On April 28th, the first cultural event with the new Lyceum Club Board took place, an interesting guided tour to the Lisbon Geographical Society.
In 1875, a group of 74 intellectuals, journalists and politicians of the time asked King Luís to create the Lisbon Royal Geographical Society, with the aim of promoting and assisting the study and progress of geographical sciences in the country. With several rooms, the “India Room” has two enormous globes by Vincenzo Coronelli, which arrived in Portugal during the reign of King João V. The pair of globes depict the earth and sky as they were known in 1693. One of the globes shows the celestial constellations known by cosmography in the 17th century and on the other we see drawn, by the hand of cartographers and painters, the terrestrial world explored by man up to 1693. In the room we can also see Indo-Portuguese furniture, portulanos, manuscripts and engravings.
The “Algarve Room”, with the large illuminated planisphere showing the Discoveries’ Routes between 1482 and 1660 and which featured in the Paris International Exhibition of 1931.
The “Portugal Room”, 50m long and surrounded by two orders of galleries, where most of the museum collections relevant to the former Portuguese colonies in Africa and Asia can be found.
And the “Padrões Room”, with interesting pieces linked to the Portuguese Discoveries.
The Library of the Lisbon Geographical Society is recognised nationally and internationally as essential for the study of the History of the Discoveries and Portuguese Expansion. The bibliographical collection consists of 62,000 works, several magazines and about 6,000 manuscript documents, in a total of 230,000 titles, among which the travel diaries of Hermenegildo Capelo, Roberto Ivens, Silva Porto and Gago Coutinho, as well as the collection of drawings by George Chinnery.