Also known as:
Infante Ferdinand of Portugal;
Portuguese: Fernando o Infante Santo
FERDINAND (Fernando) of Portugal, the Beato. - Son of John I, King of Portugal, and of Philippa, daughter of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, b. at Santarem on 29 September 1402, d. in prison at Fez (Morocco) on 5 June 1443. Piously educated, he accepted only with reluctance, as a remedy for his poverty, the rank of Grand Master of the Knights of Aviz; but he refused the cardinalate offered to him by Eugene IV.
With his brother, Henry the Navigator, he led an expedition against the Moors of Africa to drive them out of Tangier; but overwhelmed and defeated, F. was taken as a hostage as a pledge for the cession of Ceuta. When the hope of obtaining this city was lost, the Moors changed their courtesy into maltreatment and the labors of a slave and imprisonment. Transferred from Arzilla to Fez, to the King and his cruel vices, he was left to languish in prison until death. But amid so much suffering, never a word of complaint came from his lips. His companion in captivity João Alvarez, having regained his freedom, brought his heart back to his homeland in 1452; later, his mortal remains too, discovered in 1463, were buried in the church of Our Lady at Batalha, near Leiria. Paul II declared him blessed in 1470.
F. is the hero of one of Calderon's most moving dramas: The Constant Prince, composed in 1629.
Bibliography3 worksJoão Alvarez, Chronica dos feitas, tida e morte do Ifante D. Fernando, Lisbon 1577; Latin version in Acta S.S. Junii, I, Paris 1867, pp. 532
BIBL.: João Alvarez, Chronica dos feitas, tida e morte do Ifante D. Fernando, Lisbon 1577; Latin version in Acta S.S. Junii, I, Paris 1867, pp. 532-86; J. P. Oliveira Martins, Os filhos de D. João I, Lisbon 1891, and the review by A. Sanchez Moguel, in Boletin de la real Acad. de la Mut., 20 (1892), 1), pp. 313-20 add.
Testore, Celestino. “Ferdinando (Fernando) di Portogallo, besto.” In Enciclopedia Cattolica, vol. V, col. 1167. Città del Vaticano: Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico, 1950. https://azioneromana.com/article/ferdinando-fernando-di-portogallo-besto.
MLA
Testore, Celestino. “Ferdinando (Fernando) di Portogallo, besto.” Enciclopedia Cattolica, vol. V, Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico, 1950, col. 1167. Azione Romana, https://azioneromana.com/article/ferdinando-fernando-di-portogallo-besto.
BibTeX
@incollection{ec5_ferdinando_fernando_di_portoga,
author = {Testore, Celestino},
title = {Ferdinando (Fernando) di Portogallo, besto},
booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica},
volume = {V},
pages = {1167},
note = {Cited by column},
publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico},
address = {Città del Vaticano},
year = {1950},
url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/ferdinando-fernando-di-portogallo-besto}
}
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