With the words of the Prince of Salinas, Sicilian aristocrat, character in “The Leopard”, a brilliant novel by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa: “All this shouldn’t be able to last; but it will last, always; the always human, of course, a century, two centuries…; and then it will be different, but worse”.
In 2026 it is known that they received amounts higher than the ceiling from the Widow (their salary, R$46,366.19). They are the well-known penduricalhos, all of which are cool.
The minister, in December 2024, when he was already in office, received around R$30 thousand net. It was the product of a hoard of retroactive funds relating to rights not enjoyed while he was still a federal judge, such as vacations and days off — in addition to his salary. That month the doctor received R$55,000 net. In December 2020, when he was governor of Maranhão, due to retroactive rights, Dino received R$106 thousand net.
It showed that five other Supreme Court ministers benefited from similar prebends and, since 2019, this bench has received R$2.8 million in current values: (more than R$1 million), (R$880 thousand since 2019), (R$277 thousand), (R$491 thousand). There is no record of payments for the ministers, Cármen Lúcia and Cristiano Zanin, a private banking lawyer.
It is worth repeating, all these penduricalhos were legal, as was the prebend of the 19th century. In that century, the elite of Pindorama, in which there were at least two magistrates of the Supreme Court of Justice (the STF of the Empire), nestled in the prebend of free blacks.
Explaining: that all black people brought from Africa and captured in Pindorama would be free. They must have numbered around 10 thousand, while smuggling brought in around half a million slaves. Black people became slaves of the Crown and someone had the idea of privatizing them. The Crown sent them to distinguished citizens (including journalists). The dealer paid an annual fee that could be amortized by renting the black man for a month.
A privatized black was advantageous, because while a farmer lost his capital when he died, with the privatariat it was enough to request another.
Professor Beatriz Gallotti Mamigonian listed 570 beneficiaries of the prebend. There’s everything there, from José Bonifácio’s son-in-law and granddaughter to three illustrious Lima e Silva, an uncle, the baron father and his son, then Marquês de Caxias. There are lots of barons, viscounts and marquises. A few more judges and STJ ministers Francisco José Alves Carneiro and José Paulo de Figueirôa Nabuco de Araújo.
About ten journalists entered this little mouth, including the largest of them, Justiniano José da Rocha. The Marquis of Paraná, one of the greatest politicians in the Empire, and his wife received 21 black people.
The prebend was extinguished, Abolition and the Republics came. All that shouldn’t be able to last; but it lasted forever human, a century, two centuries.
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