D. Francisco I de Saldanha da Gama (20 May 1723 – 1 November 1776) was the third Cardinal Patriarch of Lisbon.

You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in Portuguese. (January 2019) Click [show] for important translation instructions. View a machine-translated version of the Portuguese article. Machine translation, like DeepL or Google Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia. Consider adding a topic to this template: there are already 1,521 articles in the main category, and specifying|topic= will aid in categorization. Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article. You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing Portuguese Wikipedia article at [[:pt:Francisco de Saldanha da Gama]]; see its history for attribution. You should also add the template {{Translated|pt|Francisco de Saldanha da Gama}} to the talk page. For more guidance, see Wikipedia:Translation.

Quick Facts His Eminence, In office ...

His Eminence Francisco I
Cardinal, Patriarch of Lisbon
In office	1758-1776
Predecessor	José Manuel da Câmara de Atalaia
Successor	Fernando de Sousa e Silva
Orders
Ordination	1739
Consecration	5 August 1759 by José Dantas Barbosa
Created cardinal	5 April 1756 by Benedict XIV
Rank	Cardinal-Priest
Personal details
Born	Francisco de Saldanha da Gama 20 May 1723 Lisbon, Portugal
Died	1 November 1776 (aged 53) Lisbon, Portugal
Nationality	Portuguese
Denomination	Roman Catholic

Close

He was the great-grandson of Margarida de Vilhena and a descendant of the first viscount of Vila Nova de Cerveira, Leonel de Lima. His father was João de Saldanha da Gama (1674–1752), forty-first viceroy of India. He studied canon law at Coimbra and was ordained to the Priesthood in 1739.^[1] He was created Cardinal by Pope Benedict XIV in 1756 at the request of Joseph I of Portugal.^[2] He was named Patriarch of Lisbon on 25 July 1758 and was consecrated to the Episcopate on 5 August 1759.

On 1 April 1758, a brief was obtained from the aged Pope Benedict XIV, appointing Saldanha, recommended by the Marquis of Pombal, to investigate allegations against the Jesuits that had been raised in the name of Joseph I of Portugal.