Physics Cabinet

Cabinet of Physics

The scenario we would encounter if, on the first floor of the Colégio de Jesus, we had a machine that allowed us to travel back in time by two centuries, would not be very different from what we see today when visiting the Cabinet of Physics.It is in the rooms assigned to it at the end of the 18th century, and with the original furniture, that we can find instruments used throughout the 18th and 19th centuries to teach Experimental Physics at the University of Coimbra.The first physics laboratory to operate in our country, however, was not the first attempt to implement this experimental science in Portugal – that had taken place in the previous decade, in Lisbon.The boys who attended the Colégio dos Nobres, a pre-university institution based in the capital, were the first recipients of some of these machines.Their lack of interest and preparation for the Experimental Physics lessons led to the failure of this initiative and the subsequent transfer of the collection to Coimbra.The current collection corresponds to this “founding collection” plus the instruments acquired over the following decades.

The Colégio das Artes was the “waiting room” for the machines that arrived in Coimbra on a morning in 1773 – until they could be housed in the rooms where, according to the 1772 statutes, they were to be kept and the lessons delivered.In the statutes, we find a reference to the organization of the instruments:they should be arranged in a way that follows the sequence of topics covered in the lessons(this sequence of objects is indicated by the letters at the top of the cabinets; note the absence of the letters J and U).The small machines, stored in cabinets, were placed in one room, and in the other, the larger machines, which did not fit inside cabinets.Today, we find the 18th-century instruments in one room and the 19th-century instruments in the other.