This volume of the handwritten gazettes from Évora’s Public Library has, as central body, the edition of the Diaries gathered in the Codex CIV/1-7 d, from 1735 to 1737. We gathered here for the first time a part of another series with news from that period (1736-1737). It is a collection entitled “Adicções à Gazeta” (Additions to the Gazette). It is stowed right after the “Diaries” on the BPE, with a similar bindery, although saving manuscripts from different authors. More than one aspect justifies our choice. The choice of a simultaneous edition is based on the evident complementarity of these materials; both gathered by the same collector before entering the possession of Friar Manuel do Cenáculo Villas-Boas. Over time, the flyers had the same readers and its cross-reading has several advantages.

The Codex CIV/1-24 d, to which the "additions" belong, is not fully published in this volume. 1738’s news are not included.  Taken into account the structure of the “Diaries” codices, they will be associated to the 1738-1740 “Handwritten Gazettes”.

With the present volume some manuscripts, entirely inedited and little known or not referred by historiography, contain new important information to the study of the early eighteenth century. In the volume we can find news about the relatively obscure character of Sebastião José de Carvalho e Melo, future Marquis of Pombal, in a decisive period of his life. In May 1737 he agrees to rent his houses in the Formosa street to Marquis d'Argenson, Louis XV ambassador. A few months later, in October, his uncle, Paulo de Carvalho, dies, and his heritage will provide him a new social condition that will unlock the path to Greatness. It is from this period the adventurous journey of Carlos Mardel, arriving by land to the border of Serpa after his escape from Cadiz, where he had been arrested (1736). Although best known and studied, the story of the arrest of José Antonio da Silva and his family is described here with new details. It followed the surge of arrests occurred on 5 October 1737 (a Saturday) in various houses of Lisbon, in Calçada de Sant’Ana, a alley behind São Cristovão and Paço da Madeira. We emphasize the outlook of the “familiares” of the Holy Office who erupted in the suspicious houses where the lights were lit and some of the women had headscarves posed “in a strange manner, looking like they were in the synagogue”.

These manuscripts also reveal a very troubled political climate, and the diplomatic and military conflict with Spain. This conflict did not result on hostilities in the Peninsula, but heavily changed the life of the Court and the kingdom during at least one year: the recomposing of the War’s Council, the recruitment and placement of new troops, the enormous hustle for supplies distribution, along with constant ad hoc councils and extraordinary royal audiences. It is also the time of the death of old Diogo de Mendonça Corte Real (May 1736), that leads to the reform of the Secretaries of State. The time of the funerals of Prince Charles and his aunt Francisca (April and June 1736) and the beginning of the crisis in the Portuguese Royal Academy of History, which coincides with the publication of the last volumes of the “Collecçam de documentos e memorias” [Documents and Memories Collection] [...] (1736 -1737).

From the author’s point of view, it is also a remarkable moment. It takes place the surgery that involved the French “optician surgeon” Jacques Daviel, famous authority on cataracts, who cannot prevent the irreversible and permanent blindness of Don Francisco Xavier de Menezes. It must be emphasized that this fact seems to be associated with changes in the production of the manuscripts. This third volume of the “Diary” is written in especially difficult reading terms, with irregular letters and spots, the use of oral language, mistakes and lapses in information, changes in the names and titles of the Nobles. Those errors are also found in the Additions, for several reasons.

Strongly than in the previous volumes, the entire process of reading and understanding the nature and the “message” of the text is associated to the annotation process. The principles to which this work obeys are the ones already listed in previous introductory notes and deepened in the “Edition Manual” (Miranda, 2005b). The adjustments made were shown to be proper. The rules of transcription, as well as the annotation and indexing efforts are, therefore, sufficiently stated. However, it matters to underline how crucial the link between these different stages of work has been. With some frequency the effort made during indexing, usually the last stage of preparation of the volume, clarifies reading, transcription and identification problems, not always solved in the notes, such as homonymy issues and abbreviations misprints or unfoldment (Maria and Mariana, Almeida and Almada, for example).

In the annotation we systematically appeal to sources which allowed to make comparisons and counterpoints: A) Handwritten sources: “Novidades de Lisboa” [News from Lisbon]" and “Varias Noticias” [Several News]... in cross-references with the “Diary” and the “Additions” showing very different points of view; B) Printed Sources: genealogies, nobility books, chorographies, but mainly gazettes or periodical journals, starting with the Lisbon’s Gazette.

Making a comparison with the previous volumes, the reader will note the existence of a greater number of explanations based on works not available in the Portuguese libraries. This results from the extraordinary progress that we now observe in the digital databases access and the easiness of consultation and /or acquisition of rare and / or ancient works as well as recent academic texts. This progress is manifest in the extensive list of digital resources displayed immediately after the bibliography.

Taking into account the goals set since 2006, the greatest difficulty founded was the inability to operationalize the instruments of automatic indexing.  This work has been developed under the guidance of Paulo Quaresma, from the University of Évora. The efforts made in the treatment and marking of texts still have unsatisfactory results. At this stage, indexes do not allow the maintenance of an intensive control of the information, not even in the case of the mentioned names. Still, in the indexing that we present here, there is a long series of clarifications and distinctions that deepen the knowledge of the universe of onomastic references, an experience that partially helps to explain the prolonging of this edition.

Amongst the aspects we consider more positive in this volume, is the work of calligraphic identification, already predicted in the “Edition Manual” and now properly proposed. To this result, the contribution of the work of Lígia Duarte Gaspar was decisive. It regarded the distinctions, the originality and the methodological innovation of the analysis, as well as the editorial solutions that emphasize the different hands and spellings. Her text is essential to decipher the marginal signaling. On it, the reader can follow the various stages of production of the manuscripts, with the identification of the several handwritings. As we see it, it confirms the correctness of our choice of a semi-diplomatic transcription, respecting the handwritten spelling and not forgetting the marks of the feather breaks and the uniqueness of the amendments. Besides a formal analysis, this study provides elements to view the number and quality of all the official scribes of the Fourth Count of Ericeira and the “studio” of the “Additions to the Gazette” and / or its copyists. In the “Diary” we note the coincidence between the start of a new calligraphic pattern and the end of the 1734’s break.  D. Francisco Xavier de Meneses attributed the break to a trust or a discretion failure. It is, therefore, plausible that the origin of this fracture was domestic. At least, the handwriting changes seem to indicate that such suspicion was felt by the Count himself.