Camilo Castelo Branco was a prolific Portuguese writer of the 19th century, having produced over 260 books, mainly novels, plays and essays.
His passionate novels made him the typical representative of Ultra Romanticism in Portugal. His troubled life gave him inspiration for the subjects of his novels. His literary production is extensive, with more than a hundred works. He produced poetry, theater, historiography, short stories, novels and historical adventure and passionate novels. With the passionate novels he became an outstanding literary figure reaching the peak of his writing career.
Camilo Castelo Branco was one of the first Portuguese writers to live exclusively from what he wrote. In 1885 he received the title of Viscount granted by the King of Portugal, Luís I, In 1889. When he became a national celebrity as a writer, he received a tribute from the Academy of Lisbon.
Camilo Castelo Branco lived surrounded by problems and at the end of his life he was almost blind (as a result of syphilis) and the two children he had with Ana Plácido – one had mental problems and the other was rebellious – which caused him a lot of suffering. Unable to bear all the depression, Camilo committed suicide with a pistol shot.
Camilo Castelo Branco died in São Miguel de Seide, Vila Nova de Famalicão, on June 1st, 1890.
This tomb is built in the Lapa Cemetery and belongs to the family of João António de Freitas Fortuna, whose acquisition and construction were made in that Brotherhood by his father, João António de Freitas Júnior, on November 6th, 1856.
Camilo Castelo Branco had João António Freitas Fortuna as an unfailing friend. On July 15, 1889, in one of the many letters that he wrote from Lisbon to Freitas Fortuna, Camilo says textually: "My dear Freitas accepted with fraternal tenderness the offer of my corpse..."
Camilo, was, in life, a friend of the Venerable Brotherhood of Lapa, even before he had the chance to be buried in the cemetery. This observation stems from the affectionate tone with which he wrote, in 1868, in the pages of the "Gazeta Litteraria do Porto", against his normal critical, sarcastic and ironic temperament with which he habitually approached his chronicles.
The proposal had the hand of his great friend João António Freitas Fortuna, who advanced the entrance fee, which was included in an invoice containing the funeral expenses.
On June 2nd, 1890, the day after Camilo's death, his son Nuno requested authorization from the Civil Government of Braga for the corpse to be transported from his house where he died, in São João de Seide, to the Church of Lapa and delivered to Freitas Fortuna to be buried in the Brotherhood's private cemetery, in his loyal friend's family tomb.