PRESENTATION OF THE WORK:

“Epilogue and Historical Compendium of the Lóios.

On the founding of the nine convents, their incomes; charges & prelates;

& of the eleven Hospices of its administration; & of other memoirs”

Convento dos Lóios Museum – March 13, 2026, 21h15

On Friday, March 13, 2026, at 9:15 p.m., at the Convento dos Lóios Museum in Santa Maria da Feira, the work “Epílogo e Compêndio Histórico dos Lóios – Da fundaçam dos nove conventos, das suas Rendas; encargos & Prelados; & dos eleze Hospitaes da sua administração; & de outras memorias”, by the Lóio priest Jorge de S. Paulo, will be publicly presented. Paulo, in a critical edition with introduction, reading, editing and notes by Pedro Vilas Boas Tavares and César Costa (CITCEM researchers). The session, promoted by the Santa Maria da Feira City Council, marks the publication of one of the most important manuscript sources for knowledge of the Congregation of the Secular Canons of St. John the Evangelist, and will be led by Professors Armando Malheiro and Luís Carlos Amaral.

This volume corresponds to just one of the two parts into which the author himself divided his work. For practical and editorial reasons, the present edition opens a first volume that publishes the material related to the so-called “Second Part” of the manuscript, centered on the foundations of the nine convents that made up the Congregation. The second volume, to be published at the end of 2026, will bring together the “First Part”, dedicated to the origin of the Congregation in Portugal and its Venetian matrix.

The edition now presented, printed on the initiative of the town council of Feira, with the support of CITCEM and FCT, is a rigorous paleographic transcription, preserving the integrity of the manuscript, accompanied by a critical apparatus that facilitates the reading and scientific interpretation of the text, making it valuable as a tool for the study of religious reform in Portugal, the history of the regular congregations, hospital care and Lóio heritage.

With this initiative, the Municipality of Santa Maria da Feira reaffirms its commitment to enhancing the historical and religious heritage linked to the former Convento dos Lóios, projecting the municipality as a reference space for academic studies on the Congregation of St. John the Evangelist. The publication of this volume is not just an edition of a 17th century manuscript: it is the public restitution of a structuring memory of Portuguese religious history.