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'''Gomes Eanes de Zurara''' (c. 1410 – 1474), sometimes spelled '''Eannes''' or '''Azurara''', was the second of the notable ] ]s, after ]. '''Gomes Eanes de Zurara''' (c. 1410 – 1474), sometimes spelled '''Eannes''' or '''Azurara''', was the second of the notable ] ]s, after ].


== Life and Career ==
⚫ He adopted the career of letters in middle life. He probably entered the royal library as assistant to Lopes during the reign of ] (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 ]. It contains some account of the life work of that prince, and has a biographical as a geographical interest.

⚫ Gomes Eanes de Zurara adopted the career of letters in middle life. He probably entered the royal library as assistant to ] during the reign of King ] (1433-1438), and he had sole charge of it in 1452. His ''Chronicle of the Siege and Capture of Ceuta'', a supplement (third part) to Lopes's ''Chronicle of King John I'', 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 ]. It contains some account of the life work of that prince, and has a biographical as a geographical interest.


On 6 June 1454 Zurara became chief keeper of the archives and royal chronicler in succession to Lopes. In 1456 King ] commissioned him to write the history of ], the land-gate of the East, under the governorship of D. ], 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. ], captain of ], and, proceeding to Africa, he spent a year in the town collecting materials and studying the scenes of the events he was to describe, and in 1468 he completed the chronicle. Afonso corresponded with Zurara on terms of affectionate intimacy, and no less than three ]s of the order of Christ rewarded his literary services. On 6 June 1454 Zurara became chief keeper of the archives and royal chronicler in succession to Lopes. In 1456 King ] commissioned him to write the history of ], the land-gate of the East, under the governorship of D. ], 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. ], captain of ], and, proceeding to Africa, he spent a year in the town collecting materials and studying the scenes of the events he was to describe, and in 1468 he completed the chronicle. Afonso corresponded with Zurara on terms of affectionate intimacy, and no less than three ]s of the order of Christ rewarded his literary services.
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Zurara had 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 ]. 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 a historian he is laborious, accurate and conscientious, though his position did not allow him to tell the whole truth about his hero, Prince Henry. Zurara had 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 ]. 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 a historian he is laborious, accurate and conscientious, though his position did not allow him to tell the whole truth about his hero, Prince Henry.


== Chronicles ==
⚫ His works include:

⚫ Zurara's works include:
* ''Chronica del Rei D. Joam I de boa memória. Terceira parte em que se contam a Tomada de Ceuta'' (Lisbon, 1644) * ''Chronica del Rei D. Joam I de boa memória. Terceira parte em que se contam a Tomada de Ceuta'' (Lisbon, 1644)
* ''Chronica do Descobrimento e Conquista da Guiné'' (Paris, 1841; Eng. version by Edgar Prestage in 2 vols. issued by the Hakluyt Society, London, 1896-1899: ''The Chronicle of Discovery and Conquest of Guinea''), * ''Chronica do Descobrimento e Conquista da Guiné'' (Paris, 1841; Eng. version by Edgar Prestage in 2 vols. issued by the Hakluyt Society, London, 1896-1899: ''The Chronicle of Discovery and Conquest of Guinea''),
:*, :*,
:* :*
:* :*


* ''Chronica do Conde D. Pedro de Menezes)'', printed in the ''Inéditos de Historia Portugueza'', vol. ii (Lisbon, 1792) * ''Chronica do Conde D. Pedro de Menezes)'', printed in the ''Inéditos de Historia Portugueza'', vol. ii (Lisbon, 1792)
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The preface to the English version of the ''The Chronicle of Discovery and Conquest of Guinea'' contains a full account of the life and writings of Azurara and cites all the authorities. The preface to the English version of the ''The Chronicle of Discovery and Conquest of Guinea'' contains a full account of the life and writings of Azurara and cites all the authorities.

== Chronicle of the Henrican Discoveries ==

Zurara's ''Crónica dos feitos da Guiné'' is the principal historical source for modern conception of Prince ] and the Henrican age of ] (although Zurara only covers part of it, the period 1434-1448). Commissioned by Henry himself,<ref>Zurara, ''Crónica dos feitos da Guiné'', (Ch.1, p.3).</ref> Zurara's chronicle is openly hagiographic of the prince and reliant on his recollections. As a result, the reliability of Zurara's chronicles is considered suspect by modern historians.<ref>e.g. Duarte Leite (1941), Magalhaes Godinho (1945), Diffie and Winius (1977: p.48n) Russell (2000, p.5).</ref> Nonetheless, having little else to draw upon, historians have had to rely heavily on Zurara.

Zurara claims to have based his account of the expeditions on a more detailed draft manuscript compiled by a certain "Antonio Cerveira".<ref> Zurara (, ch. 56 and ch.84)</ref>. Alas, no copy of Cerveira's original account has ever been found. <ref> For a brief note on the possible identities of Cerveria, see ''Monumenta Henricina'', vol 8: . However, Teixeira da Mota (p.12-13) believes that ] may have had access to sources outside of Zurara, so possibly Cerveira's manuscript was still extant in the archives around 1507-10. However, Barros, writing in 1552, found no trace of it.</ref>. Zurara's own chronicle remained in manuscript form, and hidden from the public eye for centuries. Indeed, until the publication of ]'s ''Primeira Década da Ásia'' in 1552, there were no published works about the Henrican discoveries, save for the two brief memoirs of ] (published originally in Italy in 1507).

João de Barros claimed to have constructed his 1552 account on the basis of a copy of Zurara's manuscript he found scattered in the archives. However, a little over a decade later, ] (writing in 1567), announced that the Zurara manuscript had disappeared.<ref>], ''Chronica do prinçipe Dom Ioam'',</ref> A hunt for a copy of the manuscript began, but would turn up nothing for a while. The Spanish cleric ], writing in 1540s, suggested he had a copy of Zurara, but that copy too was never tracked down.<ref>Leite (1941). Teixeira da Mota (1946: 13)</ref>

]
It was only in 1839, that an intact and splendid preserved manuscript copy of Zurara's ''Cronica'' was rediscovered in the Royal Library of Paris (now the ]) by Ferdinand Denis (how it ended up there is a mystery). Significantly, the Paris codex included a frontispiece with a portrait of a man with a thin moustache in a black Burgundian chaperon that was instantly assumed to be the physical image of Prince ] (there were no pictures of Henry before this; the Paris frontispiece became the basis of modern images of the prince, reproduced in countless books, paintings and monuments since). Luís António de Abreu e Lima (Viscount de Carreira), the Portuguese minister to France at the time, arranged for the first publication of Zurara's ''Cronica'' in 1841, with a preface and notes by Manuel Francisco de Macedo Leitão e Carvalhosa (Viscount of Santarém).<ref>Original title in full was: ''Chronica do Descobrimento e Conquista da Guiné, escrita por mandado de El-Rei D. Affonso V, sob a direcção scientifica, e segundo as instrucções do illustre Infante D. Henrique, pelo Chronista Gomes Eannes de Azurara, fielmente trasladada do manuscrito original contemporaneo, que se conserva na Bibliotheca Real de Pariz, e dada pela primeira vez á luz per deiligencia do Visconde de Carreira, Enviado Extraordinario e Ministro Plenipotentiario de S. Majestade Fidelissima na corte da França, precedida de uma Introducção, e illustrada com algumas notas pelo Visconde de Santarem, Socio da Academia real das Sciencias de Lisboa, e de um grande numero d'Academias e sociedades sabias em Hespanha, França, Italia, Inglaterra, Hollanda, Suecia, e America, etc., e seguida d'um Glossario das Palavras e Phrases Antiquadas e Obsoletas''. It was published in Paris by J.P. Aillaud in quarto., running 474 pages, with the frontispiece portrait. </ref> The publication was a sensation, particularly as Portugal was then engaged in a diplomatic quarrel over recent Anglo-French colonial encroachments in West Africa where questions of priority of discovery were involved (to which Santarem contributed.)<ref>Santarem (1841), Teixeira da Mota (1946: p.15-17)</ref>

A second manuscript copy was found shortly after, 1845, by ] in the ] in Munich (Codex Hisp. 27), as part of a collection of miscellaneous accounts of Portuguese expeditions originally compiled in 1508 by Lisbon-based German printer known as ] (or in Portuguese, as "Valentim Fernandes"). However, this version contains only extracts, and much abridged. <ref>See Schmeller's (1847) description. Also Beazley's introduction to English translation of Zurara (1896: p.lvi]). </ref>


== References == == References ==

{{Reflist}}

== Sources ==
* {{Wikisource1911Enc Citation|Azurara, Gomes Eannes de}} * {{Wikisource1911Enc Citation|Azurara, Gomes Eannes de}}

* ] (1552) ''Primeira Década da Ásia: Dos feitos, que os Portuguezes fizeram no descubrimento, e conquista, dos mares, e terras do Oriente.''.

* C.R. Beazley and E. Prestage, editors (1896-99) ''The Chronicle of the Discovery and Conquest of Guinea'', London: Hakluyt, ,

* Diffie, Bailey W., and George D. Winius (1977) ''Foundations of the Portuguese empire, 1415-1580'' Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press

* Duarte Leite (1941) ''Acerca da «Crónica dos Feitos de Guinee», '''. Lisbon: Bertrand

* Magalhães Godinho, Vitorino de (1945) ''Documentos sôbre a Espansão Portuguesa'', 2 vols, Lisbon: Gleba.

* ] (1567) ''Chronica do prinçipe Dom Ioam: rei que foi destes regnos segundo do nome, em que summariamente se trattam has cousas sustançiaes que nelles aconteçerão do dia de seu nasçimento atte ho em que el Rei Dom Afonso seu pai faleçeo'', 1905 edition, A.J. Gonçálvez Guimarãis ed. Coimbra: Imprensa da Universidade.

* ''Monumenta Henricina'' (1960-1947), Manuel Lopes de Almeida, Idalino Ferreira da Costa Brochado and Antonio Joaquim Dias Dinis, editors, Coimbra. 14 volumes.

* Santarem, Visconde de (1841) ''Memória sôbre a prioridade dos descobrimentos portugueses na costa d'Africa occidental, para servir de ilustracao à Chronica da Conquista de Guiné por Azurara''. Paris: J.P. Aillaud

* ] (1847) "Ueber Valentim Fernandez Alemão und seine Sammlung von Nachrichten über die Entdeckungen und Besitzungen der Portugiesen in Afrika und Asien bis zum Jahre 1508, enthalten in einer gleichseitigen portugiesischen Handschrift der köngl. Hof-und Staats-Bibliothek zu München.", ''Abhandlungen der Philosophisch-Philologischen Classe der Königlich Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften'', Munich, Vol. 4, Part 3.

* Russell, Peter E. (2000) ''Prince Henry 'the Navigator': a life''. New Haven, Conn: Yale University Press.

* Teixera da Mota, A. (1946) "A Descoberta da Guiné, Pt. 1", ''Boletim cultural da Guiné Portuguesa'', Vol. 1. No. 1 (Jan), p.11-68.



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Revision as of 17:46, 7 June 2011

A depiction of Zurara on the pedestal of the Camões monument, by Victor Bastos, 1860-67 (Praça Luís de Camões, Lisbon)

Gomes Eanes de Zurara (c. 1410 – 1474), sometimes spelled Eannes or Azurara, was the second of the notable Portuguese chroniclers, after Fernão Lopes.

Life and Career

Gomes Eanes de Zurara adopted the career of letters in middle life. He probably entered the royal library as assistant to Fernão Lopes during the reign of King Edward of Portugal (1433-1438), and he had sole charge of it in 1452. His Chronicle of the Siege and Capture of Ceuta, a supplement (third part) to Lopes's Chronicle of King John I, 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 a geographical interest.

On 6 June 1454 Zurara became chief keeper of the archives and royal chronicler in succession to Lopes. In 1456 King Afonso 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 Alcácer-Ceguer, and, proceeding to Africa, he spent a year in the town collecting materials and studying the scenes of the events he was to describe, and in 1468 he completed the chronicle. Afonso corresponded with Zurara on terms of affectionate intimacy, and no less than three comendas of the order of Christ rewarded his literary services.

Zurara had 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 a historian he is laborious, accurate and conscientious, though his position did not allow him to tell the whole truth about his hero, Prince Henry.

Chronicles

Zurara's works include:

  • Chronica del Rei D. Joam I de boa memória. Terceira parte em que se contam a Tomada de Ceuta (Lisbon, 1644)
  • Chronica do Descobrimento e Conquista da Guiné (Paris, 1841; Eng. version by Edgar Prestage in 2 vols. issued by the Hakluyt Society, London, 1896-1899: The Chronicle of Discovery and Conquest of Guinea),
  • Chronica do Conde D. Pedro de Menezes), printed in the Inéditos de Historia Portugueza, vol. ii (Lisbon, 1792)
  • Chronica do Conde D. Duarte de Menezes, printed in the Inéditos, vol. iii (Lisbon, 1793)

The preface to the English version of the The Chronicle of Discovery and Conquest of Guinea contains a full account of the life and writings of Azurara and cites all the authorities.

Chronicle of the Henrican Discoveries

Zurara's Crónica dos feitos da Guiné is the principal historical source for modern conception of Prince Henry the Navigator and the Henrican age of Portuguese discoveries (although Zurara only covers part of it, the period 1434-1448). Commissioned by Henry himself, Zurara's chronicle is openly hagiographic of the prince and reliant on his recollections. As a result, the reliability of Zurara's chronicles is considered suspect by modern historians. Nonetheless, having little else to draw upon, historians have had to rely heavily on Zurara.

Zurara claims to have based his account of the expeditions on a more detailed draft manuscript compiled by a certain "Antonio Cerveira".. Alas, no copy of Cerveira's original account has ever been found. . Zurara's own chronicle remained in manuscript form, and hidden from the public eye for centuries. Indeed, until the publication of João de Barros's Primeira Década da Ásia in 1552, there were no published works about the Henrican discoveries, save for the two brief memoirs of Alvise Cadamosto (published originally in Italy in 1507).

João de Barros claimed to have constructed his 1552 account on the basis of a copy of Zurara's manuscript he found scattered in the archives. However, a little over a decade later, Damião de Góis (writing in 1567), announced that the Zurara manuscript had disappeared. A hunt for a copy of the manuscript began, but would turn up nothing for a while. The Spanish cleric Bartolomé de las Casas, writing in 1540s, suggested he had a copy of Zurara, but that copy too was never tracked down.

Frontispiece of Zurara's Crónica dos Feitos de Guiné (Paris codex)

It was only in 1839, that an intact and splendid preserved manuscript copy of Zurara's Cronica was rediscovered in the Royal Library of Paris (now the Bibliothèque nationale de France) by Ferdinand Denis (how it ended up there is a mystery). Significantly, the Paris codex included a frontispiece with a portrait of a man with a thin moustache in a black Burgundian chaperon that was instantly assumed to be the physical image of Prince Henry the Navigator (there were no pictures of Henry before this; the Paris frontispiece became the basis of modern images of the prince, reproduced in countless books, paintings and monuments since). Luís António de Abreu e Lima (Viscount de Carreira), the Portuguese minister to France at the time, arranged for the first publication of Zurara's Cronica in 1841, with a preface and notes by Manuel Francisco de Macedo Leitão e Carvalhosa (Viscount of Santarém). The publication was a sensation, particularly as Portugal was then engaged in a diplomatic quarrel over recent Anglo-French colonial encroachments in West Africa where questions of priority of discovery were involved (to which Santarem contributed.)

A second manuscript copy was found shortly after, 1845, by J.A. Schmeller in the Hof- und Staats-Bibliothek in Munich (Codex Hisp. 27), as part of a collection of miscellaneous accounts of Portuguese expeditions originally compiled in 1508 by Lisbon-based German printer known as Valentinus Moravus (or in Portuguese, as "Valentim Fernandes"). However, this version contains only extracts, and much abridged.

References

  1. Zurara, Crónica dos feitos da Guiné, (Ch.1, p.3).
  2. e.g. Duarte Leite (1941), Magalhaes Godinho (1945), Diffie and Winius (1977: p.48n) Russell (2000, p.5).
  3. Zurara (ch.32, ch. 56 and ch.84)
  4. For a brief note on the possible identities of Cerveria, see Monumenta Henricina, vol 8: p.87. However, Teixeira da Mota (p.12-13) believes that Duarte Pacheco Pereira may have had access to sources outside of Zurara, so possibly Cerveira's manuscript was still extant in the archives around 1507-10. However, Barros, writing in 1552, found no trace of it.
  5. Damião de Góis, Chronica do prinçipe Dom Ioam,Ch.6
  6. Leite (1941). Teixeira da Mota (1946: 13)
  7. Original title in full was: Chronica do Descobrimento e Conquista da Guiné, escrita por mandado de El-Rei D. Affonso V, sob a direcção scientifica, e segundo as instrucções do illustre Infante D. Henrique, pelo Chronista Gomes Eannes de Azurara, fielmente trasladada do manuscrito original contemporaneo, que se conserva na Bibliotheca Real de Pariz, e dada pela primeira vez á luz per deiligencia do Visconde de Carreira, Enviado Extraordinario e Ministro Plenipotentiario de S. Majestade Fidelissima na corte da França, precedida de uma Introducção, e illustrada com algumas notas pelo Visconde de Santarem, Socio da Academia real das Sciencias de Lisboa, e de um grande numero d'Academias e sociedades sabias em Hespanha, França, Italia, Inglaterra, Hollanda, Suecia, e America, etc., e seguida d'um Glossario das Palavras e Phrases Antiquadas e Obsoletas. It was published in Paris by J.P. Aillaud in quarto., running 474 pages, with the frontispiece portrait. copy online
  8. Santarem (1841), Teixeira da Mota (1946: p.15-17)
  9. See Schmeller's (1847) description. Also Beazley's introduction to English translation of Zurara (1896: p.lvi]).

Sources

  • C.R. Beazley and E. Prestage, editors (1896-99) The Chronicle of the Discovery and Conquest of Guinea, London: Hakluyt, v.1, v.2
  • Diffie, Bailey W., and George D. Winius (1977) Foundations of the Portuguese empire, 1415-1580 Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press
  • Duarte Leite (1941) Acerca da «Crónica dos Feitos de Guinee», '. Lisbon: Bertrand
  • Magalhães Godinho, Vitorino de (1945) Documentos sôbre a Espansão Portuguesa, 2 vols, Lisbon: Gleba.
  • Damião de Góis (1567) Chronica do prinçipe Dom Ioam: rei que foi destes regnos segundo do nome, em que summariamente se trattam has cousas sustançiaes que nelles aconteçerão do dia de seu nasçimento atte ho em que el Rei Dom Afonso seu pai faleçeo, 1905 edition, A.J. Gonçálvez Guimarãis ed. Coimbra: Imprensa da Universidade. online
  • Monumenta Henricina (1960-1947), Manuel Lopes de Almeida, Idalino Ferreira da Costa Brochado and Antonio Joaquim Dias Dinis, editors, Coimbra. 14 volumes.
  • Santarem, Visconde de (1841) Memória sôbre a prioridade dos descobrimentos portugueses na costa d'Africa occidental, para servir de ilustracao à Chronica da Conquista de Guiné por Azurara. Paris: J.P. Aillaud
  • J.A. Schmeller (1847) "Ueber Valentim Fernandez Alemão und seine Sammlung von Nachrichten über die Entdeckungen und Besitzungen der Portugiesen in Afrika und Asien bis zum Jahre 1508, enthalten in einer gleichseitigen portugiesischen Handschrift der köngl. Hof-und Staats-Bibliothek zu München.", Abhandlungen der Philosophisch-Philologischen Classe der Königlich Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Munich, Vol. 4, Part 3. online
  • Russell, Peter E. (2000) Prince Henry 'the Navigator': a life. New Haven, Conn: Yale University Press.
  • Teixera da Mota, A. (1946) "A Descoberta da Guiné, Pt. 1", Boletim cultural da Guiné Portuguesa, Vol. 1. No. 1 (Jan), p.11-68.
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