Portuguese Language and Culture

Pioneer works of Portuguese Language and Culture: a fundamental library of Portuguese language and culture. Notable works whose pioneering spirit in Portugal sowed the seeds of knowledge and the dissemination of arts and sciences.

Pioneering Works of Portuguese Language and Culture (2020) by Pioneering Works of Portuguese CultureObservatory of the Portuguese Language

First texts in Portuguese: troubadour songs, literary prose and instrumental documentation.

Pedro Nunes (Petrus Nonius) (1547) by Pioneering Works of Portuguese CultureObservatory of the Portuguese Language

Pedro Nunes, "Treatise on certain navigational doubts" and "Treatise" in defense of the charter to sail with the height regulations

First history books and first treaty of heraldry (1260) by Pioneering Works of Portuguese CultureObservatory of the Portuguese Language

First history books and first treaty of heraldry.

First books on moral edification and first biography (1383) by Pioneering Works of Portuguese CultureObservatory of the Portuguese Language

First books on moral edification and first biography.

First reports of travel and discovery (1426) by Pioneering Works of Portuguese CultureObservatory of the Portuguese Language

First reports of travel and discovery.

First texts of social and political ethics. (1438) by Pioneering Works of Portuguese CultureObservatory of the Portuguese Language

First texts of social and political ethics.

Early writings of geography and ecology (1515) by Pioneering Works of Portuguese CultureObservatory of the Portuguese Language

Early writings on geography and ecology.

First dramaturgy texts (1502) by Pioneering Works of Portuguese CultureObservatory of the Portuguese Language

First dramaturgy texts.

First religious didactic books (1504) by Pioneering Works of Portuguese CultureObservatory of the Portuguese Language

First religious textbooks:
D. Diogo Ortiz, Small Catechism;
D. Friar Bartolomeu dos Mártires, Catechism or Christian doctrine and spiritual practices.

First works of seamanship and maritime warfare (1550) by Pioneering Works of Portuguese CultureObservatory of the Portuguese Language

First works of seamanship and maritime warfare:
João de Lisboa's seamanship book;
Fernando Oliveira, Art of the sea war.

First cavalry novel and first sentimental novel (1520) by Pioneering Works of Portuguese CultureObservatory of the Portuguese Language

First cavalry novel and first sentimental novel:
João de Barros, Chronicle of Emperor Clarimundo;
Bernardim Ribeiro, Menina e Moça.

First grammars of the Portuguese language (1536) by Pioneering Works of Portuguese CultureObservatory of the Portuguese Language

First grammars of the Portuguese language:
Fernão de Oliveira, Portuguese grammar;
João de Barros, Portuguese grammar.

First painting treaties (1563) by Pioneering Works of Portuguese CultureObservatory of the Portuguese Language

First painting treatises:
Francisco de Holanda, About old painting; Giraldo Fernandes do Prado, Calligraphy Treaty;
Filipe Nunes, Simple painting;
Brief lighting treaty.

First legal treaty (1549) by Pioneering Works of Portuguese CultureObservatory of the Portuguese Language

First legal treatise:
Gregório Martins Caminha, Treated in the form of libelos

First texts on equality and human dignity. (1557) by Pioneering Works of Portuguese CultureObservatory of the Portuguese Language

First texts on equality and human dignity
Rui Gonçalves, Of the privileges and prerogatives that the feminine gender has by common right and ordinances of the kingdom more than the masculine gender;
António Vieira, Sermon XXVII, Sermon of the Rosary against slavery
and Votes on the doubts of the residents of São Paulo about the administration of the Indians;
Paula da Graça, Kindness of vindicated women and manifest malice of men;
António Nunes Ribeiro Sanches, Origin of the denomination of old Christian and new Christian in Portugal;
D. José I and Marquês de Pombal;
Freedom Act for Indians in Northern Brazil;
Law abolishing the distinction between new Christians and old Christians;
Bocage, Letters from Olinda and Alzira;
Bases of the 1822 Constitution;
Silvestre Pinheiro Ferreira, Declaration of the rights and duties of man and citizen;
Letter of law abolishing the death penalty for civil crimes in Portugal.

First botany book (1563) by Pioneering Works of Portuguese CultureObservatory of the Portuguese Language

First botany book:
Garcia de Orta, Colloquium of the simple and drugs of India.

First architectural works (1571) by Pioneering Works of Portuguese CultureObservatory of the Portuguese Language

First architectural works:
Francisco de Holanda, From the factory that dies to the city of Lisbon;
António Rodrigues, Treaty of architecture;
José Manuel Carvalho e Negreiros, Journey through the Tagus.

First epic poem (1572) by Pioneering Works of Portuguese CultureObservatory of the Portuguese Language

First epic
Luís de Camões, Os Lusíadas.

First economics writings (1608) by Pioneering Works of Portuguese CultureObservatory of the Portuguese Language

First economics writings:
Luís Mendes de Vasconcelos, Dialogue of the Lisbon site;
Manuel Severim de Faria, Dos remedies for the lack of people;
Duarte Ribeiro de Macedo, Speech on the introduction of the arts in the kingdom.

First book of adventure and intercivilizational contacts (1614) by Pioneering Works of Portuguese CultureObservatory of the Portuguese Language

First book of adventure and intercivilizational contact: Fernão Mendes Pinto, Peregrinação (Pilgrimage).

First music treaties (1533) by Pioneering Works of Portuguese CultureObservatory of the Portuguese Language

First music treatise: Pedro Talésio, Art of Cantochão and António Fernandes, Art of music.

First cookbook (1680) by Pioneering Works of Portuguese CultureObservatory of the Portuguese Language

First cookbook: Domingos Rodrigues, Cooking art.

First writings of Medicine, Pharmacy and Nursing (1704) by Pioneering Works of Portuguese CultureObservatory of the Portuguese Language

First writings of Medicine, Pharmacy and Nursing:
D. Caetano de Santo António, Portuguese Pharmacopoeia;
Diogo de Santiago, Religious post and art of nurses;
Manuel Constâncio, Anatomy Postila.

First pedagogical treatise (1746) by Pioneering Works of Portuguese CultureObservatory of the Portuguese Language

First Pedagogical Treatise

Due to its profoundly renewing nature and the impact that it would have, directly and indirectly, with the intellectual elites throughout the 18th century, the "True method of studying to be useful to the Republic and the Church provided to the style and need of Portugal exposed in several letters ", by Luís António Verney (Lisbon, 1713 - Roma, 1792), constitutes a significant landmark in the history of Portuguese culture.

First poetic art (Coordination: Micaela Ramon) (1748) by Pioneering Works of Portuguese CultureObservatory of the Portuguese Language

Primeira arte poética

Francisco José Freire (1719-1773), also known by the pseudonym of Cândido Lusitano, was an oratorian friar, an active member of Arcádia Lusitana, a literary association whose main purpose was to combat baroque aesthetics and to define and affirm the principles of neoclassicism of which he was the main theorist.

The most relevant topics of his literary thought are exposed in the work entitled Arte poética, which was published in editio princeps in 1748.

First Physics treatise (1751) by Pioneering Works of Portuguese CultureObservatory of the Portuguese Language

First Physics Treatise

Teodoro de Almeida, Philosophical recreation or dialogue on natural philosophy. Oratorian priest Teodoro de Almeida (1722-1804), made a member of the Royal Society of London in 1758, was one of the greatest figures of the Portuguese Enlightenment.

It has made a notable contribution to the renewal of science and scientific culture, below and beyond borders. The philosophical recreation or dialogue on natural philosophy, whose first volume (out of a total of 10) was published in Lisbon in 1751, reveals the existence, in the middle of the 19th century, of an updated teaching and a modern scientific culture.

Written in the form of dialogue in the manner of Galileo, the book can be understood not only as a compendium of physics, but also as a book of dissemination, having obtained in this quality wide recognition.

First Chemistry Treaty (Coordination: António Amorim da Costa) (1788) by Pioneering Works of Portuguese CultureObservatory of the Portuguese Language

First Chemistry Treatise

Vicente Coelho da Silva Seabra e Telles, born in Congonhas do Campo, Minas Gerais, Brazil, after finishing his primary and secondary studies in Mariana, Brazil, enrolled in 1783 in the first year of mathematics and philosophy of University of Coimbra, obtaining a bachelor's degree in 1787, having been immediately hired by the Faculty of Philosophy, as a demonstrator of chemistry. In the following year, he published the first volume of what would become the first compendium of chemistry in Portuguese, filling the lack of a good and complete manual of the discipline in our language, the Elements of Chemistry.

First engineering book (Coordination: Décio Ruivo Martins) (1728) by Pioneering Works of Portuguese CultureObservatory of the Portuguese Language

First engineering book

Manuel de Azevedo Fortes was born in Lisbon in 1660 and died on March 28, 1749.

He was knight of the Order of Christ, chief sergeant of battle, chief engineer of the kingdom and academic at the Royal Academy of History. His work The Portuguese engineer (1728-1729) is divided into two treatises.

First shipwreck narratives (Coordination: António Moniz) (1735) by Pioneering Works of Portuguese CultureObservatory of the Portuguese Language

First shipwreck narratives

The shipwreck accounts, which the 18th century collector (1735-1736), Bernardo Gomes de Brito, expressively titled "Tragic-maritime history", are part of the so-called travel literature, of which Portuguese writers were pioneers.

The collection comprises 12 reports of shipwrecks, by various authors, which occurred between 1552 and 1602 and published between 1554 and 1604 in separate editions or integrated in chronicles, such as the case of Diogo do Couto.

First Kabbalah treaty (Coordination: Manuel Curado) (1724) by Pioneering Works of Portuguese CultureObservatory of the Portuguese Language

First Kabbalah treatise

D. Francisco Manuel de Melo (1608-1666), one of the great writers of the Philippine period and the Restoration.

Many of his works are classics of Portuguese literature (Carta de Guia de Casados, Epanáforas of Various Portuguese History, Dialogical Apologists, etc.).

His Treatise on Kabbalah Science, published posthumously in 1724, reveals the versatility of the author.

First rhetoric treaty (Coordination: Belmiro Fernandes Pereira) (1667) by Pioneering Works of Portuguese CultureObservatory of the Portuguese Language

First rhetoric treatise

Francisco Leitão Ferreira, "New art of concepts".

Discounting textbooks and school exercises that are still unheard of in the old background of national libraries, in fact the first work of explicit theory in Portuguese that had a significant impact on rhetorical and poetic production and, more fully, reflects the critical reception of Portuguese literature, both in poetry and prose, it is found in the "New Art of Concepts" by Francisco Leitão Ferreira (1667-1735).

Credits: Story

With the High Sponsorship of the Presidency of the Portuguese Republic. Under the auspices of the University of Coimbra and the Open University

Direction: José Eduardo Franco and Carlos Fiolhais

Linguistic supervision and coordination of font editing: Aida Sampaio Lemos

Paleographic coordination, investigation and transcription of sources: Joana Balsa de Pinho and Ricardo Ventura

Author of the videos: Francisco Nuno Ramos, Observatory of the Portuguese Language

Credits: All media
The story featured may in some cases have been created by an independent third party and may not always represent the views of the institutions, listed below, who have supplied the content.
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