Gil Vicente (; c. 1465c. 1536), called the Trobadour, was a Portuguese playwright and poet who acted in and directed his own plays. Considered the chief dramatist of Portugal he is sometimes called the "Portuguese Plautus," often referred to as the "Father of Portuguese drama" and as one of Western literature's greatest playwrights. Also noted as a lyric poet, Vicente worked in Spanish as much as he worked in Portuguese and is thus, with Juan del Encina, considered joint-father of Spanish drama.
Vicente was attached to the courts of the Portuguese kings Manuel I and John III. He rose to prominence as a playwright largely on account of the influence of Queen Dowager Leonor, who noticed him as he participated in court dramas and subsequently commissioned him to write his first theatrical work.
He may also have been identical to an accomplished goldsmith of the same name at the court of Évora; the goldsmith is mentioned in royal documents from 1509 to 1517 and worked for the widow of King John II, Dona Leonor. He was the creator of the famous Belém Monstrance, and master of rhetoric of King Manuel I.
His plays and poetry, written in both Portuguese and Spanish, were a reflection of the changing times during the transition from Middle Ages to Renaissance and created a balance between the former time of rigid mores and hierarchical social structure and the new society in which this order was undermined.
While many of Vicente's works were composed to celebrate religious and national festivals or to commemorate events in the life of the royal family, others draw upon popular culture to entertain, and often to critique, Portuguese society of his day.
Though some of his works were later suppressed by the Portuguese Inquisition, causing his fame to wane, he is now recognised as one of the principal figures of the Portuguese Renaissance."Vicente, Gil". The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. Columbia University Press, 2006.
Life
The year 1465, the date proposed by Queirós Veloso, is the commonly accepted year of Vicente's birth. However, Braamcamp Freire proposes the year 1460, while de Brito Rebelo proposes between 1470 and 1475. Vicente's own works indicate contradictory dates. The Velho da Horta ("Old Man of the [Vegetable] Garden"), the Floresta de Enganos ("Forest of Mistakes"), and the Auto da Festa ("Act of the Party") indicate 1452, 1470, and before 1467, respectively. Since 1965, when official festivities commemorating the 500th birthday of the writer were held, the date of 1465 has been almost universally accepted.
Though Frei Pedro de Poiares conjectured Barcelos was Vicente's birthplace, evidence for this is scarce. Despite this, the people of Barcelos honored the playwright by naming their own football club after him. Pires de Lima, on the other hand, proposed Guimarães, which better accounts for Vicente's identification as a jeweller. The people of Guimarães have embraced this theory; a municipal school in Urgezes is named after the playwright. There are some stories about Gil Vicente's father, that he was from this parish in Guimarães, so people believe that Gil Vicente had lived here too. Another conjecture places his birthplace at Lisbon. The Beira region is also a candidate because of various references to it in his plays, more exactly the location of Guimarães de Tavares, that has been mistaken with Guimarães.
Vicente married his first wife Branca Bezerra in 1490. The couple had two sons. Following Bezerra's death in 1514, Vicente married Melícia Rodrigues in 1517. He had three children with Rodrigues: Paula (born ), Luis (born ), and Valeria (born ). Luis organized and published a compilation of Gil Vicente's work in 1562.
It is well known the presence of the playwright in Santarém, on 26 January, during the 1531 Lisbon Earthquake, where rumors quickly spread, apparently encouraged by the friars of Santarém, that the disaster was divine punishment (Latin: "Ira Dei"- Wrath of God) and that the Jewish community was to blame. Faced with social instability in the city, Gil Vicente, reportedly, personally defused the situation while scolding the friars for their fear-mongering in a powerfully written letter to King John III, and possibly averting a massacre of Jews and recent converts to Christianity.
Vicente's last work is dated to 1536, and he was dead by 1540. The precise year of his death is unknown, and the location is variously given as Évora or Torres Vedras.
Career It is assumed that Vicente studied in Salamanca. Though he initially studied law, he soon abandoned it for literature.
As a writer
In 1493, he was acting as master of rhetoric to the Duke of Beja, afterwards King Manuel, a post which gave him admission to the court. His first known work, O Monólogo do vaqueiro ("Monologue of the Cowherd"), was written in Spanish and acted in the rooms of Maria of Aragon, wife of King Manuel, to celebrate the birth of Prince John (later John III of Portugal). The first performance, recited by the playwright himself, took place on the night of 8 June 1502, in the presence of the king; the queen; Leonor of Viseu, former Queen of Portugal and widow of John II; and Beatriz of Portugal, mother of the King.
O Monólogo do vaqueiro contains several elements clearly inspired by the Adoration of the Shepherds which takes place in accounts of Christ's birth. Its staging included offerings of simple and rustic gifts, such as cheese, to the future king, from whom great achievements were expected.
Though Leonor asked him to give an encore performance of the play at the Christmas matins, Vicente decided to write a new play for the occasion, the Auto Pastoril Castelhano ("Castilian Pastoral Act"). The court, pleased again, required a further diversion for Twelfth Night, whereupon he produced the Auto of the Wise Kings. Because of the influence of Queen Leonor, who would become his greatest patron in the years to come, Gil Vicente realized that his talent would allow him to do much more than simply adapt his first work for similar occasions.
Vicente, who was in charge of organizing events in the palace, also directed the commemoration in honour of Eleanor of Spain, the third wife of Manuel I, in 1520. In 1521, he began serving John III of Portugal, and soon achieved the social status necessary to satirize the clergy and nobility with impunity. His popularity even enabled him to contradict the opinions of the king, as he did in a 1531 letter defending the New Christians.
For thirty years he entertained the courts, accompanying them as they moved from place to place, and providing by his autos a distraction in times of calamity, and in times of rejoicing giving expression to the feelings of the people. Though himself both actor and author, Gil Vicente had no regular company of players, but it is probable that he easily found students and court servants willing to get up a part for a small fee, especially as the plays would not ordinarily run for more than one night.
As a goldsmith Many works about Gil Vicente associate him with a goldsmith of the same name at the court of Évora;"Vicente, Gil". Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 2006. technical terms used by the playwright lend credibility to this identification.
In 1881, Camilo Castelo Branco wrote the letter "" ("Gil Vicente, Refutations of the Opinion of Mr. Teófilo Braga"), which argued that Gil Vicente the writer and Gil Vicente the goldsmith were two different people. Teófilo Braga, who initially believed them to be the same man, later adopted a different opinion after reading a study by Sanches de Baena which showed the different genealogy of two individuals named Gil Vicente. However, Brito Rebelo demonstrated the historical inconsistency of these two genealogies by the use of documents from the Portuguese national archive.
Between 1503 and 1506, Vicente the goldsmith crafted the famous Belém Monstrance for the Jerónimos Monastery using gold brought back from East Africa following Vasco da Gama's second voyage to India. The monstrance features a ceremonial canopy framed by two high pinnacled counterforts, resembling the portal of the Church of Belém.
Three years later, he became overseer of the patrimonies of the Convento de Cristo in Tomar, Nossa Senhora de Belém, and the Hospital de Todos-os-Santos in Lisbon. In 1511, he was nominated vassal of the King, and a year later he was the representative jeweller in the Casa dos Vinte e Quatro. In 1513, as master of the balance of the Casa da Moeda, the Portuguese national mint, Vicente the goldsmith was elected by the others masters to represent them in Lisbon.
Written works
Vicente's oeuvre spans the years between 1500 and 1536. Most of his plays were intended for performance at court, where he and the ladies and gentlemen of the court participated in their production. He wrote no fewer than forty-four pieces, ten of which are in Spanish, fourteen in Portuguese, and the remainder in mingled Portuguese and Spanish. His plays may be grouped into four main categories: acts, or devotional plays; comedies tragicomedies; and farces.
Like Spain's classical dramas, his plays are often in verse form. In addition, they feature his own musical compositions and well as popular lyrics and melodies of the time.
He was also a noted lyric poet in both Portuguese and Spanish, as represented by several poems in the Cancioneiro of Garcia de Resende. He wrote a number of vilancetes and cantigas ("songs") which were influenced by a palatial style and the themes of the troubadours.
Some of his works are profoundly religious, while other are particularly satirical, particularly when commenting upon what Vicente perceived as the corruption of the clergy and the superficial glory of empire which concealed the increasing poverty of Portugal's lower classes.
Characteristics Vicente's works were partially influenced by the Iberian popular and religious theatre that was already being done. Pastoral themes present in the writings of Juan del Encina strongly influenced Vicente's early works and continued to inform his later, more sophisticated plays. The humanism of Erasmus and of Renaissance Italy also impacted his work.
Luís Vicente, his son, classified Vicente's sacred plays as acts and mysteries and his secular plays as farces, comedies, and tragicomedies. His plays may be further divided into pastoral acts, religious allegories, biblical narratives, episodical farces, and narrative acts. However, many of his works blend both secular and sacred elements; for example, Triologia das Barcas ("Trilogy of the Ships") contains both farcical and religious motifs.
Vicente is one of the most important satirical authors of the Portuguese language. His satires were severely critical, anticipating Jean-Baptiste de Santeul's later epigram (often mistakenly attributed to Horace or Molière), castigat ridendo mores ("[Comedy] criticises customs through humour"). He portrayed Portuguese society of the 16th century with perceptiveness and insight, using many characters inspired by Portuguese social stereotypes of his time. In addition, rustic characters, such as sailors, gypsies, and peasants, are common, as are more fantastical characters such as fairies and demons. Though he commonly referenced popular dialects, Vicente maintained the lyricism of his words.