Journey to Portugal by José Saramago

On arrival at Braganza it began to rain. It's typical of the weather there, large dark clouds which roll around the skies as if the world were covered in slate, like the badly-roofed villages through which the rain heavily leaks, and obliging the traveller to seek refuge in the Abade de Bacal's museum. The abbot was one Father Francisco Manuel Alves, born in Bacal in 1865. Archaeologist and researcher, he did not restrict himself merely to his priestly duties, but completed a long and valiant life's work alongside it. It is, therefore, only fair that his name should be mentioned in every reference to this museum, so magnificently installed in the Bishop's former palace. The traveller is not a man to be easily shocked: he has travelled through Europe, hardly lacking in other grandeurs, but in taking his own emotional temperature, he concludes he must be under a spell.

What other explanation could there be for a certain inner commotion as he passes through the rooms inside the museum-so far from the capital and from other capitals, knowing full well that he's merely visiting a small provincial museum, without major works of art-other than the love with which such objects were collected and exhibited? Stones, furniture, paintings and sculptures, ethnographic items, ornaments, all arranged with care and in order. Here is the Pedra Amarela [Yellow Stone] painted by Dórdio Gomes, here the excellent works by Abel Salazar, scorned by the critics who label him an amateur.