André de Resende

André de Resende (c. 1498/1500 –1573) was a Portuguese humanist Dominican friar, classical scholar, poet, and antiquarian.^[2] Resende is regarded as the father of archeology in Portugal.^[3]

André de Resende
Born	c. 1498/1500 Évora, Portugal
Died	(1573-12-09)9 December 1573 Évora, Portugal
Nationality	Portuguese
Occupation(s)	Dominican friar,[a] humanist

Early life and travels

Resende was born c. 1498 in Évora, the son of Pêro Vaz de Resende and Ângela Leonor de Góis.^[4] After his father died, he entered the local Dominican Order at the age of ten or twelve.^[4][5]

Education

Resende spent much of his youth traveling through Spain, France, and the Low Countries.^[6] In Spain, he attended the universities of Salamanca and Alcalá de Henares,^[4][6] studying Latin, Greek, and Hebrew.^[7] In France, he received theological training in Paris, Marseille, and Aix, becoming archdeacon of St. Maxime-les-Baumes.^[5]

In the late 1520s and early 1530s, Resende resided in Belgium, specifically the cities of Leuven and Brussels.^[8] He continued his education in Leuven, developing close ties with his Latin professor, Conrad Goclenius, a close friend of Erasmus.^[9][10][b] Goclenius helped Resende publish his first Latin poem, Encomium urbis et academiae, in 1530 and subsequently a poem in praise of Erasmus, Desiderii Erasmi Roterodami Encomium.^[12] Impressed, Erasmus wrote to Resende expressing admiration of the poem and requesting more of his work. Resende responded by sending him a copy of Genethliacon Principis Lusitani, or Birthday Poem to the Portuguese Prince, which had been written for the newly born Prince Manuel.^[13] Despite this correspondence and Resende's deep admiration for Erasmus, the two never met in person.^[10][13] Still, in his letters to Damião de Góis, a close friend of Resende, Erasmus repeatedly inquired about the Portuguese poet.^[14]

While studying under Goclenius, Resende encountered other notable humanists, namely Johannes Secundus and Marius Nizolius.^[15] He also befriended Nicolaus Clenardus and offered him a position to serve as a tutor at the Portuguese court.^[16]

Service to Charles V

After several years of study, Resende departed from Leuven in 1531 and went to the court of Emperor Charles V in Brussels to work alongside the Portuguese ambassador, Pedro de Mascarenhas.^[8][11]

In 1532 and 1533, in the entourage of Charles V, Resende travelled across the Holy Roman Empire, residing briefly in Regensburg, Bologna, and Barcelona.^[17] During his stay in Bologna, he had access to a press and published a series of lengthy works (Genethliacon, Epicedion, and his satirical Epistola de Vita Aulica ad Speratum Ferrarium) as well as a few short poems.^[18] In July 1533, while the entourage was in Barcelona, Resende and Mascarenhas left the Emperor's Court and headed to the Portuguese Court in Évora.^[19]

Career in Portugal

Resende returned to Portugal in 1533 and remained there for the rest of his life, becoming one of the most eminent humanists in the country.^[20] He was a familiar figure at the court of King John III, where he led a group of Erasmian scholars and acted as tutor to the Infante D. Duarte.^[21][22][c] Resende expressed disdain for life at court, complaining about the lack of leisure and stating he'd prefer to live abroad.^[23] He also expressed frustration with the academic conservatism that existed in Portugal.^[24]

Beginning in 1551, Resende was a professor of Sacred Theology at the University of Coimbra.^[2] After administration of the university was taken over by Jesuits in 1555, the contracts of Resende and other humanists were not renewed, and subsequently Resende went back to Évora.^[25]

In addition to teaching, Resende devoted himself to the study of antiquities,^[26] especially with respect to Évora.^[6] An admirer of ancient Rome and devout Catholic, Resende sought to construct a past and, by extension, a cultural identity for Portugal that was simultaneously Roman and Christian.^[27] In 1553, he published his História da antiguidade da cidade de Évora (History of the Antiquity of the City of Évora).^[6] In this work he claims that the Roman general Sertorius resided in Évora and frames him as a symbol of Lusitanian independence.^[28] He also argues that Évora is one of the oldest Christian cities in the Peninsula.^[29] In his comprehensive study of Iberian antiquarianism, De Antiquitatibus Lusitaniae,^[2] Resende largely neglects the period between the Romans and the Reconquista, making no reference to the era that Portugal was under Islamic rule.^[30] Besides the aforementioned works, Resende also wrote two books on aqueducts and one on ancient epitaphs.^[31]

After years of semi-retirement, Resende died in his home in Évora on 9 December 1573.^[19] At the time of his death, he was still working on De Antiquitatibus Lusitaniae. The work was completed posthumously and published in 1593.^[32]

Resende is buried in the chapel of the right transept of the Cathedral of Évora.

Legacy

Together with Clenardus, Resende is considered a pioneer in advancing Christian humanism in Renaissance Portugal.^[33]

Although Resende's work was largely endorsed in his time, modern historians deem his construction of Portuguese history with regards to Rome as largely fabricated with little basis.^[29] Moreover, in the 19th century epigraphy specialist Emil Hübner concluded that an inscription brought forth by Resende, supposedly from ancient Rome, was inauthentic.^[34][35][d] Accordingly, Philip Spann (1981) describes Resende as "one of the great 16th-century forgers of inscriptions."^[37]

Notes

1. Historian John Martyn writes that Resende no longer wore Dominican habit after the death of Cardinal Afonso in 1540.^[1]
2. Resende had travelled to Leuven in hopes of meeting Erasmus, whose work he greatly respected. However, the Dutch humanist had already left for Basel in 1521.^[11]
3. Resende later wrote Duarte's biography.^[22]
4. The inscription corroborated Resende's assertion that Sertorius lived in the city and was responsible for the construction of its aqueduct.^[7] Although the artifact is universally recognized as a fake, modern archeologists concur that a Roman aqueduct did once bring water from Divor to Évora, somewhat validating Resende's claim.^[36]