His work, which deals with political and ecclesiastical history, is distinguished by serenity and clarity of style, in interesting contrast with the baroque style of mystical writers to whom he is, however, akin in the situations and spiritual attitudes he describes. But the figure of L. de S. is also famous and popular for an event in his life. On his return to his homeland after captivity in the hands of the Arabs in Algiers (where he shared a prison with Cervantes), he married Donna Maddalena di Vilhena, whose first husband, D. João de Portugal, presumed lost for years in the disastrous African battle of Alcácer-Quibir, suddenly reappeared in Lisbon. To this return Portuguese poetic tradition attributes the pathetic separation, granted between Donna Maddalena and Don Manuel, who both (1613) entered religious life. The event captured the imagination of literature, and J. B. de Almeida Garrett drew inspiration from it for the masterpiece of national Romantic theatre, Frei L. de S.
Giuseppe Carlo Rossi