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Research

Inventory and Research Department

Heir to various municipal museums, one of which was created more than a century ago, the Museum of Lisbon has a varied collection of over 100,000 objects organised into almost 50 different collections.

The inventory team is responsible for the physical characterisation of objects and for the overall management of the collection, whose varied nature poses various challenges. From archaeological activity to photography, drawing, tiles, numismatics, painting, textiles, stained glass, models, and the documentary collection associated with the history of the Museum of Lisbon and the places in the city where its centres are located, the department’s systematic and comprehensive inventory effort has facilitated research, conservation and restoration of the collections.

Deepening knowledge

Research at the Museum of Lisbon aims to deepen knowledge of the museum's rich and multifaceted collection, providing more information and new perspectives for understanding its collection. With a team specialised in various periods of Lisbon's history, the Museum's research activity also helps contextualise the collection within the urban development of the city, including past inhabitants of Lisbon or who have left testimony of their presence here.

Through own methodologies and collaborations with external entities – often in complementary scientific areas – the research department has developed specific projects that result mainly in exhibition catalogues, thematic books and a constant stream of updated information about the collection, available online (only in portuguese).

Scientific discussion has also taken place at the Museum of Lisbon through the organisation of colloquia, seminars and conference cycles around the exhibitions organised by the museum, thus expanding the level of knowledge acquired and transferred.

Documentation Centre

The Museum of Lisbon Documentation Centre is a library specialised in the history of Lisbon. In addition to all essential works to the field published over the last 150 years, it includes a section composed of rare publications essential to the characterisation of the city, and a document collection relating to the history of the museums that gave rise to the Museum of Lisbon (Museu da Cidade, Museu Antoniano, Museu do Teatro Romano and Casa dos Bicos).

It also includes a specific fund dedicated to Irisalva Moita (1924-2009), an olisipographer, historian, archaeologist and museologist who directed the Lisbon Municipal Museums for over 20 years. 

Access by appointment through info@museudelisboa.pt

Anthropology

The anthropology team carries out specific ethnographic research projects with local communities and Lisbonites of various origins, seeking to reflect critically on the city's multicultural heritage. It also carries out documentary and bibliographical research in the development of models for participatory projects.

Conservation and Restoration Department

The Conservation and Restoration Department is responsible for preserving and safeguarding the Museum of Lisbon's heritage collection, estimated at around 100,000 objects in various categories. The departments hosts a team of restorative conservators in the areas of graphic documents, painting and preventive conservation, and various conservation and restoration technicians in the area of tiles, specialised in the diagnosis, treatment and conditioning of the collection.

The department’s activities include monitoring the state of conservation of objects, establishing priorities for preventive conservation, preparing diagnoses and treatment proposals, and carrying out conservation and restoration interventions.

The department contributes to the Museum's various long-duration and temporary exhibitions through the preparation of technical opinions, monitoring the transport of works, preparing state of conservation reports, selecting objects for curative or conservation interventions, and monitoring their placement on the exhibition circuit. This collaboration extends to other institutions that request the temporary loan of objects belonging to the Museum of Lisbon's collection for inclusion in their own exhibitions.

In addition to its care of the collections on display in the various locations of the Museum of Lisbon, the Museum devotes particular attention to the vast number of objects held in storage, especially with regard to environmental control, accessibility and forms of packaging, ensuring their adequate safekeeping.

Books and Catalogues

The Lisbon That Could Have Been

A publication that turns public several projects from the archives of the Lisbon city council and of the Museum of Lisbon, commissioned for the city which, for different reasons, weren’t done, or weren’t completed carried out. On its diversity and extended chronology, they have in common the desire for monumentalize and modernize the capital.

The Light of Lisbon

"The Light of Lisbon" presented, for the first time, an exhibition about the natural city light, a worldwide recognized phenomena, considered as unique and special, questioning in scientific terms the specificity of this light and exploring its singularities, whether objective and subjective, which make it so special.

Water over water

An exhibition of the Catalan artist Lourdes Fisa and the museologist and photographer Pedro Inácio that allows the reflection and the study of the geographical and material determinism of the city of Lisbon, alongside with historic texts about the importance and the power of water in this roman city, and its relevance in the old theatre of Felicitas Iulia Olisipo.

Archeology of the Rua da Saudade. A Roman Temple (?) in the City

This catalogue of the temporary exhibition «Archeology of Rua da Saudade. A Roman Temple (?) in the City», held in the Museum of Lisbon - Roman Theatre (from October 2020 to June 2021), presents the results of an archaeological intervention carried out in 2019. This study allowed the reconstitution of the history of what could have been a roman temple in the old Felicitas Iulia Olisipo, enhancing the importance of the archaeology as a source for the knowledge of the city history.

Collection of Antonianos Studies

This is the first book published by the Saint Anthony Studies and Investigation Centre of the Museum of Lisbon - Saint Anthony that addresses the work of Henrique Pinto Rema, a well-known expert regarding this theme.

Coexistence. Plural Lisbon. 1147-1910

This publication approaches the role that religious minorities and foreign residents played in crafting the image of Lisbon, from the Middle Ages to the timeof the First Portuguese Replublic (1910-1926).In this edition we discover how the community of the religious minorities and the foreign residents were present in every single dimension of the city of Lisbon.

Under our Feet

In this exhibition and edition, the Museum of Lisbon approaches a barely explored topic: the techniques, the outcrops, the shapes, the compositions and the floors covering color we step on, since the pre-history until the beginning of the 20th century.

Devotion and Faith. Registers in Tiles in Lisbon City

A work of reference about the tiles (azulejos)’ presence in the Lisbon buildings. The reader will find, in a general approach of the contexts, the studies, and the iconographies’ analysis, one of the most present art and feature of Lisbon’s edification.

Dissertation Critico-Filologico-Historica Sobre o (...) antigo Theatro Romano

A facsimile edition of the printed work in 1817 about the Roman Theatre construction, based on the Francis Xavier Fabri information. The introduction by Lídia Fernandes contextualizes the work using the original manuscript from 1815, acquired by the Museum of Lisbon - Roman Theatre.

From the Carnival to Lucha Libre. Masks and Mexican Devotions

An approach to the universe of creators, constructors and mask users, fighters, their social context and their particular relation with the supernatural.

Fragments of Colour. Tiles of the Museum of Lisbon

«Azulejos» or Portuguese tiles are a truly iconic element of the city, which was long an important center for the production and consumption of this type of ceramics.

Futures of Lisbon

How have we been thinking about the future? And the future(s) of Lisbon?

Which futures and changes we imagine for the city?

This work is based on the exhibition with the same title organized by the Museum of Lisbon and registers several informed reflections that propose different futures for Lisbon, sometimes in dissonance with each other.

Guide of the Museum of Lisbon - Saint Anthony

This guide of the Museum of Lisbon - Saint Anthony is based on the program of the long-term exhibition. This edition covers the religious aspect, the popular traditions, and the festivities that Lisbon yearly celebrates in order to pay homage to Saint Anthony, presenting itself as an important document to understand and rediscover several traditions that are still present and alive in the Portuguese culture.

Texts by Henrique Pinto Rema (OFM), Maria de Lourdes Sirgado Ganho (Universidade Católica), Maria Adelina Amorim (Universidade de Lisboa), Isabel Dâmaso dos Santos, Rita Fragoso de Almeida (Museum of Lisbon), António Miranda (Lisbon City Council) e Pedro Teotónio Pereira (Museum of Lisboa - Saint Anthony).

Guide of the Lisbon Museum - Roman Theatre

This guide is much more than a description of the scenic monument, documenting the moments before and after its disappearance. Thus, it is also a landmark on the city´s history, beginning in the distant 4th century BC in the Iron Age and ending in the 19th century, with the opening of Rua de São Mamede and the construction of its buildings, as the present day museum’s reception.
A journey into the city's past with the Roman Theatre in the leading role.

Lisbon's Vegetable Gardens. From Middle Ages to the 21st century

This catalogue represents a major contribution by the Museum of Lisbon to the history of Lisbon's vegetable gardens and for the debate on their future, addressing current issues such as sustainability and food sovereignty and security in the city.

Irisalva Moita: A Photobiography

A biopic of the Museum of Lisbon creator, in the Pimenta Palace, illustrated with a very rich photographic collection, most of it unpublished.

Lisbon «Sad and Joyful City»: Architecture of a Book

This publication shows a deep gaze about the most important photography book from the 20th century in Portugal, whose double authorship belongs to the architects Victor Palla (1922-2006) and Costa Martins (1922-1996). A 1959 book that recorded three years of the architects’ wanderings through the streets of Lisbon, depicting it and its inhabitants, revealing a hidden city, simultaneously a sad and a joyful one.

Sea Breeze. Lisbon and the Tagus 1850 - 2014

A journey for more than a century and a half of transformations of the Lisbon riverside, between Xabregas and Santos, was the motto for the exhibition at the West Tower in Praça do Comércio.

The Tilled Leather in the Museum of Lisbon

A monographic research study about pieces of the collection with tilled leather in the Museum of Lisbon: chairs from the beginning of the 17th century to mid-18th century, a coffer and a canopied lounge chair.

The Place of the Tower. Image of Lisbon

The Place of the tower. Image of Lisbon is about the past, the present and the future of the West Tower of the Commerce Square, one of the architectural and urbanistic symbols of Lisbon.

Universal Square of a Whole Orb. A Lisbon view in 1619

A monography fully dedicated to the painting «The View of Lisbon», an astonishing heirloom belonging to the Weilberg Castel, in Germany, whose representation is the Universal Square of a Whole Orb, a title used by the chronicler João Baptista Lavanha to mention Lisbon, on the occasion of solemn entrance of Philip II in the Portuguese capital.

Nostalgia for Rua da Saudade

This publication of the Museum of Lisbon - Roman Theatre seeks to recover several remarkable events from the most recent history of this city area. The excavation of the roman monument carried out in the decade of 1960, the several changes of the constructed space and several distinct social aspects from now, that nearly lasted to our days, are some of the many pretended topics to be brought to the present.

Scaena II. Museum of Lisbon – Roman Theatre Magazine

A yearly scientific magazine of the Museum of Lisbon - Roman Theatre that presents themes tied up with the archaeology. This second number is dedicated to Irisalva Moita.

Scaena. Museum of Lisbon – Roman Theatre Magazine

A yearly scientific magazine of the Museum of Lisbon - Roman Theatre that presents themes tied up with the archaeology. This first number is dedicated to the Roman Theatre itself.

Slavery Testimonies. An African Memory in the Museum of Lisbon

A monographic study, stem from the collections of the Museum of Lisbon, regarding the African slaves’ (in)visibility in the city history, enhancing a fundamental aspect of the social, economic and cultural history of Lisbon, a city of remarkable multiethnic and multicultural wealth.

Tronos de Santo António. Saint Anthony’s Thrones. 2015

Photographic register with 66 of the thrones spread  by the doors and windows of the city, done by the shopkeepers, associations, schools and sports groups, in the context of the Lisbon Festivities ’17, recovering in this way a tradition and an unique popular expression that dates back to the 18th century.

Tronos de Santo António. Saint Anthony’s Thrones. 2016

Photographic register with more than 200 of the thrones spread  by the doors and windows of the city, done by the shopkeepers, associations, schools and sports groups, in the context of the Lisbon Festivities ’16, recovering in this way a tradition and an unique popular expression that dates back to the 18th century.

Tronos de Santo António. Saint Anthony’s Thrones. 2017

Photographic register with more than 200 of the thrones spread  by the doors and windows of the city, done by the shopkeepers, associations, schools and sports groups, in the context of the Lisbon Festivities ’17, recovering in this way a tradition and an unique popular expression that dates back to the 18th century.

Tronos de Santo António. Saint Anthony’s Thrones. 2018

Photographic register of the 153 thrones spread by the doors and windows of twenty-three city parishes, in the context of the Lisbon Festivities ’18, recovering a tradition of an unique popular expression that dates to the 18th century.

Tronos de Santo António. Saint Anthony’s Thrones. 2019

A publication that gathers photographs of the thrones and its authors, the participants of the street exhibition Thrones of Saint Anthony, a yearly event held throughout June, in which the Lisbon population pays homage to Saint Anthony

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© Museu de Lisboa