Editorial data

The magazine Nova Silva expressed the libertarian and anticlerical tendency of the group of republican and free-thinker young students that would later found the Renascença Portuguesa. The periodical adopted the motto libertas. Free from prejudice, independent of parties, schools, and programmes, it strove to raise freedom as the backbone of human good and justice. The monthly publication accompanied the academic crisis and incited the general academic strike of 1907. With the same commitment, it announced and divulged the preparations for the formation of a free school in Coimbra, which was never founded but that even then heralded the popular education projects that would become so dear to the future movement of the Renascença.

Based in Porto, only five issues of Nova Silva. Revista ilustrada (February-April 1907) were ever published. Its founders and directors were Jaime Cortesão, Álvaro Pinto, Leonardo Coimbra and Cláudio Basto. The latter left the direction after No. 3, but informed of his cessation in No. 2. Amadeu da Assunção, the editor and also a future doctor of medicine, accompanied him. Assunção’s replacement, Carlos Gonçalves, was a republican polymath that in the following years continued to participate in editorial projects, both with Jaime Cortesão and Álvaro Pinto. The two-column layout, as well as the use of illustrations and drawings, was maintained throughout the entire run. In the first two issues, the summary of articles was featured on the cover, while the back cover contained advertisements. In the last three issues, the magazine dropped the ads and the summary was moved to the second page. The cover changed in the third issue, now including a header with the powerful red and black image of a fire-bearing proletarian breaking his shackles. The engravings of No. 1 and No. 2 were produced in the Litografia Portuguesa, and, after that, in the Oficina de Gravura Cristiano & Nunes. The printing services remained at Imprensa Civilização, on Rua Passos Manuel, 215, and the direction and office headquarters were also unchanged, at Rua de Santa Catarina, 438.

Adelaide Machado