Looking to the future in 17th and 18th century Portugal: Luís Serrão Pimentel, his descendants and their library

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to assess how knowledge in the fields of military architecture, fortification and cosmography was being updated in Portugal in the 17th and 18th centuries, considering the European context. This knowledge was built by figures currently recognized as key for the definition and assertion of the country's scientific culture in the early modern period, such as Luís Serrão Pimentel. Specifically called upon to intervene in the context of the Restoration War with Spain (1640-1668), he left an important legacy, both to his closest relatives (children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren) and to a generation he trained together with his descendants, which marked the history of Portugal and the Portuguese Empire with a paradigm shift in cosmography, border definition, and defensive military buildings. This legacy includes also scientific literacy, witnessed by the library that came to one of his descendants and that Serrão Pimentel certainly.