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The 20th century
The expansion of regional and local studies in the 19th century led to the development of bibliographies dedicated to this subject. In 1900, for the Paris Universal Exposition, Brito Aranha published the first bibliography of Portuguese works that could be used for the study of the cities, towns, monuments, institutions, traditions, and customs of mainland Portugal, the Azores and Madeira Islands, and the overseas possessions. Eduardo da Rocha Dias continued this work in subsequent years (1903-06, 1908), while António Mesquita de Figueiredo, working at the National Library, produced a more comprehensive bibliography in 1933. However, both works were limited to mainland Portugal. At a local level, the Bibliotheca Açoriana, published by the tireless Ernesto do Canto in 1890, included both national and foreign works concerning the Azores islands. Furthermore, the first reflections on methodologies and a more systematic organisation of regional and local studies emerged during this period. In 1913, Manuel da Silva presented his Schema d’historia local [Outline of local History] in the Revista de História [History Journal], outlining a comprehensive approach that covered various aspects: geology, physical anthropology and population studies, archaeology, ethnography, local legislation and administration, statistics, philology, traditional literature, local memories and news, documents and archives, and finally, monuments and art. The ideal was to pursue studies that were broad in scope, which could be classified as global studies, if not for the fact that they were, in reality, fragmentary studies, collating materials of diverse natures without a theoretical framework to integrate them comprehensively. More than a decade later, in 1925, P. M. Laranjo Coelho presented an analysis at a Luso-Spanish congress on the Vantagens do estudo das monografias locais para o conhecimento da história geral portuguesa, encouraging scholars to develop this type of research. He outlined a brief history of the development of this genre of work in Portugal and proposed his own plan, which should cover "the essential facts for the study of a locality in its geo-physical, historical, economic, and social aspects." (Ob. Cit., p. 17- 20). This plan displayed the same global ambition, but now with a more elaborated systematisation and development. Geography, demography, ethnography, archaeology, and history, in their various economic, political-administrative, artistic, and cultural dimensions, combined to create a general overview of regions and localities. In 1934, in lectures delivered at the Academy of Sciences, he revisited this topic, showing an awareness of similar work being conducted in France (Monografias Locais na Literatura Histórica Portuguesa [ Local Monographs in Portuguese Literary History], 1935).
