As Bibliotecas dos Conventos Extintos: para uma reconstituição da Livraria do Colégio de Santo António da Pedreira

Abstract

The extinction of the male religious orders, operated by force of the Decree dated 30th of May 1834, led to the deactivation of a remarkable number of university colleges existing in the city of Coimbra at the time. One of the most deeply-felt consequences of the measure was the dispersion of the libraries of those colleges. The fact that no entirely reliable registers of such a bibliographical wealth have survived led to suppositions of losses never totally proven in terms of quality and quantity. Based on the inventories then made for the transfer to the State of the library of one of those colleges, that of the Santo António da Pedreira College, and on the comparison made with the nucleus now housed in the General Library of the University of Coimbra, this study seeks to carry out an approximate reconstitution of that médium-sized college library as it existed in the fi rst third of the 19th century.