Visconde da Trindade

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The Library collection belonging to Alberto Eduardo Vallado Navarro, Viscount of Trindade, was bequeathed by will in 1960 and transferred to BGUC in 1972. This bibliographic set consists of 3,439 ancient works, in a total of 5,000 bibliographic items.

It contains manuscripts, incunabula, and printed matter from the 16th to the 17th century. An important set of works from the Restoration period, as well as 16th-century editions of works by Damião de Góis and André de Resende stand out. Another important subset of this library, relating to the Inquisition, is made up of pamphlets, regulations, sermons preached in autos-da-fé, and lists of condemned people. It also includes a set of reference works, bibliographic dictionaries, national and foreign library catalogs, as well as genealogy and heraldry works.

In the Library of Visconde da Trindade, donated to the General Library of the University of Coimbra in the 1970s by testamentary legacy, there is a set made up of Portuguese and foreign 16th-century works, that is, works, both by national and foreign authors, published by Portuguese and European presses. This collection, one of the rarest and most valuable ever present in a private collection - with the exception, of course, of the collection of old books by King D. Manuel II, currently housed in Vila Viçosa -, is now the object of a rigorous study of each specimen, which makes known some true bibliographical jewels from the golden century of typography of which there are only a few (very few) known copies or, more rarely, just one complete volume, in excellent state of conservation – precisely the one that belonged to this collection.

Maria da Graça Pericão, Livros quinhentistas da coleção Visconde da Trindade, Imprensa da Universidade de Coimbra, 2016.