Cartography Reading Room

Opening hours:

Monday to Friday: 9.30am - 5.30pm
Item requests up to 5pm.

Saturday: - Closed

Additional services:
Photocopies, on request up to 5.00pm

Contacts
21 7982049 / 50

Fax 21 7982138
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Maps and Plans

The collection of loose maps is made up of around 5,500 printed and manuscript items.

Key examples of manuscript items include the nautical chart of the North Atlantic on parchment, which is dated around 1550 and is attributed to Lopo Homem; the map of the Kingdom of Portugal, also on parchment, and the Carta da Correição de Santarém, both of which are attributed to João Teixeira Albernaz I and dated from around 1640; and, from a later period, the 1763 Vista e perspectiva da Barra Costa e Cidade de Lisboa... by Bernardo de Caula.

Among the printed maps, it is especially worth noting various editions of the first printed images of Portugal, by Álvares Seco; of Africa, by Filippo Pigafetta; of America, by Guillaume de L'Isle; and of Asia, by Francisco António Cardim. There are also some less well known printed maps by Portuguese authors, such as the Carta da fronteira entre o Alentejo e a Estremadura espanhola, which is attributed to João Teixeira Albernaz I and was printed in about 1644.

The collection also contains various 17th and 18th century maps of Portugal by some major foreign authors, such as Gilles Robert de Vaugondy, Johann Baptist Homann, Carel Allard, Guillaume de L'Isle and Vincenzo Coronelli.