In a statement, the ministry led by Dalila Rodrigues revealed that Alexandre Pais, art historian and current director of the National Tile Museum, will succeed Pedro Sobrado, who will thus return to the position he left in October, as chairman of the board of directors of the Teatro Nacional São João, in Porto.

In turn, João Soalheiro will succeed the architect João Carlos dos Santos in Cultural Heritage, with vice-president Laura Castro also ceasing her duties.

In the same statement, the Ministry of Culture also announced that Margarida Donas Botto, a specialist in heritage recovery, will take over as director of the Jerónimos Monastery and the Belém Tower, in Lisbon, a position that has been vacant since Dalila Rodrigues took office as Minister of Culture, in April.

Pedro Sobrado and João Carlos dos Santos had been appointed in September last year by the previous Government, implementing the option of remodeling the structure of Portuguese cultural heritage, dividing the competences of the former Directorate-General for Cultural Heritage (DGPC) into two: the public company MMP, based in Lisbon, and the public institute Cultural Heritage, based in Porto.

Alexandre Nobre Pais, who holds a PhD in decorative arts from the Catholic University of Portugal, in 2012, and a master's degree from the Faculty of Social and Human Sciences of the New University of Lisbon, in 1999, has been director of the National Tile Museum since 2021.

João Soalheiro is a PhD student in Letters, area of Medieval History, at the Faculty of Letters of the University of Lisbon, and holds a degree in Theology from the Catholic University of Portugal, having been director of the Regional Directorate of Culture of Lisbon and Vale do Tejo and deputy director-general of the Directorate-General for Cultural Heritage.

In turn, the new director of the Jerónimos Monastery, Margarida Donas Botto, who currently works as a senior technician at MMP, holds a master's degree in architectural and landscape heritage recovery, and a degree in History, specializing in archaeology, from the University of Coimbra.

The passages of João Carlos dos Santos and Pedro Sobrado through the leadership of the Cultural Heritage Institute and MMP were marked by the controversial departure from Portugal of the painting "Descent from the Cross", by Domingos Sequeira (1768-1837), against the advice of experts, and criticized by organizations linked to heritage.

The work, which the State still tried to buy without success, ended up being acquired by the Livraria Lello Foundation, which exhibited it to the public on May 18 at the Leça do Balio Monastery, in Matosinhos, and will go to the long-term exhibition of the National Museum of Soares dos Reis, in Porto, from June 1, following the signing of a memorandum between the State and the foundation, through MMP.

According to the decree-law of its creation, MMP's objectives include the "management of national museums, monuments and palaces, the implementation of the national museological policy and the protection, conservation and restoration, protection, research and valorization of national collections and movable cultural heritage".

Under the tutelage of MMP are also the curator of the State Contemporary Art Collection, the Commission for the Acquisition of Contemporary Art and the Commission for the Acquisition of Cultural Goods for National Museums and Palaces.

The public institute Cultural Heritage became responsible for everything related to the management and safeguarding of classified or in the process of being classified cultural heritage, with its classification, the management of the Cultural Heritage Safeguarding Fund, the National Center for Nautical and Underwater Archaeology, the Laboratory of Archaeosciences, the Forte de Sacavém, the Libraries and the Archives of Archaeology.

In total, there are still about four dozen monuments, groups and sites that will be assigned to this public institute and that were under the jurisdiction of the DGPC and the regional directorates of culture, including churches, convents, monasteries, temples, cathedrals and archaeological sites.

[News updated at 13:43]

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