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- Title
Visions of Europe in the "Memórias de um Fidalgo de Chaves" (Memoirs of a Nobleman of Chaves) (1510-1517). Society, daily life and power in an unpublished manuscript of the sixteenth century.
- Authors
LOPES, Paulo Esmeraldo Catarino
- Abstract
May 21st, 1510, an anonymous nobleman servant of the 4th Duke of Braganza, D. Jaime, begins his journey from Chaves to Rome, only to return to Portugal in September 1517. After his return he writes an extensive account traditionally known as Memórias de um Fidalgo de Chaves. Starting from the only known manuscript copy of this original lost in Portuguese, whose writing is chronologically situated in the second half of the sixteenth century, we transcribe and study this precious and unique document, on the one hand, representing a time and a space crucial to European history, and, on the other hand, a privileged testimony, we would say in many ways unique, of a "Portuguese" look at Renaissance Rome, at the dawn of the sixteenth century. Throughout the seven parts that compose this dissertation we tried to highlight the many problems inherent to the construction of the text by its author. Thus, in the first instance, we inquire about the value of the source as a historical document, that is, as a reflection of the epoch it intends to describe. The second part, in turn, is polarized around the question of authorship and the onomastic identity of the nobleman of Chaves. Next we analyze a thematic transversal to the whole text: power. It is our intention here to explore this topic in its multiple expressions and evidences, with particular emphasis on embassies to the pontifical curia where feasts, propaganda and symbolic power are structuring nuclei, the new model of the prince marking the beginning of the modern state and the Roman Curia itself with all its pragmatism and an ample network of complicities and powers in practice. The fourth great moment of our study explains the military context of the time by the voice of the nobleman of Chaves. In his account, the author shows how, within the framework of the confrontation of the emerging powers, Spain and France, the political destiny of Europe is decided in the greater theater of the development of the Wars of Italy (1494-1559). From the description of the armed conflicts to the appeal to the Wars of the Crusades, to the new armaments and the innovative language of military architecture in Italy, nothing escapes the gaze of the nobleman and his implacable, but also emotional, critical judgment. A fifth part aims at the heterogeneous Roman society and its intense daily life, as well as structural topics in the source as diplomacy, the new social type of the court man, the Roman built heritage and the Roman cosmopolitanism of the sixteenth century. The sixth step of our work focuses on the critical reading of the exercises of alterity present in the document. Finally, the seventh and last part of our dissertation consists of the integral transcription and fixation of the manuscript text of the Memórias de um Fidalgo de Chaves, a necessary step for its study and its use by other researchers.
- Subjects
DUKES (Nobility); PORTUGUESE literature; MANUSCRIPTS
- Publication
E-Journal of Portuguese History, 2019, Vol 17, Issue 2, p235
- ISSN
1645-6432
- Publication type
Abstract