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A member of the Partido Regenerador [Regenerator Party] and founder of the Sociedade de Geografia de Lisboa [Lisbon Geographical Society] in 1876, Cordeiro justified this decision by pointing to the "inconsequentially monopolistic spirit of the scholars or those who want to pass for them" as the main enemy of the "current reading" and the "immediate, current, affective assimilation of the masses." (Chronica do senhor rei D. Pedro I [Chronicle of King D. Pedro I], 1895, p. 6). Gabriel Pereira, who continued the Bibliotheca changed these terms by writing the preface to the chronicles by Rui de Pina and Duarte Galvão himself. His effort, however, surpassed what had been done some years earlier in the Crónica da Guiné [Chronicle of Guinea] (1896-1899), edited by Charles Raymond Beazley and translated by Edgar Prestage. In addition to critical annotations and supplementary notes to the text, it included extensive introductory studies, both on Zurara's life and the context in which his works had been produced, and on the available manuscripts and the evolution of historical studies on the subject. Nevertheless, the re-edition of chronicles for literary dissemination was highly significant throughout the 20th century, the traceability of which shall not be addressed at this point.
The interest in chronicle production did not wane with the end of the monarchy, but neither did it gain inordinate momentum with the proclamation of the republic. In fact, there were few studies prior to the 1920s, a period marked by social upheaval associated with the change of regime, participation in the Great War, and even an epidemic outbreak that contributed to the scarcity of research. Among the known studies, there was a particular interest in Zurara, especially in the work of Augusto Epifânio da Silva Dias, a writer devoted to the study of Camões, of Jules Mees, a Belgian, and of Francisco Esteves Pereira. Esteves Pereira authored the first systematic study of the Crónica do Condestabre [Chronicle of the Constable] (edited in 1911) by Joaquim Mendes dos Remédios and in the same year published the Crónica da Tomada de Ceuta [Chronicle of the Capture of Ceuta], the introduction of which he wrote in line with the Anglo-Saxon model of Prestage, who was cited abundantly in his work. Moreover, the edition was structured around a comparison of the various manuscripts available, which were presented and studied in depth, in the manner of Anselmo Braancamp Freire in the first part of his Crónica de D. João I [Chronicle of King D. John I], published in 1915 by the Arquivo Histórico Português [Portuguese Historical Archives] (although he made exclusive use of the manuscripts available at the Torre do Tombo).
