The mentor and driving force behind this initiative was also the Academy's secretary, José Correia da Serra, who was the author of an important prologue in which he laid down the main strands of the historiographical reflection of the ACL, as shall be seen further ahead. The collection includes, among other unpublished material, the Livro da Guerra de Ceuta [Book of the War of Ceuta] by Mateus Pisano and several chronicles of Portuguese kings by Rui de Pina (King Duarte, King Afonso V and King João II), Fernão Lopes (King Pedro I and King Fernando) and Cristóvão Rodrigues Acenheiro. The publication of the Crónica dos Reis de Portugal [Chronicle of the Kings of Portugal] by Acenheiro would later give rise to the implacable fury of Alexandre Herculano, which shows that the selection of works published under the ACL seal was susceptible to controversy.

Alexandre Herculano would also come to question and severely oppose the legitimacy and veracity of the myths and legends expounded in Monarquia Lusitana [Lusitanian Monarchy], one of the most emblematic works of Portuguese historiography of the modern era, and partially reprinted by the Academy in 1806. Published under the new title of Colecção dos Principais Autores da História Portuguesa [Collection of the Main Authors of Portuguese History], this new edition covers the first three parts of the Monarquia Lusitana, up to the end of the reign of Dom Afonso Henriques, the first two written by Friar Bernardo de Brito and the third by Friar António Brandão. In the prologue to the new ACL edition, D. António da Visitação Freire presents the life and work of Friar Bernardo de Brito, explaining the context in which the Monarquia Lusitana was produced at the end of the 16th century, and shedding light upon inaccuracies of analysis and document forgery, which does little to flatter the probity of the Cistercian monks. Special attention is given to the total absence of documentary evidence to support the veracity of the miracle of Ourique. Thus, long before Herculano's critique of the subject, the 1806 re-edition sought to maintain interpretative distance with regard to events that were not supported by authentic documentary sources, while at the same time fuelling a process of historical reconstruction that was not unrelated to the desire to exalt the virtues sustained in the most distant history of the Portuguese nation. It was by no means a coincidence that in the year (1806), when the threats to the integrity of the territory posed by the Franco-Spanish alliance became evident, the ACL published a work that asserted the longevity and perennity of the Lusitanian monarchy.

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