Manuel Pinto da Fonseca

Manuel Pinto da Fonseca
Portrait by Pierre Bernard (1704-1777)
Grand Master of the Order of Saint John
In office 18 January 1741 – 24 January 1773
Monarch	King Charles V (until 1753)
Preceded by	Ramon Despuig
Succeeded by	Francisco Ximenes de Texada
Personal details
Born	1681 Lamego, Kingdom of Portugal
Died	23 January 1773 (1773-01-24) (aged 92) Malta
Resting place	St. John's Co-Cathedral
Nationality	Portuguese
Relations	Rosenda Paulichi
Children	José António Pinto da Fonseca e Vilhena
Military service
Allegiance	Kingdom of Portugal Order of Saint John

Dom Fra' Manuel Pinto da Fonseca (1681 – 24 January 1773) was the 68th Prince and Grand Master of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta from 1741 until his death. He was a Portuguese nobleman, the son of Miguel Álvaro Pinto da Fonseca, Alcaide-Mór de Ranhados, and his wife, Ana Pinto Teixeira.

Before his election as Prince and Grand Master on 18 January 1741, Pinto da Fonseca was a knight of the Langue of Portugal. On 25 May 1743, he gave his name to the then town of Qormi and accorded it the status of a city as "Città Pinto".

In 1749, one of his bodyguards, Giuseppe Cohen, refused to join a plot led by Pasha Mustafa to stage a Muslim slave revolt; this refusal led to the exposure and suppression of the revolt, which afterward was celebrated each 29 June, the anniversary. He created several new noble titles, which was greatly resented by some of the older nobles of Malta, and gained a reputation for imposing heavy taxes.

He had expelled the Jesuits from Malta, in 1768, in line with similar acts taken in his homeland Portugal and its Empire, as well as in the Two Sicilies of which Malta was a vassal, and in France, the Spanish Empire and Parma.

After the expulsion of the Jesuit Order, Pinto appropriated all the revenue accruing from its property on the island with the aim of establishing a Pubblica Università di Studi Generali. The decree constituting the University, now the University of Malta was signed by Pinto on 22 November 1769, having been authorised to do so by the Papal brief, Sedula Romani Pontifici, received on 20 October 1769. On 25 May 1771, a Collegio Medico was set up as one of the faculties making up the University.