Livro do Armeiro-Mor
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The Livro do Armeiro-Mor is an illuminated manuscript dating back to 1509, during the reign of King Manuel I of Portugal. The codex is an armorial, a collection of heraldic arms, authored by the King of Arms João do Cró. It is considered one of the masterpieces of illuminated manuscripts preserved in Portugal, alongside, for example, the Apocalypse of Lorvão, from the 12th century, the Book of Hours of King Duarte, or the contemporary Bible of the Jerónimos Monastery and Book of Hours of Manuel I, also produced for the Venturoso. Being the oldest surviving Portuguese armorial to this day, being the oldest source we have regarding certain arms, and also for the beauty of its magnificent illuminations, it is considered the most important Portuguese armorial. It has been called the "supreme monument of what we can call Portuguese heraldic culture."[1]
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The work is called this because it was entrusted to the custody of the Armorer-Major D. Álvaro da Costa, appointed in 1511, in whose family the position and the custody of the book remained for more than ten generations. For this reason, the Livro do Armeiro-Mor escaped the great 1755 Lisbon earthquake, which destroyed, among many other things, the Chancellery of Nobility. The book was also the origin of the Book of Nobility and Perfection of Arms, still in the first half of the 16th century. The Thesouro de Nobreza, in the third quarter of the 17th century, somewhat followed the model of João do Cró's work.
This article lists all the nearly four hundred arms in the Livro do Armeiro-Mor, in the exact order in which they are presented in the five chapters of the work.