The empire in ink and paper: from written production to documents and museum artifacts

• Grant number: 24/22456-0
• Support Opportunities: Regular Research Grants
• Start date: May 01, 2025
• End date: April 30, 2028
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - History - History of Brazil
• Principal Investigator: Maria Aparecida de Menezes Borrego
• Grantee: Maria Aparecida de Menezes Borrego
• Host Institution: Museu Paulista (MP). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The project seeks to analyze manuscripts produced in the 18th century and early 19th century, taking them as vectors for understanding the circulation of knowledge and artifacts between Portugal and Portuguese America in the context of the transition of knowledge production towards the Enlightenment and socio-economic changes at the end of the colonial period. Both the intellectual and material authors of the selected texts moved through these spaces and the manuscripts were produced either in America or in Portugal, traveling extensive routes until they reached the custodian institutions that preserve them. The starting point will be the documents kept at the Museu Paulista at the University of São Paulo and at the Casa de Mateus Foundation in Vila Real, Portugal. The former houses manuscripts written by Diogo de Toledo Lara Ordonhes and Francisco Xavier da Costa Aguiar, while the latter houses papers written by - or at the behest of - Luís António de Sousa Botelho Mourão, governor of the captaincy of São Paulo between 1765 and 1775. These manuscripts will be linked to other productions of their work in various Brazilian and Portuguese archives, from the triple perspective of material culture, written culture and the circulation of knowledge. In common, the three subjects had their trajectories marked by their stay in the captaincy of São Paulo and produced documentary species that went beyond those of a bureaucratic nature that were required within the scope of the offices they held in the monarchy. It is precisely these testimonies, far from official-administrative protocols, that are of interest to this research. At the same time, they provide an insight into other dimensions of the lives of royal officials and get us in touch with the varied written production that was developed on both sides of the Atlantic. (AU)