Merchandise product: Regiment of the declination of the sun

We present another design product inspired by the documents chosen for transmedia exhibitions of the European Digital Treasures project.

Its creators are the designers Diogo Bessa, Mário Fonseca and Ana Catarina Silva, from the Polytechnic Institute of Cávado and Ave.

The source of inspiration for this product was the “Regiment of the declination of the sun which goes in letters that mean the name of Sir Fernão Lopes Martins Freire de Andrade and his daughter Lady Isabel Freire“, whose holder is Torre do Tombo, the National Archive of Portugal. This Portuguese document from 1564 is a type of nautical document, from the age of discoveries, intended to allow the calculation of the vessel’s latitude to its pilots. Thus, they had, for each day of the year, the necessary corrections to compensate for the sun’s declination when measuring their meridian height.

The illuminated capital letters and marbled endpapers of the binding inspired the drawings of the new merchandise product, an écharpe, presented in a transparent envelope, which is 100% recycled material, containing contextual information about the document that inspired it and about the National Archive of Torre do Tombo.

The following video presents the various stages of the creation and development process of this product.

ÉCHARPE, Portugal, Designers Diogo Bessa; Mário Fonseca; Ana Catarina Silva

Written by Mário Sant’Ana, Senior Technician / E-administration and innovation and
Ana Isabel Fernandes (trad.), Senior Technician / Communication Office,
Torre do Tombo National Archive,
General Directorate of Books, Archives and Libraries, Portugal