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Encyclopedia Britannica



AZURARA, GOMES EANNES DE (?-1474)

This article appears in Volume V03, Page 86 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: AUD-BAI
AZURARA, GOMES EANNES DE (?-1474) , the second notable Portuguese chronicler in order of date. He adopted the career of letters in middle life. He probably entered the royal library as assistant to Fernao Lopes (q.v.) during the reign of King Duarte (1433-1438), and he had sole charge of it in 1452. His Chronicle of the Siege and Capture of Ceuta, a supplement to the Chronicle of King John I., by Lopes,
dates
  from 1450, and three years later he completed the first draft of the Chronicle of the Discovery and Conquest of
Guinea
 , our authority for the early Portuguese voyages of discovery down the African coast and in the ocean, more especially for those undertaken under the auspices of Prince
Henry
  the Navigator. It contains some account of the life
work
  of that prince, and has a biographical as well as a geographical
interest
 . On the 6th of June 1454 Azurarabecame
chief
  keeper of the archives and royal chronicler in succession to Fernao Lopes. In 1456 King Alphonso V. commissioned him to write the history of Ceuta, " the land-gate of the
East
 ," under the governorship of D. Pedro de Menezes, from its capture in 1415 until 1437, and he had it ready in 1463. A year afterwards the king charged him with a history of the deeds of D. Duarte de Menezes, captain of Alcacer, and, proceeding to Africa, he spent a twelvemonth in the town collecting materials and studying the scenes of the events he was to describe, and in 1468 he completed the chronicle. Alphonso corresponded with Azurara on terms of affectionate intimacy, and no less than three commendas of the order of Christ rewarded his literary services. He has little of the picturesque ingenuousness of Lopes, and loved to display his erudition by quotations and philosophical reflections, showing that he wrote under the influence of the first Renaissance. Nearly all the leading classical, early Christian and medieval writers figure in his pages, and he was acquainted with the notable chronicles and romances of Europe and had studied the best Italian and Spanish authors. In addition, he had mastered the geographical system of the ancients and their
astrology
 . As an historian he is laborious, accurate and conscientious, though his position did not allow him to tell the whole truth about his hero, Prince
Henry
 .
His works include: (I) Chronica del Rei D. Joam I. Terceira perte em que se contem a tomada de Ceuta (Lisbon, 1644) ; (2) Chronica do Descobrimento e Conquista de Guine (Paris, 1841; Eng. version in 2 vols. issued by the Hakluyt Society, London, 1896-1899) ; (3) Chronica do
Conde
  D. Pedro (de Menezes), printed in the Ineditos de Historic Portugueza, vol. ii. (Lisbon, 1792) ; (4) Chronica do
Conde
  D. Duarte de Menezes, printed in the Ineditos, vol. iii. (Lisbon, 1793). The preface to the English version of the Chronicle of
Guinea
  contains a full account of the life and writings of Azurara and cites all the authorities. (E. PR.)


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