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Like those who, in a climate of profound political change, found themselves receiving monumental honours, notably through the dissemination of their life history, the heroes of the past became the heroes of the present. The committed recovery of heroic narratives, especially in times of commemoration, which included Vasco da Gama, Afonso de Albuquerque, Luís de Camões, Nuno Álvares Pereira, and Infante D. Henrique among others as protagonists, was, after all, the most pronounced historical aspect of a discourse, or discourses, on the present and future state of the country. The profoundly controversial case of the Marquis of Pombal – “o português mais historiado de Portugal” ["the most storied Portuguese man of Portugal"] – at times a "genius" or "great man," then a "villain" or simply a "notable figure," was mainly symptomatic of a generalised modus of personalising ideological disputes, due to the unprecedented volume of biographical publications dedicated to him. (Alfredo Duarte Rodrigues, O Marquês de Pombal e os seus biógrafos, 1947).
A product of its time, the dominant profile of authors of biographical works, even those in which originality (whether in research or approach) overshadowed the disseminating purpose, bore the mark of a political climate especially conducive to the intersection between erudite work and public intervention. This was where the crux of reflection on the role of the individual in historical processes lay, more than in the restricted environment of academia. This circumstance was signalled by the journalist and politician Luís de Magalhães when referring to the articles that his former comrade-in-arms and mentor, Oliveira Martins, had published in A Província [The Province], the newspaper that served as the body of the Vida Nova movement: more than "political writings," "battles of principles and governmental ideas" – which they also were –he said that they were "small works of history – history of the past or history of the present – studied [in the] psychology of the men who propel and guide it with their ideas, feelings, and actions." In the collection of these articles that was later published after the death of its author, under the suggestive title Perfis [Profiles], national and foreign figures coexisted, as Garrett had wanted in his educational plan for a "Plutarch of youth."
