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Having expanded the horizons of historiographical work beyond the ideas of service, debt, and devotion, the range of characters worthy of portrayal (literati and men of science) also expanded, even in more extended monographic works. These individuals are and will continue to be remarkable figures, but no longer exclusively or primarily those exalted by the literature of great conquests: within the ACL context, for example, A. Ribeiro dos Santos focused on the figures and works of Pedro Nunes and Francisco de Melo (1806), both mathematicians, and Francisco Alexandre Lobo on those of Camões and Padre António Vieira (1820 and 1823). The entry, particularly through the channel of intellectual biography, was definitively open to many of those who had been excluded by the more exclusive literature on kings and military figures.
However, the landscape of historical writing in general, and biographical writing in particular, underwent profound changes due to a second circumstance, not only external to the narrower circle of academia but also, in many ways, responsible for opening historiography – especially in the accessible form of life histories – to a broader audience beyond the Court and Clergy. António Pereira de Figueiredo had written his Elogios... in Portuguese and Latin, with the ambition that the work would circulate beyond the country's borders. However, it is not possible to discern in this ambition the intention to disseminate which today, beyond the academic environment, is intrinsic to the biographical genre itself. The first signs of political and social upheaval in the 19th century gradually changed the scenario. It is a fact that a part of the debate on royal legitimacy and the regime – understood as that which relied on historical arguments – continued within learned circles, especially in the form of praise. However, increasingly, and through confrontation, biographical literature not only became a political tool but also targeted a readership beyond the elites in power (A.P. Figueiredo, op. cit., p.1).
The Retratos, e elogios dos varões, e donas, que ilustraram a nação portuguesa [Portraits, and praises of the illustrious men and women who distinguished the Portuguese nation] (1817), almost exclusively authored by the royal instructor Pedro José Figueiredo, are symptomatic in this regard: published as pamphlets between the first and second decades of the century, illustrated and assumedly written in a clear style to facilitate comprehension, they not only broadly targeted the "Portuguese" (understood as "citizens" in the classical sense), but also significantly expanded the range of portrayable characters.
