Born in El Puerto de Santa María, province of Cadiz (Spain), he was the son of Maria João Valente and Bridget Medeiros, a native of Mértola, Portugal.

He attended primary school in Beja, graduated in Coimbra and taught in the Seminaries of Viseu and Santarém.

He exercised, in addition, for seven terms, the functions of the Chairman of the Government of Portuguese India—Presidente do Conselho de Governo do Estado Português da Índia (1886, 1889, 1892, 1894, 1897 and 1905).

[citation needed] He died, while in office as Patriarch, on 25 January 1908.

[citation needed] NewAdvent.org says:[2] "In recent times one provincial council was held (1894) by Dom Antonio S. Valente, in which seventy-nine decrees were framed."