National Museum Frei Manuel do Cenáculo

• Name — Frei Manuel do Cenáculo National Museum • Established — 1915 • Location — Largo do Conde de Vila Flor, Évora, Portugal

Creation of the Évora Museum was authorized on 30 July 1914, and it was officially established the following year under the name of Évora Regional Museum. It opened to the public in 1921, in the Palácio Amaral, moving to its current building on Largo do Conde de Vila Flor in 1929. The first four rooms were inaugurated two years later and, in 1936, the archaeological section was incorporated. This had previously been located on the ground floor of the Évora public library. With the appointment of Mário Tavares Chicó as director in 1943, a phase of restructuring of the interior of the building began. It was not until 1970 that the prehistory section, located in the basement, was inaugurated. In 2004, the museum closed for renovations of the entire building, works that were only completed in 2009, when it reopened to the public. During the period of closure, restoration work was carried out on some of the most important works in the collection. In 2020 the museum suffered problems due to a lack of staff. The diversity of the museum's collection, which dates back to Frei Manuel do Cenáculo who was Archbishop of Évora between 1802 and 1814, makes the museum an important institution for the understanding of Portuguese national history and the country's artistic and cultural achievements.