A professor at the Faculdade de Letras da Universidade de Lisboa [School of Arts and Humanities of the Univrsity of Lisbon] between 1958 and 1994, Eduardo Borges Nunes left behind a historiographical work on the society, culture and mentality of the Portuguese and European Quattrocento, but it was as a historian of writing, especially in Portuguese, a paleographer and editor of texts that he stood out most.

He was born in September 1924 in Vilar Seco da Lomba, in the Trás-os-Montes municipality of Vinhais. As a boy and young man, he had fond memories of walks through the hills and valleys during his holidays, when he was studying philosophy, theology and humanities in Braga with the Society of Jesus. Many years later, at the end of an academic meeting where he had once again demonstrated his proverbial unwavering determination, he was rebuked by a colleague who complained about his “peasant stubbornness”. He replied: “A peasant with great pride. A citizen, I am also pleased to be. A villain, no.”

He combined his solid knowledge of classical cultures and civilisations, anchored in an unusual mastery of Latin, in its classical, medieval and Renaissance subtleties, with skills as a draughtsman and organist, and a musical talent known to few. In the late 1950s, the Faculdade de Letras [School of Arts and Humanities], where he had completed his higher education, invited him to join its teaching staff through Virgínia Rau, who also challenged him to choose a topic for his future doctoral dissertation. An example of his training, which was shaped by both the seminary and the university, “Paulo Orósio e a irrupção bárbara” (Paulo Orósio and the barbarian invasion), a work presented in Braga on the occasion of the 13th Centenary of São Frutuoso (1968), illustrates his earliest thematic preference for the classics.

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