“Mitra” – the Mitra Asylum and the 3rd Post of the PSP’s 14th Station

The Palácio da Mitra, also called the Patriarchal Palace of Marvila, is an early 17th-century building on Rua do Açúcar. It was the residence of the prelates of Lisbon and became known as the house of D. Tomás de Almeida, the first patriarch, between 1716 and 1754. When the religious orders were abolished, in 1834, it passed to the State Treasury and, at the beginning of the 20th century, housed a metalworking and foundry factory. In April 1930, Lisbon City Council bought the palace, the land and the outbuildings: on the land it set up the Mitra Asylum, opened in 1933; in the palace, the Municipal Library, in 1934, and later the City Museum, from 1941 to 1973.¹ During the dictatorship, children found begging were picked up by the police and confined in the Mitra Shelter (Albergue da Mitra).²

The “Mitra” also had a police post, the 3rd Post of the 14th Station, in the eastern part of the city, where the political police held prisoners. After the sailors’ revolt of 8 September 1936, the arrested sailors were handed over to the PVDE and were held here; on 18 September they were moved to the Lisbon Penitentiary and, on 17 October, they embarked for the newly created Tarrafal concentration camp. Two of those who passed through the “Mitra” died at Tarrafal: the gunner Francisco José Pereira, on 20 September 1937, and the sailor Jacinto de Melo Faria Vilaça, on 3 January 1941, aged 26.³⁴