Collection of Codices
Made up of 13,360 codices, this collection was formed by grouping together holdings from various sources, namely: the Library of the Royal Board of Censorship, which itself comprised the libraries of a variety of colleges and houses of the Company of Jesus, following the latter’s abolition in 1759; the donation of the Libraries of the Regular Clerics of São Caetano (Theatines) and the Portuguese Royal Academy of History; the donations made by Fr. Manuel do Cenáculo (in 1797), and by António Ribeiro dos Santos, the first Head Librarian; the additions that resulted from the abolition of the convents in 1834; and a number of subsequent acquisitions, foremost among which were the libraries of Dom Francisco de Melo Manuel (Cabrinha), Cipriano Ribeiro Freire, and Victor Ávila Perez.
Among many other notable manuscripts in the collection, we should especially note: the Cancioneiro da Biblioteca Nacional (formerly Colocci-Brancuti), which is a 16th century copy of the most extensive compilation of medieval Galician-Portuguese lyrics; the Livro da Fábrica das Naus, a 16th century treatise by Fernando Oliveira; and the Crónica da tomada desta cidade de Lisboa aos Mouros e da fundação deste Mosteiro de São Vicente, which is a late 14th or early 15th century Portuguese translation of a 14th century Latin text, which originally came from the São Vicente Monastery.
♦ FERREIRA, Teresa A. S. Duarte - "Guia das Colecções de Manuscritos da Divisão dos Reservados".
Revista da Biblioteca Nacional, Lisboa, S. 2, 3 (1) 1988, p. 95-129.
♦ MONIZ, José António - Inventário [da] secção XIII: manuscriptos. Lisboa, BN, 1896.
♦ FERREIRA, Teresa A. S. Duarte - Catálogo de Teatro... (COD. 11702 -12887). Lisboa, BN, 1996.
♦ FERREIRA, Teresa A. S. Duarte - Catálogo da Colecção de Códices (COD. 12888 - 13292). Lisboa, BN, 1999.