ZURARA (AZURARA), GOMES EANES de. - Portuguese chronicler, b. at Azurara in 1410, d. in 1474 (?). Keeper of the historical archive of the "Torre do Tombo" in Lisbon, he is the most important early Portuguese chronicler after Fernão Lopes.

His work treats the Portuguese enterprises in Africa, set forth with minute information (often drawn from foreign sources, including Italian ones) and at the same time with realistic vividness; in the evident desire to adhere to the truth of the facts, Z. is inspired by a high sense of national historical mission, the "expansion of the faith and of the empire" (to translate the celebrated expression that would later belong to the national poet Camões). Around the principal work, the Chrónica da descoberta e da conquista da Guiné, to which is owed, among other things, the most effective portrayal of the great instigator of the Portuguese maritime exploits, Prince Henry the Navigator, there cluster, among other works written, on the whole, at the urging of King Alfonso V, the Chrónica da tomada de Ceuta and the Chrónica de dom João.

Bibliography2 works

BIBL.: the principal work of Z. was published for the first time in 1841, and republished in 1937. E. Prestage, The Chronicles of Fernão Lopes and G. E. de Z., Wofford 1922; J. de Carvalho, Sobre a erudição de G. E. de Z., in Estudos sobre a cultura portuguesa do século XV, I, Coimbra 1949, pp. 1-241.

Giuseppe Carlo Rossi

@incollection{ec12_zurara_azurara_gomes_eanes_de, author = {Rossi, Giuseppe Carlo}, title = {Zurara (Azurara), gomes eanes de}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {XII}, pages = {1830}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1954}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/zurara-azurara-gomes-eanes-de} }

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Zurara (Azurara), Gomes Eanes de

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