Museu Maynense

About the museum

The Museu Maynense, today the Museu da Academia das Ciências de Lisboa, has its origins in the collections assembled by Friar José Mayne (1723–1792), who formed a cabinet of curiosities and a natural history collection in the service of a public course on “História Natural Teológica” (“Theological Natural History”). In 1779 Mayne entrusted his bequest to the Royal Academy of Sciences of Lisbon.

The Academy settled in the former Convento de Nossa Senhora de Jesus in 1833 and took possession of the estate in 1834, after the dissolution of the religious orders. It then created the Instituto Maynense, with a Zoology course (Aula de Zoologia, 1836) and, later, a course in Natural History, Physics, Chemistry, Geography and Geology (1849), open to the public and in operation for some seventy years, until 1919.

The collection grew through bequests and donations and includes archaeology, ethnography, geology, palaeontology, zoology, convent relics, pieces from the royal family and scientific instruments. Part of the collections is displayed in six thematic rooms of the permanent exhibition gallery.

Highlights

• Zoology, palaeontology, geology and archaeology collections
• Ethnographic material from expeditions and voyages of the 18th and 19th centuries
• Relics of the former Convento de Jesus
• Scientific instruments
• Online virtual visit while the museum is closed

Permanent exhibition

• Galeria de exposição permanente – Six thematic rooms with part of the collections of the Academia das Ciências de Lisboa (closed to the public during the works).

Operated by

Academia das Ciências de Lisboa

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