Portugal 20 Escudos banknote 12.8.1919 Banco de Portugal
Obverse: Portrait of João de Castro (7 February 1500 – 6 June 1548) was a Portuguese nobleman and fourth viceroy of Portuguese India, value in three corners.
Reverse: Sintra National Palace at centre, Coat of arms of Portugal and value in ornate guilloches at right.
Old Portuguese Escudo banknotes
1919-1920 "Chapa 1 & 2" Issue
10 Escudos 20 Escudos
João de Castro, (born Feb. 7, 1500, Lisbon, Port.—died June 6, 1548, Goa, Portuguese India), naval officer who helped preserve the Portuguese commercial settlement in India and contributed to the science of navigation with three roteiros (pilot books). He was also the first to note the deviation of the ship’s compass needle created by the magnetic effect of iron objects.
The son of Alvaro de Castro, governor of Lisbon, and a student of the celebrated Portuguese mathematician and geographer Pedro Nunes, he spent 20 years in North Africa before sailing to western India in 1538. There he helped to end the Ottoman-Indian siege of the Portuguese fort at Diu. He sailed up the Red Sea to Suez (1540–41) and returned to Portugal in 1543. In 1545 he commanded the Portuguese fleet that helped end another siege of Diu. He served as viceroy of Portuguese India for only a few months before his death in the arms of the missionary St. Francis Xavier. Castro’s pilot books, remarkable for their scientific observations, were published in Paris, France (1833), and in Oporto (1843) and Lisbon, Portugal. (1882).
The Sintra National Palace (Portuguese: Palácio Nacional de Sintra), also called Town Palace (Palácio da Vila Vila=Town) is located in the town of Sintra, in the Lisbon District of Portugal. It is a present day historic house museum.
It is the best preserved medieval Royal Palace in Portugal, from being inhabited more or less continuously from at least the early 15th century to the late 19th century. It is an significant tourist attraction, and is part of the cultural landscape of Sintra, a designated UNESCO World Heritage Site.