/ SOUTOSA
“I am a rough artist, son of my mountain. One is born with the cradle on their back, like a hump. The Beira Alta has no equal in the world. In a few dozen kilometers, the whole earth is reproduced: amenity and bravery, the hill and the valley, civilization and savagery. Around the village where I set up my tent, in winter the wolves howl in defiance with the wind.”
AQUILINO RIBEIRO, IN Aldeia. Terra, gentes e bichos.
Foundation
Aquilino Ribeiro
Church
Old Primary School
Fountain
HISTORY
Overlooking the mountains, Soutosa has an extraordinary beauty, whose origins seem to be hidden in the place of Covais where traces of a late Roman farm were found.
The Middle Ages left in Soutosa a magnificent necropolis in Casal dos Moiros, with numerous tombs carved into the rock, which may date from the 11th/12th century.
In cultural terms, Soutosa is intimately linked to Aquilino Ribeiro, who faithfully portrayed its natural and cultural heritage, immortalizing this town forever in Portuguese literature. On the property where the illustrious writer lived and wrote, now belonging to the Aquilino Ribeiro Foundation, is the House-Museum, classified as a Property of Public Interest.
As a result of the various territorial reorganizations, Soutosa integrated the domains of the Couto de Leomil and was the seat of the municipality of Pera e Peva until 1834, the year in which it became part of the municipality of Moimenta da Beira.
The headquarters of the municipality of Pêra e Peva has always been a point of contention, as both locations wanted to be elevated to town status.
To appease tempers, Soutosa, because it is located in the geographic center of the territory, was elevated to the seat of the municipality. Thus, ordinary judges, councilors and the remaining municipal officers, as well as two ordinance companies, were based here. The symbols of local power such as the Town Hall, the Prison House, the Casa da Roda and the Pillory, having lost their function, were lost over time.
Of the religious and civil architecture, the chapel of Nosso Senhor da Aflição stands out; the chapel of São João Baptista; the cross; the memorial to Aquilino Ribeiro; the various weirs and mills next to the Paiva; the Vale de Joaninho bridge, the “Cando” Bridge and also the “Ponte Pedrinha”.
FOUNDATION
AQUILINO
RIBEIRO
The noble house of Aquilino Ribeiro, in Soutosa, dating from the 19th century, gives rise to the Aquilino Ribeiro Foundation (FAR), a public utility institution without lucrative purposes. The manor house, as many call it, aims to promote the life and literary works of Aquilino Gomes Ribeiro and preserve the writer’s memories, valuing cultural assets and promoting his work with scientific, educational and recreational objectives.
Aquilino was born in 1885 in the parish of Carregal, Sernancelhe, but it was in Soutosa, municipality of Moimenta da Beira, that the writer spent part of his childhood. He moved to the village with his parents at the age of ten.
After his father’s death, Aquilino inherited the remarkable house in Soutosa in 1918, which always served as a crucial refuge in the writer’s life.
His chronology is extensive, the master passed and lived in different places, placing himself on the run several times, always fighting dictatorships. However, he never left behind the writing where the word freedom was central in all his novels. Of provincial language and prose character of the 20th century, and through an original writing, Aquilino persistently affirmed that “he who does not tire reaches”, one of the author’s best-known phrases. The House Museum presents us with hundreds of the writer’s personal objects, such as books, postcards and photographs. Without forgetting the extensive garden, Aquilino’s Library and the Casa do Aldeão.
The FAR is the ideal place to get to know and understand the world portrayed by the master Aquilino, perhaps to wander and understand the reasons for his struggle and persistence for equality and freedom.
the rock
of aquilino
GPS Coordinates: 40.88395, -7.656653
