Publication Date
2009
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A unique figure of the Portuguese Renaissance: a humanist, an historian and epistolographer, a traveller, a diplomat and a highly placed Royal official. He was born in Alenquer, the son of Rui Dias de Góis, a nobleman who had been at the service of King Manuel; his mother, Isabel Gomes de Limi, was a descendant of Flemish merchants living in Portugal. In 1511, he joined the court as page, and soon formed a close friendship with the heir to the throne, Prince João (b. 1502). When his father died, in 1513, he was taken in the Royal household as Groom in the Privy Chamber of King Manuel. After the monarch's death, in December, 1521, the new sovereign, King João III, appointed him secretary to a Portuguese factory in Antwerp, in 1523, a position left vacant when the former secretary, Rui Fernandes de Almada, rose to the post of factor.
Between 1523 and the year of his return to Portugal, 1545, Damião de Góis lived abroad, except for a short stay in the kingdom, in 1533. The multiform experience he gained in his travels built in him a cosmopolitan spirit which would later account for his self-portrayal as a "pilgrim in many lands". In the lively Europe of those days, intellectual excitement and religious diversity ruled. Against this background, Góis visited places like Antwerp, Danzig, Upsala, Louvain, Paris, Vilnius, Strasbourg and Cracow, on government missions of diplomatic and commercial nature. In 1529 he was in Poland, sent by the King in order to make arrangements for the wedding of Prince Luís to the Polish king's daughter. In 1531, on his return to Poland after a mission in the court of Denmark, Damião de Góis passed by Wittemberg, where he met Luther and Melanchton.
His temporary return to the Kingdom in 1533 had a very specific reason: Dom João III summoned him to hold the post of treasurer in the House of India. The King's decision was based on the already solid cosmopolitan reputation of Góis. Furthermore, his work in the Flemish factory had brought him prestige. He was regarded as a man of knowledge and wide horizons, as well as an experienced adviser on economical matters. He had been asked to order chronicles, tapestries and illuminations for kings and princes; he was on close terms with both scholars and artists - in all missions assigned to him he succeeded. However, Góis declined the Royal offer, and ceased his activity in Flanders as well.
We find him in Fribourg in the early months of 1534, as a guest of Erasmus of Rotterdam. Other humanists he was on close terms with at the time were Glareanus, Amerbach, Dürer and Münster. In 1534, he travels to Padua where he devotes himself to University studies until 1539. His travels over a large part of Italy enable him to meet eminent names of the Italian humanism. He becomes close to cardinals Bembo and Sadoleto, as well as to the historian and geographer Ramusio. He makes the acquaintance of Ignatius Loyola. But it is in Louvain that his studies are completed, in Collegium Trilingue. There he marries to Johanna van Hargen, born to a wealthy family, the daughter of a Dutch adviser in the court of Charles V. While there, he publishes in Latin the Commentarii Rerum Gestarum in India (1539); the following year, another book comes out: Fides, Religio, Moresque Aethioporum sub Imperio Preciosi Joanni, a work clearly influenced by Erasmus's thought, and that brought him notoriety in the Humanistic circles of cultivated Europe.
Some time after, Góis participates in the military force defending Louvain against the French troops. He is taken prisoner and sent free in 1543. In 1545, three years after the siege of Louvain, Damião de Góis returns to Portugal with his family. The Royal couple had called him to tutor their son, heir to the throne (b. 1537). At the same time, the activities of the Ecumenical Council were taking place in Trent. Góis is for the first time formally accused of heterodoxy to the Inquisition, already established in the Portuguese kingdom since 1536, by Father Simão Rodrigues, a former fellow student in Padua, a friend of Ignatius Loyola, and provincial in the Society of Jesus, in Portugal. Due to the accusation, the Royal invitation is removed, and the post is given to António Pinheiro. However, Góis's international prestige and good relations with the King and several highly placed courtiers, as Cardinal Dom Henrique, protected him from suffering any further consequences.
In 1548, when Fernão de Pina is arrested by the Inquisition, Damião de Góis is appointed chief keeper of Torre do Tombo, the national archive. Having privileged access to documental sources in the royal archives proved determinant for Góis to succeed in the task commissioned by Dom Henrique in 1558: to write the history of the reign of Dom Manuel, the Cardinal's father. Although he wasn't the Royal Chronicler, a post held by António Pinheiro, he set to work on the Crónica do Felicíssimo Rei D. Manuel (Chronicle of King Dom Manuel). The book was published in 1566, and met with hostility in some circles within the highest ranks of Portuguese nobility. The following year the author proceeded to revise Part I, and a reprint came out, at the same time that a new book was edited, the Crónica do Príncipe D. João o Segundo do Nome (Chronicle of Dom João II).
In 1571, a very different ideological and spiritual atmosphere pervaded Portugal, when compared to 1533, the year of his first trip back to Portugal. Góis was one of the last survivors of a by-gone generation. An old man in poor health, deprived of friendly help at court, Góis was for the second time accused of heresy and condemned by the Inquisition. He was arrested and kept in prison from April, 1571 to December, 1572, under particularly harsh conditions, after being found guilty of charges that declared him "heretic, Lutheran, pertinacious, and negative". In addition to this sentence of reclusion all his possessions were confiscated. The man who had always kept an intense contact with many correspondents all over Europe, and used to host his guests with pomp and merriment, died in January, 30th, on obscure and controversial circumstances. He was buried in the church of Santa Maria da Várzea, in Alenquer.
Even though some previous books by Góis had preceded the well-known Fides, Religio Moresque Aethiopum (namely, the first appearing in printed from, the Legatio Magni Indorum Imperatoris Presbyteri Ioannis, about the visit to Portugal, in 1514, of the Ethiopian ambassador, Mateus, published in Antwerp, in 1532), Fides made Góis internationally known. At the heart of this narrative, published in 1540, is the delegation of King David II to Dom João III, in 1526, presided by the bishop Zagazabo. The author demonstrates his allegiance to Erasmus's evangelism, by considering that the doctrinarian and ritualistic differences of Ethiopian Christianity, that had caused a great commotion of disapproval within the Royal theologians at home, should not stand in the way of a communion with the Christian Church. These words spread all over Europe, as the book was translated and printed several times in Paris, Louvain, and Brussels. In England, it was translated by one of Thomas More's sons. In Portugal, book-censorship under the Inquisition's control prohibited it in 1541.
As a reputed humanist close to the Crown, Góis's role in Europe was to report and to bring approval upon all the changes and adjustments caused by the Portuguese expansion in the world, namely in the East. So it happened, for example, with respect to the legitimacy of the Portuguese monopoly of the Eastern spice trade, widely criticized in Europe. Erasmus alluded to it on unfavourable terms in the 1527 edition of Chrysostomi Lucubrationes. Not surprisingly, the Portuguese court responded disapprovingly to Erasmus's words, who in his turn withdrew the inscription dedicated to Dom João III from the 1530 edition of the book. A highly polemical debate on the same theme divided Góis and the Genovese Paolo Giovio. With the Humanistic circles watching closely all developments concerning the controversy, Góis voiced the official Portuguese stance on the matter, arguing that the trade was essentially a means of conveying Christ's message to remote parts of the world. In 1549, he published in Louvain a book inscribed to Prince Dom Luís, on the victories of Dom João de Castro in the East.
As an historian, Damião de Góis produced a consistent work, accurate and unbiased, even at the prospect of rousing hostility over himself, as he sometimes did. Moreover, he succeeded in channelling his first-hand knowledge of both the court and the King for writing purposes. Some passages in Crónica do Felicíssimo Rei D. Manuel provide good examples of his skill at using privileged information for the benefit of writing. The book is also a faithful record of Portuguese historiography in the 16th century, configuring maritime expansion and Empire formation. The general background favoured the chronicling of overseas successes, especially those relating to the East. Expansion became a topic increasingly autonomous in the written production of Portuguese historians. One should therefore not be surprised before a textual narrative predominantly concerned with the Empire theme, as is the chronicle about Dom Manuel. Besides Góis, the most important Portuguese historians of the 16th century, like Fernão Lopes de Castanheda, João de Barros, and Diogo do Couto, show the same disposition. A long process of narrative synthesis followed thus on the path of celebrating the course of Expansion. Until about 1630, 70% of the narratives produced by the historians were about the Portuguese presence in Asia.
António José Saraiva once defined Damião de Góis as "a curious blend of humanism and business, of Latin and sugar". His life mirrors many of the challenges, crossroads and oppositions surrounding Portuguese and European life in the 16th century, and features the man and the historian as a major figure within the most gleaming and cosmopolitan side of Portuguese Renaissance.
Bibliography:
BARRETO, Luís Filipe, Damião de Goes. Os caminhos de um humanista, Lisboa, CTT - Correios de Portugal, 2002. Damião de Góis: humanista português na Europa do Renascimento, com. Científico Amadeu Torres, Lisboa, Biblioteca Nacional, 2002. HENRIQUES, Guilherme João Carlos, Inéditos Goesianos, fac-simile da edição de 1896-98, 2 vols., Arruda dos Vinhos, Arruda Editora, 2002. HIRSCH, Elisabeth Feist, Damião de Góis, 2ª edição, Lisboa, Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, 2002. SARAIVA, António José, História da Cultura em Portugal, vol. III, Lisboa, Jornal do Fôro, 1962. SERRÃO, Joaquim Veríssimo, A Historiografia Portuguesa. Doutrina e Crítica, vol. I, Séculos XII-XVI, Lisboa, Editorial Verbo, 1972.
Translated by: Leonor Sampaio da Silva
Between 1523 and the year of his return to Portugal, 1545, Damião de Góis lived abroad, except for a short stay in the kingdom, in 1533. The multiform experience he gained in his travels built in him a cosmopolitan spirit which would later account for his self-portrayal as a "pilgrim in many lands". In the lively Europe of those days, intellectual excitement and religious diversity ruled. Against this background, Góis visited places like Antwerp, Danzig, Upsala, Louvain, Paris, Vilnius, Strasbourg and Cracow, on government missions of diplomatic and commercial nature. In 1529 he was in Poland, sent by the King in order to make arrangements for the wedding of Prince Luís to the Polish king's daughter. In 1531, on his return to Poland after a mission in the court of Denmark, Damião de Góis passed by Wittemberg, where he met Luther and Melanchton.
His temporary return to the Kingdom in 1533 had a very specific reason: Dom João III summoned him to hold the post of treasurer in the House of India. The King's decision was based on the already solid cosmopolitan reputation of Góis. Furthermore, his work in the Flemish factory had brought him prestige. He was regarded as a man of knowledge and wide horizons, as well as an experienced adviser on economical matters. He had been asked to order chronicles, tapestries and illuminations for kings and princes; he was on close terms with both scholars and artists - in all missions assigned to him he succeeded. However, Góis declined the Royal offer, and ceased his activity in Flanders as well.
We find him in Fribourg in the early months of 1534, as a guest of Erasmus of Rotterdam. Other humanists he was on close terms with at the time were Glareanus, Amerbach, Dürer and Münster. In 1534, he travels to Padua where he devotes himself to University studies until 1539. His travels over a large part of Italy enable him to meet eminent names of the Italian humanism. He becomes close to cardinals Bembo and Sadoleto, as well as to the historian and geographer Ramusio. He makes the acquaintance of Ignatius Loyola. But it is in Louvain that his studies are completed, in Collegium Trilingue. There he marries to Johanna van Hargen, born to a wealthy family, the daughter of a Dutch adviser in the court of Charles V. While there, he publishes in Latin the Commentarii Rerum Gestarum in India (1539); the following year, another book comes out: Fides, Religio, Moresque Aethioporum sub Imperio Preciosi Joanni, a work clearly influenced by Erasmus's thought, and that brought him notoriety in the Humanistic circles of cultivated Europe.
Some time after, Góis participates in the military force defending Louvain against the French troops. He is taken prisoner and sent free in 1543. In 1545, three years after the siege of Louvain, Damião de Góis returns to Portugal with his family. The Royal couple had called him to tutor their son, heir to the throne (b. 1537). At the same time, the activities of the Ecumenical Council were taking place in Trent. Góis is for the first time formally accused of heterodoxy to the Inquisition, already established in the Portuguese kingdom since 1536, by Father Simão Rodrigues, a former fellow student in Padua, a friend of Ignatius Loyola, and provincial in the Society of Jesus, in Portugal. Due to the accusation, the Royal invitation is removed, and the post is given to António Pinheiro. However, Góis's international prestige and good relations with the King and several highly placed courtiers, as Cardinal Dom Henrique, protected him from suffering any further consequences.
In 1548, when Fernão de Pina is arrested by the Inquisition, Damião de Góis is appointed chief keeper of Torre do Tombo, the national archive. Having privileged access to documental sources in the royal archives proved determinant for Góis to succeed in the task commissioned by Dom Henrique in 1558: to write the history of the reign of Dom Manuel, the Cardinal's father. Although he wasn't the Royal Chronicler, a post held by António Pinheiro, he set to work on the Crónica do Felicíssimo Rei D. Manuel (Chronicle of King Dom Manuel). The book was published in 1566, and met with hostility in some circles within the highest ranks of Portuguese nobility. The following year the author proceeded to revise Part I, and a reprint came out, at the same time that a new book was edited, the Crónica do Príncipe D. João o Segundo do Nome (Chronicle of Dom João II).
In 1571, a very different ideological and spiritual atmosphere pervaded Portugal, when compared to 1533, the year of his first trip back to Portugal. Góis was one of the last survivors of a by-gone generation. An old man in poor health, deprived of friendly help at court, Góis was for the second time accused of heresy and condemned by the Inquisition. He was arrested and kept in prison from April, 1571 to December, 1572, under particularly harsh conditions, after being found guilty of charges that declared him "heretic, Lutheran, pertinacious, and negative". In addition to this sentence of reclusion all his possessions were confiscated. The man who had always kept an intense contact with many correspondents all over Europe, and used to host his guests with pomp and merriment, died in January, 30th, on obscure and controversial circumstances. He was buried in the church of Santa Maria da Várzea, in Alenquer.
Even though some previous books by Góis had preceded the well-known Fides, Religio Moresque Aethiopum (namely, the first appearing in printed from, the Legatio Magni Indorum Imperatoris Presbyteri Ioannis, about the visit to Portugal, in 1514, of the Ethiopian ambassador, Mateus, published in Antwerp, in 1532), Fides made Góis internationally known. At the heart of this narrative, published in 1540, is the delegation of King David II to Dom João III, in 1526, presided by the bishop Zagazabo. The author demonstrates his allegiance to Erasmus's evangelism, by considering that the doctrinarian and ritualistic differences of Ethiopian Christianity, that had caused a great commotion of disapproval within the Royal theologians at home, should not stand in the way of a communion with the Christian Church. These words spread all over Europe, as the book was translated and printed several times in Paris, Louvain, and Brussels. In England, it was translated by one of Thomas More's sons. In Portugal, book-censorship under the Inquisition's control prohibited it in 1541.
As a reputed humanist close to the Crown, Góis's role in Europe was to report and to bring approval upon all the changes and adjustments caused by the Portuguese expansion in the world, namely in the East. So it happened, for example, with respect to the legitimacy of the Portuguese monopoly of the Eastern spice trade, widely criticized in Europe. Erasmus alluded to it on unfavourable terms in the 1527 edition of Chrysostomi Lucubrationes. Not surprisingly, the Portuguese court responded disapprovingly to Erasmus's words, who in his turn withdrew the inscription dedicated to Dom João III from the 1530 edition of the book. A highly polemical debate on the same theme divided Góis and the Genovese Paolo Giovio. With the Humanistic circles watching closely all developments concerning the controversy, Góis voiced the official Portuguese stance on the matter, arguing that the trade was essentially a means of conveying Christ's message to remote parts of the world. In 1549, he published in Louvain a book inscribed to Prince Dom Luís, on the victories of Dom João de Castro in the East.
As an historian, Damião de Góis produced a consistent work, accurate and unbiased, even at the prospect of rousing hostility over himself, as he sometimes did. Moreover, he succeeded in channelling his first-hand knowledge of both the court and the King for writing purposes. Some passages in Crónica do Felicíssimo Rei D. Manuel provide good examples of his skill at using privileged information for the benefit of writing. The book is also a faithful record of Portuguese historiography in the 16th century, configuring maritime expansion and Empire formation. The general background favoured the chronicling of overseas successes, especially those relating to the East. Expansion became a topic increasingly autonomous in the written production of Portuguese historians. One should therefore not be surprised before a textual narrative predominantly concerned with the Empire theme, as is the chronicle about Dom Manuel. Besides Góis, the most important Portuguese historians of the 16th century, like Fernão Lopes de Castanheda, João de Barros, and Diogo do Couto, show the same disposition. A long process of narrative synthesis followed thus on the path of celebrating the course of Expansion. Until about 1630, 70% of the narratives produced by the historians were about the Portuguese presence in Asia.
António José Saraiva once defined Damião de Góis as "a curious blend of humanism and business, of Latin and sugar". His life mirrors many of the challenges, crossroads and oppositions surrounding Portuguese and European life in the 16th century, and features the man and the historian as a major figure within the most gleaming and cosmopolitan side of Portuguese Renaissance.
Bibliography:
BARRETO, Luís Filipe, Damião de Goes. Os caminhos de um humanista, Lisboa, CTT - Correios de Portugal, 2002. Damião de Góis: humanista português na Europa do Renascimento, com. Científico Amadeu Torres, Lisboa, Biblioteca Nacional, 2002. HENRIQUES, Guilherme João Carlos, Inéditos Goesianos, fac-simile da edição de 1896-98, 2 vols., Arruda dos Vinhos, Arruda Editora, 2002. HIRSCH, Elisabeth Feist, Damião de Góis, 2ª edição, Lisboa, Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, 2002. SARAIVA, António José, História da Cultura em Portugal, vol. III, Lisboa, Jornal do Fôro, 1962. SERRÃO, Joaquim Veríssimo, A Historiografia Portuguesa. Doutrina e Crítica, vol. I, Séculos XII-XVI, Lisboa, Editorial Verbo, 1972.
Translated by: Leonor Sampaio da Silva