He belonged to several scientific institutions, namely: member of the Alexandre Herculano Literary Society; elected, in 1886, member of merit of the Lisbon Commercial Athenaeum; elected, in 1901, full member of the Royal Association of Portuguese Civil Architects and Archaeologists; and elected in the same year to the Instituto de Coimbra; elected in 1903 as a corresponding member of the Instituto Histórico e Geográfico Brasileiro; elected in 1905 as an honorary member of the Academia Nacional de História, in Bogotá; elected in 1906 as a corresponding member of the Academia Real das Ciências de Lisboa; and also corresponding member of the Ateneu, in Santiago, Chile (1910), the Portuguese Reading Room, in Pernambuco, and the Pernambuco Archaeological and Geographical Institute (1910). This academic dynamism, in line with the cultural trend, reflects the literary interest and scientific concern of the time.

A historian and publicist, his historical studies, although “lacking great criteria in the selection of the data presented” (José Mattoso), contain elements of great value, particularly for the history of welfare in Portugal during the modern era. He participated in the work of the First Portuguese Congress on Charity, held in Porto in January 1905, and in the Fourth International Congress on Tourism, held in Lisbon in 1911. A renowned figure at the time, in 1911 he was a member of the following commemorative committees: Grande Comissão Patriótica (Great Patriotic Committee), Comissão de Comemoração a Sousa Viterbo (Sousa Viterbo Commemoration Committee) and Comissão da Academia das Ciências (Academy of Sciences Committee) for the 1915 celebrations of the centenary of the conquest of Ceuta and the death of Afonso de Albuquerque. A learned researcher, his personal library consisted of works by leading authors of his time, such as Anselmo Braamcamp Freire, Teófilo Braga, Cristóvão Aires de Magalhães Sepúlveda, António Baião, João Lúcio de Azevedo, Pedro Wenceslau de Brito Aranha, Júlio de Castilho, Costa Goodolphim, Afonso de Dornelas, Albino Forjaz de Sampaio, José Leite de Vasconcelos, Jordão de Freitas, David Lopes, Henrique Lopes de Mendonça, and Edgar Prestage. lso drew on the historiographical works of Rebelo da Silva, Oliveira Martins and Pinheiro Chagas, whose works were also in his library, alongside the main scientific journals in circulation in which he contributed, such as the Archivo Historico Portuguez, the Boletim da Academia Real das Sciencias and the Boletim da Real Associação dos Architectos e Archeologos, as well as various manuscripts. An admirer of writers who had a strong influence on his approach to history, he recorded this appreciation in his study on A Fundadora da Egreja do Collegio de Santo Antão (The Founder of the Church of the College of Santo Antão), dedicating it “to the memory of the scholar, antiquarian and patient researcher José Maria António Nogueira, with fond regards from the author”. Detailed in his description of the facts, laborious in his research, and verbose in his writing, his conception of history can be found in the pamphlet O Tradicionalismo Histórico na Educação Popular (Historical Traditionalism in Popular Education): “It is the tradition followed that constitutes history.” When analysing the work of Sousa Viterbo in the study he dedicated to him, it is also clear that he considers library and archive work essential for historical research, as well as the ability to critique, comment and write, which are necessary techniques for “rigorous research”. He evoked Herculano who, in his view, “laid the foundations of the nation’s political history”. An erudite perspective on the writing of history is evident, which must also involve its dissemination, as evidenced by the collection Narrativas e lendas da historia pátria (Narratives and legends of national history), in which, in the sense of positive history, he highlights facts and figures of great impact.

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | (Pdf)