He was the son of Miguel Álvaro Pinto da Fonseca,
Alcaide-Mór de Ranhados, and his wife, Ana Pinto Teixeira. The coat of arms of the Pinto portrays five red crescents, to symbolising that the Pinto de Fonseca family won five battles with the Ottomans. Before his election as Grand Master on 18 January 1741, Pinto da Fonseca was a knight of the
Langue of Portugal. 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. Pinto da Fonseca made substantial donations to the Conventual Church, and among the most notable mementoes are two large and heavy bells cast by the Master Founder of the Order of Saint John, Aloisio Bouchut, in 1747 and 1748; they still hang in the belfries of what is now the Co-Cathedral. These bells were made by melting two
basilisks that were left by the Ottomans after the Great Siege of 1565. As Grand Master, Pinto da Fonseca completed construction of the
Auberge de Castille (still one of the most important buildings in the
Maltese capital city,
Valletta); his bust and arms adorn its façade. Pinto built
nineteen storehouses at the Marina, which still bear his name, and built several other buildings and structures. In 1756, he has built the first printing press in Malta at the
magistral palace of the Grand Master, known as
la stamperia del Palazzo. Pinto gave his name to the then town of
Qormi and accorded it the status of a city as "Città Pinto". The city of Qormi adopted the Pinto arms, with the tinctures reversed, for its own coat of arms and flag. Pinto gained a bad reputation for creating large debts for the
treasury of the Order, leading to bankruptcy. In 1764, Pinto da Fonseca negotiated with King Frederick II ("Frederick the Great") of Prussia a reunification of the Protestant
Bailiwick of Brandenburg with the Catholic
Order of Saint John, but as Pope Clement XIII would not allow admission into a Roman Catholic organization of men viewed as heretics by the Church, the agreement came to naught. In 1765/6, Pinto was befriended by Italian adventurer and occultist
Alessandro Cagliostro. A Master Mason of
Freemasonry, dom Pinto initiated to the 33rd degree don
Raimondo di Sangro, prince of Sansevero, which later established the first Scottish Rite Masonic Lodge in
Naples, Italy. Malta since 1734 was nominally a fief under the
House of Bourbon-Two Sicilies, from 1759 under
Ferdinand III.
Bernardo Tanucci pressured Pinto to follow the Bourbon policy of
suppression of the Jesuits, threatening a boycott of Malta if he refused. Pinto consulted with
Pope Clement XIII, who reluctantly agreed to the expulsion of the Jesuits from Malta, insisting that it should be done "with due decency". Pinto signed the decree of expulsion on 22 April 1768. Twenty Jesuits (thirteen fathers, five brothers and two students) were expelled, while three elderly Jesuits, two of them native Maltese, were allowed to remain. 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, Pinto died on 23 January 1773, aged 91. His body was laid in a neoclassic monument with his mosaic portrait. A statue of Pinto is found in
Floriana. ==Gallery==