Between 1799 e 1801, the publishing house Casa Literaria do Arco do Cego was fully active in Lisbon and dedicated to publishing scientific and didactic works regarding the application of natural scientific knowledge. It was run by Friar José Mariano da Conceição Veloso, a Brazilian naturalist and tireless translator. To accomplish its aim of bringing progress to the Portuguese kingdom through instruction, Arco do Cego held its activities within a system of patronage in which the Portuguese crown would pay for all of its expenses, including the payment of the translators working for Veloso. One of these translators was Manoel Jacinto Nogueira da Gama, a mathematician, naturalist and lecturer who translated works in the areas of mathematics and engineering. The translations published under Veloso's supervision were introduced by dedicatories and prefaces written in a laudatory tone by the translators, who through such paratexts acknowledged their debt to the Crown and declared their loyalty to the monarchical regime and traditions of the Portuguese society. In this paper, the aim is to show that the translators' paratexts worked as tools for the acceptance of the enlightened scientific principles, because the progressive ideas were presented to the Portuguese readers by discourses written in accordance with the scholastic tradition.
translation; enlightened science; rhetorics