The foundation of the University in Portugal was due to a request made to Pope Nicholas IV, in 1288, to set up an institution dedicated to general studies in Lisbon. In 1537, however, the University moved to Coimbra (but only after its headquarters moved back and forth between Lisbon and Coimbra a number of times). It was only in the 19th century that institutions dedicated to higher education were be founded in the capital: the Medical and Surgical School of Lisbon (1836), the Pharmacy School (1836), the Polytechnic (1837) and the Higher Course of Letters (1859).
Under a decree passed on 22 March 1911, these four schools were brought under the auspices of the Universidade de Lisboa upon the establishment of the University Constitution on 19 April, 1911. They subsequently changing their names to those we know them by today: the Faculties of Science, Medicine, Law, Psychology, Letters, Pharmacy, etc.
More recently, and linked to these different Faculties, many research centres were opened up, together with laboratories and museums, namely the National Museum of Natural History (which includes the Bocage Museum, the Botanical Gardens and Museum, the Mineral and Geology Museum) and the Science Museum.

Faculty of Letters
http://www.fl.ul.pt/

The Faculty of Letters was a continuation of the course launched by King D. Pedro V in 1859 in Lisbon, in what was then called the College of Higher Education of Letters. Between 1859 and 1958 it was located in a building loaned by the Lisbon Academy of Science. During the academic year of 1958/59, however, its new home was inaugurated at the University Campus (University City). From the 83 students enrolled in 1911, numbers soared to a record 10,000 in 1967 (there were about 1,100 students in 1952/3 and 2,000 when the transfer to the new building was completed in 1959/60).
The new buildings of the Faculties of Law and Letters, together with the Rectorate were designed by distinguished Portuguese architect Profírio Pardal Monteiro and concluded, after his death, by his nephew António Pardal Monteiro. The facades of the three buildings have drawings carved by modernist painter and writer Almada Negreiros.
Scientific research at the Faculty of Letters has progressed largely through a growing number of institutes (about twenty at present) which are linked to different departments, as well as to the research centres which belong to the Universidade de Lisboa (the research units being funded by the Science and Technology Foundation). The journal edited by the Faculty of Letters (founded in 1933) and the numerous specialized publications produced by its departments, institutes and centres make available much of what is the output of the research work conducted at the Faculty by graduate students, researchers and teachers.
Throughout the 20th century, several important intellectuals who were eminent professors of the Faculty, left their mark on the scientific and pedagogical life of the Faculty as well as on Portuguese culture in general, as was the case, among others, of Manuel Antunes, Hernâni Cidade, Luís Filipe Lindley Cintra, Jacinto Prado Coelho, Jorge Borges de Macedo, David Mourão-Ferreira, Vitorino Nemésio, Virgínia Rau, Mário Chicó, Orlando Ribeiro, Delfim Santos, António José Saraiva, Urbano Tavares Rodrigues.