Sousa, Luis de (Manuel de Sousa Coutinho)

SOUSA, Luis de (Manuel de Sousa Coutinho). - Portuguese historian, b. at Santarém, lived from 1555 to 1632.

His work, which deals with political and ecclesiastical history, is distinguished by its serenity and clarity of style, in interesting contrast with the baroque manner of the mystical writers, to whom he should instead be compared for the analogy of situations and spiritual attitudes. But the figure of L. de S. is famous and popular also because of an event in his life. On his return to his homeland from the captivity he had endured at 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, given up for lost years earlier in the disastrous African battle of Alcácer-Québi, later reappeared suddenly in Lisbon: to this return Portuguese poetic tradition attributes the pathetic separation, granted between Donna Maddalena and Don Manuel, who both (1613) devoted themselves to the religious life. Literature seized upon the event, and J. B. de Almeida Garrett drew inspiration from it for the masterpiece of the national romantic theater, Frei L. de S.

Giuseppe Carlo Rossi