Fernão Lopes de Castanheda (Santarém, c. 1500 – 1559 in Coimbra) was a

Portuguese Portuguese may refer to: * anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal ** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods ** Portuguese language, a Romance language *** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language ** Portu ...

historian A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the stu ...

in the early

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass ideas ...

. His "History of the discovery and conquest of India", full of geographic and ethnographic objective information, was widely translated throughout Europe.

Life

Castanheda was the natural son of a royal officer, who held the post of judge in

Goa Goa () is a state on the southwestern coast of India within the Konkan region, geographically separated from the Deccan highlands by the Western Ghats. It is located between the Indian states of Maharashtra to the north and Karnataka to the ...

. In 1528, he accompanied his father to

Portuguese India The State of India ( pt, Estado da Índia), also referred as the Portuguese State of India (''Estado Português da Índia'', EPI) or simply Portuguese India (), was a state of the Portuguese Empire founded six years after the discovery of a se ...

and to the

Moluccas The Maluku Islands (; Indonesian: ''Kepulauan Maluku'') or the Moluccas () are an archipelago in the east of Indonesia. Tectonically they are located on the Halmahera Plate within the Molucca Sea Collision Zone. Geographically they are located eas ...

. There he remained ten years, from 1528 to 1538, during which he gathered as much information as he could about the discovery and conquest of India by the Portuguese, in order to write a book on the subject. In 1538, he returned to Portugal, having collected from written and oral sources material for his great historical work. In serious economic difficulties, he settled in Coimbra, where he held a modest post of

bedel The bedel (from medieval Latin ''pedellus'' or ''bidellus'', occasionally ''bidellus generalis'', from Old High German ''bital'', ''pital'', "the one who invites, calls"; cognate with beadle) was, and is to some extent still, an administrative ...

in the

University of Coimbra The University of Coimbra (UC; pt, Universidade de Coimbra, ) is a Public university, public research university in Coimbra, Portugal. First established in Lisbon in 1290, it went through a number of relocations until moving permanently to Coi ...

Works

Eight of the ten books of Castanheda's "História do descobrimento e conquista da Índia pelos portugueses" (History of the discovery and conquest of India by the Portuguese) were printed in Coimbra: the first volume was issued in 1551, with a second edition in 1554. Six more volumes were published in his lifetime and three posthumously. After the eighth volume was issued, regent Queen D. Catarina, pressured by few noblemen who disliked the objectivity of Castanheda, banned the printing of the remaining ninth and tenth volumes. His work, full of geographic and ethnographic information, was soon widely translated throughout Europe, first into French by Nicolas de Grouchy,Nicolas de Grouchy (1510–1572) was a French scholar and writer who, after receiving many accolades, was called by

John III of Portugal John III ( pt, João III ; 7 June 1502 – 11 June 1557), nicknamed The Pious (Portuguese: ''o Piedoso''), was the King of Portugal and the Algarves from 1521 until his death in 1557. He was the son of King Manuel I and Maria of Aragon, the thi ...

to teach Greek and philosophy at Coimbra until the end of 1549, when he returned to Normandy. He was

Montaigne Michel Eyquem, Sieur de Montaigne ( ; ; 28 February 1533 – 13 September 1592), also known as the Lord of Montaigne, was one of the most significant philosophers of the French Renaissance. He is known for popularizing the essay as a liter ...

's instructor at the Collège de Guyenne with

André de Gouveia André de Gouveia (1497 – 9 June 1548) was a Portuguese humanist and pedagogue during the Renaissance. Biography André de Gouveia became one of the first Portuguese to study in the Collège Sainte-Barbe, in Paris, which was then directed ...

, which could explain at least a partial impact on Montaigne's understanding of the New World, shedding some light on some of the source material for his numerous essays. a teacher at the University, Spanish (1554), Italian (1578) and English (1582).

References

External links

*
The first booké of the historie of the discouerie and conquest of the East Indias, enterprised by the Portingales, Book I, 1582
(full text in English).
História do descobrimento e conquista da Índia pelos portugueses, Book I
(full text in Portuguese).
História do descobrimento e conquista da Índia pelos portugueses, Book III
(full text in Portuguese).
História do descobrimento e conquista da Índia pelos portugueses, Book IV-V
(full text in Portuguese).
História do descobrimento e conquista da Índia pelos portugueses, Book VIII
(full text in Portuguese).

(in Portuguese).
História do descobrimento e conquista da Índia pelos portugueses - Books I-VIII, first edition
(Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal; full text in Portuguese) {{DEFAULTSORT:Castanheda, Fernao Lopes de 1500s births 1559 deaths Portuguese exploration in the Age of Discovery 16th-century Portuguese historians Portuguese chroniclers Portuguese travel writers Portuguese Renaissance writers University of Coimbra alumni Portuguese India Maritime history of Portugal People from Santarém, Portugal