novo regime.

Awards and honours Correia was made an officer of the Military Order of Saint James of the Sword in 1920. He also received the Badge of Honor of the German Red Cross. Death Correia died on 3 June 1944, after falling from a tram in Coimbra.