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THE TEAM
CONTACT
Hence, also in Oliveira Martins' works, geography does not assist or contribute to historical interpretation. As noted by António Sérgio many years later, these opening pages are "an admirable tableau [...] but one completely detached from the historical narrative, contributing nothing to its intelligibility" (Sérgio, História, p. 51).
The absence of a fully developed and autonomous body of geographical knowledge is evident in the innovative work of Alberto de Sampaio. He references two of Bernardino A. Barros Gomes ' works with which he is familiar : Condições Florestais de Portugal [Forest Conditions of Portugal] (1876) and Cartas Elementares de Portugal [Elementary Maps of Portugal] (1878), which mark the beginning of scientific geography in Portugal (Girão, "Desenvolvimento" ["Development"] p. 532). He also mentions Geographia [Geography] by Gerardo A. Pery (1875) and the Nouvelle Géographie Universelle by Élisée Reclus (1876) (Sampaio, Estudos, pp. 458, 460, 485-89). However, what stands out most in his studies, written between 1880 and 1908, particularly in A Propriedade e a Cultura do Minho [Land Ownership and Agriculture in Minho] , is his observation of the land, essentially of landscapes, which is remarkably detailed in its application. His precise knowledge of the soils and the climatic and environmental conditions would not have been out of place in the work of a geographer (Sampaio, Estudos [Studies], vol. I, pp. 460-469), compensating for the lack of published geographical knowledge.
At the end of the 19th century and the early 20th, geographical factors did not appear to be a central concern for historians, perhaps due to the relative underdevelopment of this knowledge. Until the establishment of degrees in Historical Geography at the Faculties of Arts in Lisbon and Coimbra (1911), there were no scholars to establish schools and advance research and writing in these fields. Even after this point, it was difficult for geographical knowledge to gain prominence, as courses relied on naturalist professors from science faculties and on lecturers without specialised training. The only geographer was the physician Silva Telles, who had been a professor at the Curso Superior de Letras since 1904 and continued in the Faculty of Arts after 1911. He authored the first syntheses of Portuguese geography in 1908, 1924, and especially in 1929. However, they were brief and lacked bibliographies, marking only the beginning of the field.
