“It is the use of the world to speak ill of the good”: ruin and restoration of the Marquis of Montalvão under the spins of the wheel of fortune

Abstract:

In the context of the Portuguese Restoration, the trivialization of trusts promoted a profusion of suspicions, arrests and executions, even within the highest nobility. The fall of those who surrounded the new king was not always definitive, although frequent. One of the most representative trajectories of the binomial “up” and “down”, object of lots of ink by Antônio Vieira, is that of the marquis of Montalvão. Arrested and released a few times, Montalvão synthesized a conjuncture of uncertainty, which combined failure and prestige. Facing an instigating career and a varied typology of documents, this article aims to discuss the marquis’ career bringing the idea of the wheel of fortune, a common allegory in the writings and representations of the time. One of his main contributions is that, despite the notion of constant movement from the wheel of fortune, it ended up crystallizing and conserving social behaviors.

Keywords:
Marquis of Montalvão; Portuguese Restoration