Arquivo Nacional da Torre do Tombo
- National Archives of Torre do Tombo
- ANTT
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History
The Torre do Tombo is one of Portugal's oldest institutions. Since it was installed in one of the towers of Lisbon castle, probably during the reign of King Dom Fernando, and certainly from 1378, date of the first known certificate, until 1755, it served as the Archives of the king, his vassals, the administration of the kingdom and the overseas possessions, as well as keeping the documents resulting from the relations with other kingdoms.
Besides serving the royal administration, with functions similar to those of a modern-day intermediate archive, the most important service provided by the Tower was that of certificates, requested by individuals and institutions. With the king's authorisation, it provided consultation and even the loan of documents to some scholars, whose works were later printed. In the 17th century, the Archive of the Archives started to be organised and the first record books appeared, and some indexes were made. In the 18th century, the growing number of certificates requested to the Torre do Tombo, especially those requested by the History Academy, increased the number of its officers. In this century, in the scope of the description of the documents, numerous indexes were produced, meeting the need to know the documents and to create the necessary research tools for their recovery: this work started and took place, in good part, in the building of the castle tower: This is how most of the indexes of the royal Chancelleries (1715-1749), the Laws and Ordinances (1731), the Bulls (1732), the Residents of the Royal Household (between 1713 and 1742), the inventory of the Bulae, Breves and Pontifical Transcripts (1751-1753) were drawn up.
On November 1st 1755, the tower collapsed during the earthquake. The documentation was collected from the rubble, and temporarily kept in a wooden hut, built in the Praça de Armas, after authorization from the Marquis of Pombal, dated November 6. On 26 and 27 August 1757, it was transferred to a part of the building of the São Bento da Saúde Monastery, on the Calçada da Estrela side, occupying the facilities called Casa dos Bispos and contiguous compartments, which were leased to the monastery. It was then necessary to proceed with its installation, and its organization: the bundles from the Casa da Coroa, were organized in a Chronological Body collection, and in a Fragments collection. The officials of the archive made several copies of documents, namely the Reform of Drawers, the Reform of Old Forals, and the Collection of Copies. They continued the work of description of documents, which resulted in the indexes of the Chronological Body (1764), the summaries and indexes of the documents of the Drawers (1765), the indexes of the books of the Menus (1765), the indexes of the bundles of the Royal House Houses and Officials (1767, 1770), and the inventory of the documents of the Crown's House (1776). Some of these instruments of description can still be consulted today at the Reference Service.
From 1777 onwards, by the Regiment of August 1st, the registry books of the end of the reigns were obliged to be sent to the Torre do Tombo. In 1791, by Notice dated February 5th, the General Registry of Mercês was transferred to the Torre do Tombo, and continued to operate in this institution until 1927.
In the early 19th century, the duties of the Archives were extended to the training of civil servants, and to the teaching of Diplomatics, with the creation of the Diplomatics Classroom.
Until 1823, the Archives were subject to the Council of the Treasury, although they also depended on other institutions during the period of the Ancien Regime. From then until 1887, it depended on the General Directorate of Public Instruction of the Ministry of the Kingdom.
During the liberal period, the Torre do Tombo, designated as the National Archives in the 1823 Regulations, or as the Royal Archives of the Torre do Tombo, was called upon to perform much wider-ranging duties, initiating a new phase in institutional life, marked by the incorporation of documents from the archives of the abolished courts of the Ancien Regime, in 1821 and 1833, and from the registry offices of the religious corporations, abolished by Decree on May 28th, 1834. There were four major cycles of incorporations throughout the 19th century, from various institutions, which contributed to the disorganization of the collections, which were not complete.
In this environment of growing documentation in the Archives, the Provisional Regulations of 30th April 1823 called for the creation of different types of indexes, and recommended the preservation of the order of the documents.
The new Regulations published in 1839 charged the Archives with the duty of incorporating documents deemed unnecessary to the institutions themselves and those of extinct bodies, ensuring their proper preservation and installation.
The Law of 2 October 1862 established that all consignments of documents must be accompanied by the respective inventories, drawn up according to their provenance.
In the 19th century, the Archives suffered from a shortage of staff, who were divided among the Secretariat of the Mercês Registry, and from poor facilities. These were only improved in 1861, when the Torre do Tombo Archives moved to the right wing of the monastery, on the Rua de São Bento side.
Although it invested in document description, the conception of an archive as a public service for the disclosure of document contents was a late arrival: the public consultation of the Torre do Tombo documents began timidly, in 1901, by Decree of December 24th, being foreseen for the scholars to whom the conservators had to give support.
The Decree of 18th March 1911 reorganized the library and archive services under the Directorate-General for Secondary, Higher and Special Education, definitively designated the National Archives of the Torre do Tombo as the National Archives, emphasized its role in the conservation and promotion of manuscripts intended for the study of History, as well as in promoting the entry of copies of Portuguese manuscripts from abroad, and established, for the first time, public opening hours.
Over the last hundred years, the National Archive has grown significantly with the integration of several archival services: the Archives of the Completed Trials (in 1915, by Decree no. 1659, of 15th June), and the Archives of the National Archives of Portugal (in 1916, by Decree no. 1659, of 15th June). In the last hundred years, the National Archive has grown significantly, with the integration of various archive services: the Archives of Findings (in 1915, by Decree no. 1659, of 15th June), the Archive of Parochial Records, accumulating the functions of Lisbon District Archive (from 1918 to 1992), the Archive of Congregations (in 1930), the Historical Archive of the Ministry of Finance (in 1992) and more recently the Lisbon service of the Portuguese Photography Centre (2007).
In 1931, by Decree no. 19,592, of 31st June, the National Archive was designated as the General Archive, and became technically and administratively subject to the Inspection of Erudite Libraries and Archives, which in 1965 became the responsibility of the General Directorate for Higher Education and Fine Arts of the Ministry of Education.
Since 1985, the National Archive has depended on the Ministry of Culture with administrative autonomy. In 1927, 1931, 1933 and 1965, the remaining district archives were created, to which the Inspectorate sent the documents still existing in the Treasury's departments.
Thus, in 1988, the Portuguese Archives Institute was created by Decree-Law no. 152/88, of 29th April, and remained in operation until 1992, when it merged with the National Archives of the Torre do Tombo, by Decree-Law no. 106-G/92, of 1st June, taking the name of National Archives/Torre do Tombo (AN/TT).
After 1990, when the National Archives were moved to the purpose-built building in Alameda da Universidade, with larger premises, new additions occurred, namely, in 1992, with the addition of the documentation of the Secretaries of State, mentioned in Article 25 of the Law of March 1911, followed by many other acquisitions.
The evolution of the national archival policy, extended to the production of documents and the management of current archives, to document evaluation and selection and to intermediate archives, was reflected in the change of name of the National Archives, renamed Instituto dos Arquivos Nacionais/Torre do Tombo (IAN/TT). From 1997, in accordance with the organic law published in Decree-Law no. 60/97, of 20th March, it has been responsible for promoting and implementing national archival policy, in terms of preserving and enhancing national archival heritage, promoting the quality of current archives, and safeguarding and guaranteeing the rights of the State and citizens.
Its own identity was recovered in 2007 by the organic law, and it was re-designated Arquivo Nacional da Torre do Tombo, becoming a national scope archive dependent on the Directorate-General of Archives.
In 2012, under the Central Administration Reduction and Improvement Plan (PREMAC) in line with the organic law of the Presidency of the Council of Ministers, established by Decree-Law No. 126 -A/2011, of 29 December and in accordance with Decree-Law No. 103/2012 of 16 May 2012. 103/2012 of 16th May, which establishes the organic structure of the Directorate-General of Books, Archives and Libraries, (which results from the merger of the Directorate-General of Books and Libraries with the Directorate-General of Archives), the National Archives of the Torre do Tombo is now an integral service of this Directorate-General. By the same diploma, the Lisbon District Archive is reintegrated into the Torre do Tombo.
Since then, the National Archives of Torre do Tombo is a central organic unit, as a service dependent on the Directorate General of Books, Archives and Libraries , as per Ordinance no. 192/2012, of 19 June, and its competences were fixed by Order no. 9339/2012, of 27 June.
Administrative Structure
The National Archives of Torre do Tombo is a service dependent on the General Directorate of Books, Archives and Libraries, central service of direct management of the state - integrated into the Ministry of Culture - and is one of the national archives of the Portuguese archives network.
Archival and Other Holdings
USHMM has surveyed and copied in this archive. Among the Holocaust-relevant collections are the following:
- Legião Portuguesa, connected to the PVDE or Polícia de Vigilância E Defesa do Estado (former name of Portuguese secret police under Salazar, later changed to PIDE) and the Ministry of the Interior
- AOS - Arquivo Official Salazar (Salazar’s personal archives)
- CO - Correspondência officielle
- NE - Negocios Estrangeiros (Foreign Affairs –Salazar was President and Minister of Foreign Affairs)
- SI - Serviços de Informação (Secret Service)
- SNI - Secretario Nacional de Informação (Propaganda, headed by Antonio Ferro)
- SGPCM - Secretaria-Geral da Presidência do Conselho de Ministros
Language(s) of collection: Portuguese, some Spanish (press clippings on Ferro), French (Politis’ proposition), and English.
Opening Times
You may visit the Public Area and/or Exhibition Area of the Torre do Tombo, on an individual basis and free of charge, during the following opening hours: Monday to Friday | 9:30 to 19:00.
Conditions of Access
Access to the Torre do Tombo National Archives is free for anyone over 16 years old.
For document consultation, it is only necessary to have ID and consultation authorisation in the form of registration on the online ordering platform (CRAV).
For work in the archive, only a few sheets of paper and a pencil may be brought, as there are some restrictions imposed by the reading regulation. You can also use a laptop. Compliance with the proper handling of historical documents and handling rules is required. See the regulation on online and face-to-face services.
Please note that requests for same-day document consultation end at 15:00 (14:00 in the case of Strong House documents), a maximum of 20 requests per day, and that requests for Saturday consultations must be submitted by 12:00 on Thursday.
Some special conditions apply for access to certain documentary sets. The most precious documents are stored in the Strong House and can only be consulted with special permission on a justified request and if they are not microfilmed or digitised. In this case, it is mandatory to request the query copy, on alternative support.
Taking into account the specificity of this file, POST/DGS documentation is subject to its own regulations.
Some private files, including personal and family files, are subject to the conditions set out in the respective deposit or donation agreements. On a case-by-case basis, the reference service will provide you with all necessary information.
Always check the access conditions on any background or collection.
Research Services
The services do have a duty to assist readers and other entities in accessing archives, this being understood as the provision of generic research guidance or information on the available and/or most suitable holdings for research on each subject, on the legal rules and other conditions of access to these holdings, on their state of organization and preservation, on the documentary description tools available and how to use them.
When the information provided for in this point cannot be provided on the spot by the Reference Service's staff, interested parties shall request it in writing on an appropriate form.
Reproduction Services
The reproduction service is responsible for reproducing documents from the archives held by the Arquivo Nacional Torre do Tombo, thereby contributing to safeguarding and valorising the national archival heritage. It reproduces documents in their entirety in order to take the originals out of circulation, thus preventing their continuous handling and irreparable wear and tear, replacing them with new media. It also acts in the area of dissemination, as the reproductions generated are used for various cultural purposes, either to enable access through our website or for various scientific and cultural publications or even for academic work.
The reproduction service works in 3 supports, paper, microfilm and more recently the digital support, for this it has several interconnected services, from the first one the Service Counter. There, our users are advised on the best option for reproduction considering the purpose for which it is intended.
The microfilming service where images are captured on 35 mm microfilm, following all ISO standards for the production of microfilms, a developing and duplicating laboratory and a rigorous quality control process, where the integrity of the information and the durability of the support are guaranteed, giving the microfilm evidential value.
The paper photocopy service, with equipment that allows printing on paper from microfilm and planetary equipment without a press for printing on paper from original documents, respecting the physical integrity of the documents.
The digitalisation service, also with equipment that makes possible the digitalisation from microfilm, photographic supports and original documents. The reproduction service has equipment suitable for archive documentation and its specificities, with various formats from A5 to A0, paper and parchment supports, various books and loose documentation, etc.
Always attentive to the need for standardisation in what concerns the capture, treatment, conditioning and storage of images, seeking to assume a prominent and pioneering role in the technologies of support and information transfer, thus trying to guarantee a good index of quality of the products supplied, as well as the efficiency of the services rendered, trying to supply the requested reproductions in a timely manner, without jeopardising the physical integrity of the documents.
Public Areas
It is not just to do research that you can go to the Tombo Tower. In its own space, a temporary exhibition is generally open to the public. You can also visit the shop, where publications, multimedia products and some art objects are for sale.
Torre do Tombo has two bars open to the public, one of them with a dining service.
Copies
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United States Holocaust Memorial Museum holds copies of Holocaust-relevant archives from Arquivo Naçional da Torre do Tombo