O poeta quinhentista André Falcão de Resende

Abstract

A life of André Falcão de Resende (1527-1599) of whom little was known before is here presented for the first time. He was born in Évora and was better known to his contemporaries by the name of André Falcão. A nephew of the historian and poet Garcia de Resende and second cousin (sometimes called nephew) of the humanist André de Resende, he has special interest not yet duly recognized for those concerned with the study of ideas and life around the year 1580 so crucial in Portuguese history. Moreover his translations of Horace are the most numerous and some of them among the best done in Portuguese in the sixteenth century and constitute an important chapter for the study of Horace’s influence on Portuguese poetry. The biography is based on documents mainly from the archives in Lisbon, Coimbra and Évora, many of them presented for the first time, and on a new interpretation of the poet’s own works.