Sá de Miranda: memorial

Francisco de Sá de Miranda - (1481? – 1558), a Renaissance poet.

His life

He spent his early years in Coimbra and he made his first studies in Greek, Latin and philosophy in the Monastery of Santa Cruz.

In 1505, he went to the University of Lisbon to study Law where he began, at the same time, attending the Portuguese court and writing poems in the mediaeval style, still dominant in Portugal.

He travelled to Italy in 1521, where he was in touch with many writers and artists of the Renaissance, including Vittorio Collona, Pietro Bembo, Sannazzaro and Ariosto.

On his way home, in 1526, he visited Spain, meeting classical writers such as Juan Boscan and Garcilaso de La Vega.

Back in Portugal in 1526 or 1527, he was again welcomed in Court, where he became friends with King John III and other nobles. Four years after his return he decided to move to Minho, a province in the North of the country, where he purchased land.

Around 1530 he married Briolanja de Azevedo, a lady of noble origins.
In 1552 he moved to Quinta da Tapada, near Amares, where he died around 1558.

His work

As many Portuguese writers of his time, Sá de Miranda often wrote in Spanish, rather than in Portuguese. His early work is all in the form of the typical 15th century Portuguese poetry (the vilancete, the cantiga, the esparsa and the trova). Influenced by his travelling around Italy and Spain, Sá de Miranda introduced a new aesthetics in Portugal. He introduced the sonnet, the elegy, the eclogue and other classical poetic forms, adapting the Portuguese language to the decasillable verse.

Apart from poems, Sá de Miranda wrote two theatrical comedies, following classical forms: Estrangeiros (staged in Coimbra in 1528 and published in 1559) and Vilhalpandos (written around 1530 and published in 1560). His tragedy Cleópatra has only survived in fragments.

He also left several letters in verse, addressed to people like King John III and to his brother Mem de Sá.

In wikipedia.org/