"Tools of Erudition: Instruments, Maps, and Books in the Ducal Library of Vila Viçosa (1564)"
The ducal palace of Vila Viçosa, in the Alentejo region of Portugal, housed one of the most significant libraries of sixteenth-century Iberia. At the death of Dom Teodósio I, Duke of Bragança, in 1563, a post-mortem inventory recorded not only over a thousand books in Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, and various vernaculars, but also a remarkable array of artefacts. In the first section of the inventory — titled 'Panos que estão nesta casa da liuraria & outras cousas & pintados' — one finds large illuminated maps on parchment, atlases, astronomical instruments, celestial and terrestrial globes and paintings with biblical and classical subjects. These items, alongside the books, in particular those listed under the heading 'Astrologia e Matematica', reveal a materially and intellectually curated space. This talk examines how globes, quadrants, maps, and books functioned together in D. Teodósio's library and asks what it meant to bring together such tools of erudition in a single, architecturally bounded setting. The court of the Braganças actively competed with the Portuguese royal court and other European courts, promoting literary gatherings — sometimes described as an 'Academia' — and even envisaging the foundation of a 'Studium Generale'. Drawing on the findings of the research project 'De todas as partes do mundo' (PI: Jessica Hallett), including Ana Isabel Buescu’s analysis of the library inventory and Hugo Miguel Crespo’s detailed work on domestic and scholarly objects, this presentation explores the spatial and material culture of mathematics in a courtly context, and how science, art, and authority were made to cohabit the same room.
