The Mayor of Porto Mr. Rui Moreira yesterday conferred His Highness the Aga Khan with the Keys to the City of Porto, according to press release issued by the Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN).
The presentation reportedly occurred in the presence of His Highness’s brother Prince Amyn Aga Khan, the President of the Municipal Assembly of Porto, Mr. Miguel Pereira Leite as well as a distinguished audience which included members of the diplomatic corps, government and parliament representatives, cultural leaders and civil society representatives as well as representatives from AKDN.
Mayor of Porto Mr. Rui Moreira expressed his gratitude to His Highness upon conferring the honor, saying, “Your Highness, for generations we have appreciated your contribution, not only to Portugal, but also to Europe, to the world, because you have believed in the construction of a better society.”
In his remarks, His Highness the Aga Khan commented on his role: “In my work I look at peoples from all environments — cities, rural urban areas, deserts, industrialized areas — and I look at how people live, and I ask myself, “How can we improve the living conditions of people in all these environments?”
He went on to laud Portugal for building a strong pluralistic society. “We learn all the time from all our contacts in all the cities we work with, and Portugal has set an example of a pluralist society, which is remarkable, which should be honored, which should be recognized, which should be copied. So I want to take this occasion to congratulate you for creating a functioning, happy, pluralist society.”
Porto, after Lisbon, is the second largest city in Portugal, and in addition to being an important industrial center, is renowned for its rich cultural heritage. The city’s museums including the Soares do Reis National Museum and the Serralves Museum as well as its opera house, fine-arts school, symphony orchestra, and its other cultural and scientific institutions characterize Porto as one of Europe’s leading cultural capitals.
Earlier in the day, His Highness the Aga Khan and Prince Amyn attended a ceremony at the Soares dos Reis National Museum in Porto marking the donation of a painting by Bento Coelho da Silveira’s (1617-1708) entitled “Presentation of the Virgin at the Temple.” The gift to the Museum, is the third in a series of paintings by Bento Coelho da Silveira, following the donation of both the “Rest in the Return of Egypt” and “Virgin with the Boy and the Vision of the Cross” by the Ismaili Imamat to the National Museum of Ancient Art in Lisbon earlier this year. All paintings were previously housed in the Palacete Henrique de Mendonça.
Conferring both His Highness and Prince Amyn with the Benefactor Member Diploma of the Soares de Reis National Museum in Porto, Friends of the Museum President Álvaro Sequeira Pinto noted, “In his 60 years as a leader of the Ismaili community, His Highness has been living a legacy of peace and tolerance.”
The ceremony was attended by Portugal’s Secretary of State for Culture, Ângela Ferreira, and the Director-General of Cultural Heritage Ms. Paula Silva. The event also included a brief performance by selected musicians from the Casa da Música, Porto’s leading musical institution and home to the National Orchestra of Porto.
In his address, Prince Amyn remarked: “When these three pictures were discovered in the Palacete in Lisbon we decided that the quality was such that they really should be shared with the public, the people of Portugal in general, and hence the decision to donate two of these pictures to Lisbon, and to bring this one to Porto.”
In her remarks at the donation ceremony the Secretary of State for Culture, thanked the Ismaili Imamat and the Aga Khan Development Network for “another demonstration of the strong commitment in the cultural collaboration with Portugal’s cultural institutions.”
