This last work marked his first publication with Martim de Albuquerque, a friend he made during his university days, together with his brother, Ruy de Albuquerque. In addition to his friendship with the brothers, he was also close to their father, Mário de Albuquerque, a professor at the Faculdade de Letras [School of Arts and Humanities], who provided invaluable support during his doctorate and later encouraged him in the new path he embarked on in 1964 when he took up teaching palaeography at the school, which became his guiding light from then on. The last text published by Eduardo Borges Nunes, after his death in November 2008, was an article for the book in honour of Mário de Albuquerque, “Algumas amostras da minha Paleografia” (Some samples of my Palaeography) (Studies in memory of Professor Mário de Albuquerque, Lisbon, 2009).

There he recounts the beginning of his palaeographic adventure: “It was on 20 November 1964, at the Faculdade de Letras [School of Arts and Humanities], that Professor Virgínia Rau offered me the chair of Palaeography.” This was a field he would never leave, opening up a scientific area at his school that did not exist in Portuguese universities – since, as in higher education in Portugal in general, palaeography and diplomatics (the latter little practised but much encouraged) were seen as mere aids to the documentary appendices of theses or the publication of sources – which were scarce and, as she always warned, generally of poor quality.

Between 1964 and 1969, his work, combining research and teaching in the new area entrusted to him, focused on the publication of the Álbum de Paleografia Portuguesa (Album of Portuguese Palaeography), published by the History Centre of the University of Lisbon, with the sponsorship of the Instituto de Alta Cultura (Institute of High Culture). Reproducing almost two hundred documents, mainly from the 14th to 17th centuries, the Album was characterised by distinctive features: documents always reproduced to scale and with extremely high technical quality, closely supervised by him (and which still deserve admiration today), exemplary diplomatic summaries, a diversity of diplomatic types (with a predominance of notarial and chancery documents), flawless transcriptions and, last but not least, a break with the vicious cycle of linking palaeography to the Middle Ages, a period which, as he used to say, was not even the one most in need of good palaeographers. Only the prevailing mental cantonalisation, yesterday as today, explains why the Album is not the basis for generalised learning of Portuguese palaeography, regardless of its quality. In the Introduction to the Album, an exemplary overview of his work, read and reread by his direct and indirect disciples, he mentions the names of the students who, with their high standards, motivated him the most – a large group, refuting the critical levity of some who, confusing the reserve of those incapable of making concessions to popularity with irrelevance, accused him of monotony in his teaching. Confirming the old adage that facts speak for themselves, there are his works, always cited, always relevant, the disciples he left behind and the school he created, the ‘ ‘, refuting those who never read him and failed to grasp his teachings of rigour and perfectionism, without yielding to the pressures of the moment – which he imposed first and foremost on himself.

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