3.1.

b Sumário (em inglês)

3.1.b Summary (in English)

Art Treatises in Portugal to 1821 is a research project of the Art History Institute[IHA] of the
Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities[FCSH] promoting institutional cooperation
between the 3 major universities of Lisbon concerned with Art History - FCSH, Faculty of
Arts[FL] and Faculty of Fine Arts[FBA] - and created to provide a deepened and highly-
qualified tools and skills on a mainstream academic subject, rated since the 1980s as of the
highest international importance.
Besides Francisco de Holanda´s intellectual thought and writings, Art treatises have been
studied in Portugal in a very individual and dispersed way. It is a widely recognized omission
in our Art History´s domain. Some Portuguese treatises have been studied monographically.
Two crucial manuscripts on Architecture (1576-1579) have been discovered and studied by
Moreira[1]; another on Sculpture, on equestrian statues, by Machado de Castro, was edited
by França[2]; and this sculptor´s library was studied by Rodrigues[3]. One treatise by Cirilo
was published, but it is not a real treatise but a mixture of personal notes, as Arruda[4]
showed. Moreira [5] revealed a very important and pioneer treatise on town-planning, called
Tratado de Ruação (a neologism from "rua", street), by the Oporto architect José de
Figueiredo Seixas (1763). A number of manuscript and printed treatises on Music are extant,
but nevertheless no thorough studies have been made, with a few exceptions, e.g., those by
Mateus de Aranda (1533) and D. João IV (1656) recently studied by Ferreira[6].Recently, a
discovered treatise on Calligraphy is now the object of study by Serrão[7]. General studies
on Portuguese treatises are very few and brief, being no more than entries in dictionaries
[8], lacking any theoretical approach and systematic line of study.
This project seeks to promote a new way of approaching the study of treatises, bridging
together art treatises all over Portuguese libraries and archives on a database, and
systemizing documents in search for their wider use. We seek to have a much more solid
base to answer to some very important questions, such as: What was the level of erudition
in the arts at each moment? What are the titles and editions more used in Portugal during
the Early Modern period? How shall we grade Portugal in an international range and
circulation of the artistic information? What was the artistic culture prevalent, and what is
the relationship between the various fields studies considered in this project? The questions
thus posed are essential to a concrete understanding of the cultural milieu, the level of
internationalization of the art culture at any given moment and region, its main trends,
sources and favorite subjects.
Almost every researcher that has ever written and studied on this subject collaborates in this
project. This team is composed by ten Ph.D and the eleventh, and youngest, member is
concluding her Ph.D dissertation in May 2009 with my supervision. So, we count with experts
in each field of studies. Moreira and Pereira are widely recognized for their expertise on a
wide range of issues affecting art treatises and artistic literature. Pereira coordinates the MA
on Art Theory at FBA, and was a pioneer on this field. Senior scholars, such as Serrão,
Arruda, Ferreira and Maciel, are, in their areas of study, of the highest possible international
quality. Rodrigues is now concluding her thesis on Garden Sculpture where treatises on
gardening are a main source of study. Ferreira will work with his team, Nelson and
Alvarenga, being the musicology studies a strong component of this project. Maciel, a
specialist in Ancient Art and author of the first direct translation from Latin into Portuguese of
Vitruvius[9], is an essential element to analyze the impact of Antique texts during the
Modern period. Afonso will have the same role for mediaeval texts. Rodrigues, who has
studied illustrated books and treatises on Iconography at the Warburg Institute, University of
London, was able to invite Charles Hope and Elizabeth McGrath to be our consultants and
she’ll be the link with the Warburg Institute, our main source for methodological questions.
As a research-led project, we will create a database, constantly expanding for historians of
the future, aims to encourage interaction among members and to prevent duplication of
efforts. Besides this key aim, to divulge Portuguese treatises via Internet, and deepen the
work on our world-class research resources, to enroll under-graduate and graduate students
to this new field of studies, and to feed our teaching programs with this knowledge, are
some the other expected results. And we are sure that a new vision of Portuguese art
history, not as something casual, empirical, immediate and pragmatic, but as solidly built on
an intellectual basis, with a theory, in an international up-to-date technical and literary
context, will emerge as an evidence. [4957]