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Country
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PT
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Name of institution (English)
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Lisbon Academy of Sciences
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Language of name of institution
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por
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Contact information: postal address
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Rua da Academia das Ciências 19, 1249-122 Lisbon
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Contact information: phone number
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00351 213219730
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Contact information: email
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geral@acad-ciencias.pt
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Reference number
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MA
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Type of reference number
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Archival reference number
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Title (English)
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Blue Series
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Title (official language of the state)
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Série Azul
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Language of title
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por
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Creator / accumulator
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Academia das Ciências de Lisboa
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Date note
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12th century/20th century
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Language(s)
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ara
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deu
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fra
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ita
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lat
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por
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Extent
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2,012 storage units (871 books; 335 booklets; 609 bundles; 179 files; 16 maps; 1 parchment; 1 papyrus)
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Type of material
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Textual Material
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Physical condition
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Satisfactory
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Scope and content
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Série Azul is a collection that aggregates items from different provenance and typologies. It includes handwritten papers presented during the Academia das Ciências sessions by fellows and other speakers, other material related to the Academia's daily life and administration, and a wide variety of books and booklet bundles and separate documents resulting from donations of personal and institutional archives. The result is a collection with an extensive chronological range covering a wide breadth of subjects: history, literature, linguistics, sciences, medicine, theatre, archaeology, architecture, teaching, legislation, numismatics, economics, law, heraldry, genealogy, diplomacy, etc.
There are several Jewish-related materials dispersed throughout some of the collection's items.
In a collection of 18th-century copies of documents from civil and ecclesiastical registries in Algarve and Alentejo (MA 402, 403, and 404), there is an interesting record related to the time of the expulsion of the Jews from Portugal. In 1497, the "vereadores" (councillors) of Faro complained about the royal requisition of boats to transport Jews and Muslims out of Portugal, arguing that this measure would have a high impact on the export of dry fruit, one of the leading businesses of the region. They also tried to persuade the councillors of Silves to join them in this complaint (MA 403, fols. 366v-367v).
The volumes MA 405 to 413 comprise collections of copies of "Cortes" (advisory meetings promoted by the crown with representatives of the three estates of the realm, i. e., nobility, clergy and the bourgeoisie) minutes from the 13th century to the 16th century. The volume MA 475, entitled "Capítulos das Cortes celebradas neste reino de Portugal", also includes a collection of "capítulos" (petitions) submitted to the "Cortes" from 1134 to 1579. Some petitions and decisions collated in these volumes are related to the Jewish communities in Portugal and, in particular, to their relationship with the Christian majority and authorities.
The compilations of diplomatic correspondence from the Portuguese legations included in the Série Azul collection contain references to Portuguese Jews and conversos settled in London and Amsterdam. It is the case of the books of correspondence by Francisco de Sousa Coutinho, ambassador in the Hague (1643-50), Paris (1651-55) and Rome (1655-58) (MA 105-106, 296, 1728-29); or the several codices with letters dispatched and received by D. Luís da Cunha during his missions in London (1607-1712, 1715), Utrecht (1712), Madrid (1719-20), The Hague (1728-36) and Paris (1737-49) and later in the position of Secretary of State in Lisbon (MA 173, 175-182, 281-282, 302-305, 590-592, 605-623). Particularly interesting are the three copybooks of letters by António Galvão de Castelo Branco, envoy extraordinary of the Portuguese crown to London from 1721 to 1730 (MA 600-603): besides several references to Jews and conversos who were close to the Portuguese legation in London (such as Fernão Mendes, Isaac de Sequeira Samuda, Jacob de Castro Sarmento, Gabriel Lopes Pinheiro or José Cortiços), Galvão's correspondence provides an exciting point of view on the migratory wave of Portuguese conversos to England in the 1720s, their flights on board of English vessels and the tension that this situation created on the Anglo-Portuguese diplomatic alliance.
Série Azul also contains an autograph manuscript by the converso physician António Nunes Ribeiro Sanches, with prescriptions for the treatment of various diseases, written in Paris in 1773 (MA 107: 'Peculio de Varias Receytas para Diversas Queyxas por Doutor Antonio Ribeyro Sanches').
Related to the Portuguese Inquisition, the Série Azul comprises a compilation of accounts and records of 'autos-da-fé' performed in Lisbon until 1659 (MA 291) and a list of people sentenced by the Inquisition from 1540 to 1767 (MA 642).
The MA 337 contains a miscellanea of texts written or supposedly written by the Jesuit António Vieira (1608-1697), some of them touching upon the New Christian issue.
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Archival history
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The Série Azul is a collection of manuscripts donated or acquired by the Academia das Ciências de Lisboa throughout its history. Therefore, the various volumes collected under this series have different histories. For instance, the MA 475 (Capítulos de Cortes...) was offered to the Academia in 1915, by a member, Maximiano Pereira da Fonseca e Aragão, who informed that this volume had belonged to António Ribeiro dos Santos (1745-1818), the founder of the Real Biblioteca Pública (the predecessor of Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal).
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Administrative / Biographical history
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The Academia das Ciências de Lisboa was founded in 1779 with two classes: the Classe de Ciências (Sciences Class) e the Classe de Belas-Letras (Belles-Lettres Class). In 1783, Queen Maria I declared her protection of the Academia, and it received the title of Academia Real (Royal Academy). It was initially hosted at the Palácio das Necessidades but, in 1791-2, it was transferred to a palace in Rua dos Poços dos Negros, where it remained until 1796. The Academia had several headquarters before it settled in the building of the former Convento de Nossa Senhora de Jesus: the Palácio de Castro Marim in Rua do Século (1796-1800), the Palácio do Duque de Palmela in Largo do Calhariz (1800-1823), the Convento da Estrelinha, a Benedictine college (1823-1832), and the Palácio dos Condes de Lumiares in Calçada da Glória (1832-1834).
After the extinction of the Convento de Jesus in the sequence of the monasteries' dissolution in Portugal in 1834, the Academia also got custody of other structures of the convent, namely its library and Natural History Museum. Both were already under the Academia's administration since 1792, after the death of Frei Joseph de Jesus Maria Mayne, the general of the Third Order and founder of the museum and the Aula (class) of Natural History of the Convento de Jesus. On March 14, 1834, a royal decree reiterated that the administration and custody of the convent's museum, Aula, and library were to be kept by the Academia das Ciências. Over the following years, the museum was enriched with the transfer of several collections and opened to the public on November 14, 1839, as Museu Nacional (National Museum). In 1858, it was transferred to the Escola Politécnica de Lisboa (Polytechnic School of Lisbon). Then, the vacant west wing of the building was occupied by the Curso Superior de Letras, founded by King Pedro V in 1859. It was renamed as Faculdade de Letras da Universidade de Lisboa (Faculty of Arts and Humanities of the University of Lisbon) in 1910 and transferred to a new building in Alameda da Universidade de Lisboa in 1964. In 1895, after a fire had damaged the Palácio de São Bento, the Parliament was temporarily based at the Academia's building.
The implantation of the Portuguese Republic in 1910 resulted in changes in the Academia. Firstly, it lost its "Royal" designation and became known by its current name, Academia das Ciências de Lisboa. Secondly, its printing press closed down, and its engines and staff were transferred to the Imprensa Nacional (National Printing Press).
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System of arrangement
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Records are arranged sequentially.
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Access, restrictions
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Consultation is subject to restrictions because of the poor condition of some documents. Requests should be addressed to the Library Inspector by e-mail (geral@acad-ciencias.pt) at least seven days in advance. They should include the reader’s identification, academic degree, research objectives and institutional affiliation. In the case of consultations requested by graduates (MA and PhD students), requests must be made institutionally by their supervisors.
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Author of the description
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Carla Vieira, 2021
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Bibliography
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Ayres, Cristóvão. 1927. Para a História Da Academia Das Sciencias de Lisboa. Lisbon: Academia das Ciências de Lisboa.
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Soyer, Francois. 2013. A perseguição aos judeus e muçulmanos de Portugal: D. Manuel I e o fim da tolerância religiosa (1496-1497). Lisboa: Edicões 70.
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Vieira, Carla Costa. 2014. “Observing the Skies of Lisbon. Isaac de Sequeira Samuda, an Estrangeirado in the Royal Society.” Notes and Records: The Royal Society Journal of the History of Science 68 (2): 135–49.
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Vieira, Carla da Costa. 2014. “Família, perseguição e mobilidade. O caso da família Medina.” Erasmo: Revista de Historia Bajomedieval y Moderna 1: 43–57.
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Vieira, Carla. 2020. “The Prisoner, the Fugitive, and the Returnee: Three Portrayals of the Eighteenth-Century Sephardi Diaspora to England.” Jewish Historical Studies 52 (1): 118–44. https://doi.org/10.14324/111.444.jhs.2021v52.007.
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Vieira, Carla. 2022. Nação entre impérios: judeus portugueses e a aliança luso-britânica (século XVIII). Ribeirão: Húmus.
