André de Resende

André de Resende
Born	1498 (1498) Évora, Portugal
Died	Évora, Portugal
Nationality	Portuguese
Occupation	Dominican friar, humanist

André de Resende OP (Latin: Lucius Andreas de Resendius; 1498 – 9 December 1573) was a 16th-century Portuguese friar and scholar, professor of literature, orator, poet and his country's first archaeologist.

Biography

He was born in Évora into a commoner family of modest means. He lost his father at the age of two; his mother died in 1527. At the age of eight, he became a pupil of the famous Évora grammarian Estêvão Cavaleiro. Probably around the age of ten, he entered the Dominican convent in his native town, where he made his profession. At the age of thirteen, his mother decided to send him to Spain to study at the University of Alcalá de Henares, where he attended the classes of Antonio de Nebrija. He returned to Portugal in 1517, and then left again, probably in 1521, for the University of Salamanca, where he was an auditor for his compatriot Aires Barbosa (who was the famous university's first professor of Greek).

He left for France around 1525. In one of his letters, he states that he lived in Marseille for two years, and was ordained sub-deacon, then deacon, near Aix-en-Provence. He also says that at the time of his mother's death (1527), he was in Paris. It was there that he met the Flemish Nicolas Cleynaerts, who was teaching Greek there at the time. In September 1529, he was in Louvain.

His stay at the famous Brabant university was decisive. There, he made friends with the German latinist Conrad Goclenius, a friend of Erasmus, who taught Latin at the Collegium Trilingue, and with the Flemish Rutgerus Rescius, who taught Greek. At Goclenius's request, he put into Latin a long letter sent in October 1530 to the King of Portugal by Captain Nuno da Cunha from the town of Cannanore.

He also cultivated Latin poetry with three brothers from Mechelen who became his friends: Johannes Secundus and his older brothers Nicolaus Grudius and Hadrianus Marius. He also met Nicolas Cleynaerts and the Bruges-born Johannes Vasæus; in the summer of 1531, Christopher Columbus' son Ferdinand stayed in Louvain, intending to found a Bibliotheca Colombina in Seville, and Cleynaerts and Vasæus agreed to accompany him.

But the great personality of the time, particularly in Louvain, was Erasmus, who had been cautiously living in Basel (and later Freiburg im Breisgau) since 1521, attracting both enthusiastic support (as the inspiration behind the Collegium Trilingue) and violent rejection (particularly in the faculty of theology, and within the Dominican order to which the young Portuguese belonged). The latter, like his humanist friends, professed the greatest admiration for the illustrious exile: he composed a Latin poem entitled Encomium urbis et academiæ Lovaniensis, which contained a passage celebrating Erasmus and was published in 1530 in the same volume as Johannes Dantiscus' De nostrorum temporum calamitatibus; and then another poem entirely dedicated to the great man, the Erasmi Encomium. In this latter text, he launched a violent attack on an enemy of Erasmus, whose name he withheld "out of caution", but who was easily recognizable: the Dominican Eustache van Rivieren, then Dean of the Faculty of Theology in Louvain, who in December 1530 had published a refutation of the Enchiridion militis christiani (Apologia pro pietate in Erasmi Roterodami Enchiridii canonem quintum). The poem was sent to Erasmus via Conrad Goclenius, and the latter, apparently unaware that Resende was himself a Dominican, had it printed in September 1531 by Jérôme Froben, with the author's name spelled out. The reaction was swift: by November 1531, Resende had to leave Louvain (and the Dominican convent where he surely resided) and take refuge in Brussels. He seems to have been bitter about this episode, and Erasmus seems to have been contrite.

In Brussels, he was received in the house of the Portuguese ambassador Pedro Mascarenhas, a soldier and navigator turned diplomat who was keen to acquire a humanist culture to honor his duties. At the end of December 1531, the ambassador gave sumptuous festivities in the presence of Emperor Charles V and his sister Mary, regent of the Spanish Netherlands, to celebrate the birth in Portugal of Infante Manuel, son of King John III; Resende gives a detailed description of these festivities in his poem Genethliacon (published in Bologna in 1533).

On January 17, 1532, the Portuguese ambassador and his new humanities teacher left Brussels in the Emperor's retinue, which travelled first to Cologne, then to Bonn, Andernach, Koblenz, Mainz, Speyer, before arriving in Regensburg on February 29, where they stayed for six months. Talks were held there with the Protestants. They set off again on September 2, arriving in Vienna on the 23rd. After a brief stay in Vienna, we headed for Italy, arriving in Bologna on December 13. Resende stayed there until February 24, 1533, where he had his Genethliacon, dedicated to King John III, and an Epistola de vita aulica (a satirical poem in 327 lines), dedicated to his friend Sperato Martinho Ferreira. In Cologne, he had also composed a poem on the legend of the eleven thousand virgins (Translatio sacrarum virginum et martyrum Christi, Responsæ et sociæ ejus), printed in Venice in November 1532.

In February 1533, Pedro Mascarenhas was relieved of his duties, and he and Resende both returned to Portugal, where Resende was to remain after an absence of several years. He was put in charge of instructing the princes of the court, then based in Évora, and in particular the younger brothers of King John III, Cardinal-Infante Afonso (who had already been a pupil of Aires Barbosa) and the younger Dom Duarte. In November, he was asked to go to Salamanca, where his friend Nicolas Cleynaerts was then staying, and bring him to Portugal for the instruction of the Infante Henry; but Cleynaerts did not get on well with his pupil, whom he finally left in November 1538 with the intention of going to North Africa to learn Arabic and fight Islam through preaching. Before his departure, in June 1538, Cleynaerts convinced Prince Henry to bring his compatriot and friend Johannes Vasæus, who was also teaching in Salamanca, to Portugal. Vasæus then resided in Évora, where Prince Henry, now archbishop of the city, had founded a college from 1541 to 1550, and he and Resende forged a close relationship.

On May 17, 1534, Resende was commissioned by the Bishop of Évora to deliver the opening sermon of the diocesan synod he had convened. On the following October 1st, he was invited by the University of Lisbon to deliver the Oração da Sapiência (or Oratio pro rostris) marking the start of the academic year, a task normally assigned to a university professor of theology; in this oft-quoted text, he develops a pedagogical project based on the reconciliation of Christianity and ancient culture.

In order to better fulfill his official duties at the palace, he obtained a dispensation from his order to live a conventual life and take the vow of poverty, and bought a property called Quinta do Arcediago, two miles from Évora. But in 1539, he was forced to formally abandon the Dominican order and become a secular priest.

In 1540, the two princes to whom he was close died: Cardinal Infante Afonso (died April 21) and Prince Duarte (died September 20). He suffered particularly from the death of the former, his protector and friend. In the following years, Prince Henry, appointed first archbishop of Évora in 1540, entrusted him with the task of drawing up a new diocesan breviary, a work of considerable scope (Breviarium Eborense, 1548).

In the early 1550s, he taught at the University of Coimbra: on June 28, 1551, the anniversary of the founding of the Royal College of Arts and Humanities, he delivered a new Oraçāo da Sapiência, in fact a panegyric of King John III. But he mainly taught in Évora, at least until the foundation of a university there in 1559, when private schools were forbidden.

He remained famous for his work as an archaeologist, and particularly as an epigraphist, in both Portugal and Spain, collecting stone inscriptions from the Roman and medieval periods. In 1553, he published a História de antiguidade da cidade de Évora in Portuguese, and after his death his great historiographical work appeared in Latin, De Antiquitatibus Lusitaniæ (1593). However, his work was already controversial during his lifetime (criticized among others by Cardinal Miguel da Silva), and it has since been clearly demonstrated that he did not hesitate to produce forgeries, apparently out of misguided patriotism, in favor of the claims of Portugal or his native Évora.

Around the age of 60, he had a natural son, Barnabé, whom he acknowledged on October 7, 1567 without naming the mother. Barnabé married on April 17, 1575 and died on October 18, 1596, leaving a son, Antonio.

André de Resende was buried in the Dominican convent in Évora, a privilege he retained. In 1839, his bones were transferred to the city's cathedral.

Works

In Latin

• Encomium urbis et academiæ Lovaniensis
• Erasmi Encomium
• In Erasmomastygas Iambi
• Genethliacon Principis Lusitani ut in Gallia Belgica celebratum est
• Epistola de vita aulica ad Speratum Martianum Ferrariam Lusitanum (1531)
• Epistola de vita aulica ad Damianum Goium (1535)
• Oratio habita coram sacra synodo Eborensi anno 1534
• Oratio pro rostris pronuntiata in Olisiponensi Academia calendis Octobribus 1534
• Oratio habita Conimbricæ in Gymnasio Regio anniversario dedicationis ejus die quarto calendas Julii 1551
• Oratio de synodis in synodo Eborensi habita anno 1565
• Vita Beati Ægidii Scallabitani Ordinis Prædicatorum (dialogue in four books between the author and two other characters, Inácio de Morais and Luís Pires, on Blessed Giles of Santarém, a 13th-century Dominican, a renewal of the hagiography genre; published in Paris in 1586)
• Vita Vincentii levitæ et martyris (1545)
• Historia sancti Rudesindi episcopi
• Urbis Olisiponis descriptio (1554)
• In obitum D. Johannis III Lusitaniæ regis conquestio
• Sanctæ Elisabeth Portugalliæ quondam reginæ officium
• Ad Philippum Maximum Hispaniarum Regem ad maturandam adversus rebellis Mauros expeditionem cohortatio (1570)
• De verborum conjugatione commentarius (grammar treatise)
• De Antiquitatibus Lusitaniæ libri IV a Lucio Andrea Resendio olim inchoati & a Jacobo Menœtio Vasconcello recogniti atque absoluti. Accessit liber quintus de antiquitate municipii Eborensis (1593)

In Portuguese

• Vida do Infante D. Duarte (1567)
• A santa vida e religiosa conversaçāo de Frei Pedro, porteiro do convento de S. Domingos de Évora (1570)
• História da antiguidade da cidade de Évora
• Fala que Mestre André de Resende fez à Princesa D. Joana nossa Senhora quando logo veio a estes Reinos na entrada da cidade de Évora (speech given to Princess Joanna of Spain on her arrival in Évora in 1552)
• Fala que Mestre André de Resende fez a El-Rei D. Sebastião a primeira vez que entrou em Évora (speech given to King Sebastian I, son of the previous King, on his first entry into Évora on November 5, 1569).

Modern editions

• Obras portuguesas (1963; preface and notes by José Pereira Tavares)
• Vincentius Levita et Martyr (1981; introduction by José V. de Pina Martins)
• Carta a Bartolomeu de Quevedo (1988; translated into Portuguese by Virgínia Soares Pereira)
• On Court Life (1990; translated into English by John R. C. Martin)
• Aegidius Scallabitanus (2000; translated into Portuguese by Virgínia Soares Pereira)
• Algumas Obras de André de Resende, vol. I (1531-1551) (2000)
• Algumas Obras de André de Resende, vol. II (1529-1551) (2008)
• As Antiguidades da Lusitânia (2009; translated into Portuguese by Raul Rosado Fernandes)

References

Bataillon, Marcel (1969). "Humanisme chrétien et littérature: Vivès moqué par Resende," Scrinium Erasmianum, Vol. I, pp. 151–64.

Costa Ramalho, Américo da (1974). "Sobre uma ode de André de Resende," Arquivos do Centro Cultural Português, Vol. VIII, pp. 539–42.

Costa Ramalho, Américo da (1979). "A Conversão Maravilhosa do Português D. Gil — um Diálogo Latino Quase Igno­rado — da Autoria de André de Resende," Revista da Universidade de Coimbra, Vol. XXVII, pp. 239–62.

Costa Ramalho, Américo da (1981–1982). "André de Resende e Erasmo," Humanitas, Vol. XXXIIII-XXXIV, pp. 236–39.

Coutinho, Bernardo Xavier da C. (1934). "Origine, histoire et significations du mot "Os Lusiadas"," Bulletin Hispanique, Vol. XXXVI, No. 4, pp. 432–40.

Ferreira, Francisco Leitão (1916). Notícias da Vida de André de Resende. Lisboa: Arquivo Histórico Português.

Hirsch, Elisabeth Feist (1955). "The Position of Some Erasmian Humanists in Portugal under John III," Bibliothèque d'Humanisme et Renaissance, Vol. XVII, No. 1, pp. 24–35.

Martins José Vitorino de Pina (1982). "Histoire et civilisation du Portugal," École pratique des hautes études, 4e section, Sciences historiques et philologiques. Annuaire 1978-1979, pp. 958–78.

Martyn, John (1987). "A Renaissance Picnic at Resende's Quinta," Portuguese Studies, Vol. III, pp. 70–76.

Martyn, John (1987–1988). "André de Resende and the 11 000 Holy Virgins," Humanitas, Vol. XXXIX-XL, pp. 197–209.

Martyn, John (1988). "The Relashionship between Lúcio Ângelo André de Resende and Iohannes Secundus," Humanistica Lovaniensia, Vol. XXXVII, pp. 244–54.

Martyn, John (1989). "André de Resende — Original Author of Roma Prisca," Bibliothèque d'Humanisme et Renaissance, Vol. LI, No. 2, pp. 407–11.

Pina Martins, José V. de (1981). "Introduction." In: André de Resende, Vincentius levita et martyr. Braga: Barbosa & Xavier.

Sauvage, Odette (1971). L'itinéraire érasmien d'André de Resende. Paris: Centro Cultural Português.

Senos, Nuno (2019). "An Appropriate Past for Renaissance Portugal: André de Resende and the City of Évora." In: Karl A.E. Enenkel and Konrad A. Ottenheym, eds., The Quest for an Appropriate Past in Literature, Art and Architecture. Leiden: Brill, pp. 127–50.

Teyssier, Paul (1979–1980). "Lucius Andreas Resendius. Pourquoi Lucius?," Humanitas, Vol. XXXI-XXXII, pp. 155–65.

Vasconcelos, Carolina Michaëlis de (1905). "Lucius Andreas Resendius: Inventor da Palavra 'Lusíadas'," O Instituto 52, Coimbra, Imprensa da Universidade, pp. 241–50.

External links

• Works by André de Resende at Gallica
• Works by André de Resende at Open Library
• Works by André de Resende at National Library of Spain