Embarrassment as Oeiras obelisk commemorating poets, artists and craftspeople shows sculptor cannot spell

Sculptor Júlio Quaresma is described by tabloid Correio da Manhã today as “the artist who has most benefited from public commissions”, apparently having charged over a million euros for his works of art. But the latest monument, a €600,000 giant obelisk inaugurated on April 25 in Oeiras, was full of spelling mistakes. The 17.59 metre high monument had the names of various giants of Portuguese cultural history etched into it. Sophia de Mello Breyner, for example, who became ‘Sofia’, Teixeira de Pascoaes, who became ‘Pascoais’, and Carlos Drummond de Andrade, who lost one of his ‘ms’ in Drummond. Mayor Isaltino Morais has said the corrections will all be sorted “without any further cost to taxpayers”