2021200th Anniv. of the End of the Inquisition in Portugal - Set

On 5 February 1821, at the session of the General and Constituent Courts of the Portuguese Nation, which had been held since 26 January in Palácio das Necessidades, member Francisco Simões Margiochi put forward various proposals with a view to abolishing the tributos vis taxes and the Juízo da Inconfidência (Court of Indiscretion), opening prisons, limiting police authority and bringing an end to the Tribunal of the Inquisition. As well as preparing the new Constitution, the Courts approved various laws aimed at eliminating practices and institutions of absolutism, regarded as incompatible with the new order they wanted to build. Francisco Margiochi (1774-1838), a graduate in Mathematics from the University of Coimbra (1789) and an army officer, member of the General and Constituent Courts of the Portuguese Nation (1821-1822) and later the Ordinary Courts (1822), was exiled twice, fought in the Civil War as part of the liberal army, and was named Permanent Counsellor of State, Peer of the Realm, Minister of the Navy (1833), Reader of the Naval Academy and Vice-President of the Superior Council of Public Instruction, as well as being the author of a significant scientific work.