António Viana was born on 15 March 1858 in Lisbon in Rua do Patrocínio, nº 78 (nº 94 a hundred years later) and died in the same city on 28 April 1931, shortly after turning seventy-three.

The historian and director of the Torre do Tombo, António Baião (1878-1961), author of his academic eulogy, said he was born in “a golden cradle and [of] good stock” (António Baião, Discurso acerca do centenário..., 1958, p. 3), which is borne out by the historical facts.

He was the son of Comendador João António Viana, a nobleman of the Royal Household, and Camila Adelaide da Silva Carvalho, and the grandson on his mother’s side of the famous José da Silva Carvalho (1782-1856), minister, State Councillor, and vice-president of the Chamber of Peers; he was also the great-nephew on his father’s side of Joaquim Leocádio da Costa, a Miguelist commercial broker, and the nephew on his mother’s side of the 1st Viscount Silva Carvalho (1829-1880), State Councillor and peer of the realm (by succession), who was also his godfather (Grande Enciclopédia Portuguesa e Brasileira, vol. XXVIII, s.d., p. 885 and António Viana, José da Silva Carvalho e o seu Tempo, vol. I, 1891, p. 417, n. 1).

He was the father-in-law of António Carneiro Pacheco (1887-1957), diplomat, minister of the Estado Novo and (re)founder, in 1936, of the Portuguese Academy of History (António Baião, “Duas Palavras”, in António Viana, Apontamentos para a história diplomática contemporânea por..., vol. III, p. VII and Luís de Reis Torgal, “A História em tempo de Ditadura”, in A História da História em Portugal (Séculos XIX e XX), p. 251, caption).

As a result of his background and family and social ties, Viana can be said to be an interesting example of someone who was very close to both the sources and to political and academic figures of the 19th and 20th centuries from the time of the 1828-34 Civil War to the (re)founding of the Academy of History in 1936.

Although no information is available about Viana’s secondary school education, preparatory to his entering the Faculty of Law at the University of Coimbra, it is known that António de Oliveira Pacheco (father of Carneiro Pacheco) and José de Alpoim, “a restless tribune, almost Jacobin”, were his fellow students. He passed the course nemine discrepante, that is to say, with unanimous approval, finishing with a final classification of Good (and a grade of 12/20) in 1879 at the age of 21 (António Baião, Discurso acerca do centenário..., 1958, pp. 4-6).

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | (Pdf)