Traveling is always a special moment and travel books and guides are a remarkable tool for those who want to get to know different cultures and worldviews. The guides make it easier to plan and choose itineraries, based on objective, practical and useful guidelines. Travel books record experiences lived by the authors, in a framework that goes beyond geographical space and intersects with sensations, feelings and erudition. They therefore bring together unique testimonies that never lose their relevance, even if they take us back to a distant space-time context.

The VISEU PELAS BOCAS DO MUNDO exhibition aims to show the city of Viseu through the eyes of foreign travelers, authors and editors of guidebooks and travel books published between 1820 and 1974, with particular emphasis on its people, customs, history and heritage. Based on a corpus ofmore than 600 works in various languages, gathered from a private collection, this initiative will reveal, through phrases and images, the impressions of foreign travelers who, when visiting Portugal, were not indifferent to the beauty of Viseu and the Beira Alta region.

The challenge was launched by the Culture Council of the Municipality of Viseu to a group of lecturers and researchers from the University of Porto from various areas of knowledge, such as Communication Sciences, Information Science, Art and Design, so it is hoped that the exhibition can reflect the particular way in which each person views, feels and highlights content from different areas of knowledge.

Title: Viseu around the world
Subtitle: Books and travel guides on Viseu and Portugal between the Constitutional Monarchy and the Estado Novo (1820-1974)
Authors/Curators: Elisa Cerveira, Vasco Ribeiro and Emília Dias da Costa
Development/Design: Emília Dias da Costa
Translation: Neil Mason
Research support: João Oliveira, Cláudia Lino and Vasco Araújo
Initiative: Faculty of Arts, University of Porto
Organization: Culture Department of the Municipality of Viseu and Faculty of Letters of the University of Porto
Support: Municipality of Viseu and CITCEM/FLUP
Local responsibility: Jorge Sobrado, Luís Fernandes and Sandra Alves (CMV)