Nuno Vila-Santa

Well-known in the historiography for his decision to prior missionaries from India to China and Japan since
1577, the Jesuit visitor Alessandro Valignano (1573-1577) also had a previously important action in India, although
this last one is less mentioned. The main goal of this article is to review Valignano´s first three years as Jesuit visitor
to India, linking his missionary initiatives with his political interventions. Contextualization is, thus, made on his
appointment as visitor and on the impact of his arrival to the Portuguese court, in 1573, in order to understand the
origins of the political debates in which Valignano got involved in Asia and the way those controversies affected his
1577´s decision. Based on the visitor’s main correspondence as well as his Sumário Índico we attempt to reevaluate
the importance of his first visitation to India.

This article aims at detailing the policy or policies adopted by the Portuguese Crown for the state of India
during the reigns of King Sebastian and King Henry of Portugal. Cross-checking the political, social and military
contexts of the kingdom and of Asia, present in the appointment of each one of the governors and viceroys of India
during that period with the main correspondence sent by the Crown to the East allows us to answer some questions:
to what extent did the reigns of the last Avis kings proceed with the tendencies inherited from the reign of King John
III? Can any points of contact be established between the policies of these monarchs and the ones of the philipine
period? Focusing on the policies of the regencies during the minority of King Sebastian, taking into account the
changes that followed during the period of the government of King Sebastian and considering also the policy of the
brief reign of King Henry, we intend to understand the reasons of the well-known failure of the Sebastian reformism.

Resumo: Recorrendo a um conjunto documental inédito presente na Biblioteca do Rio de Janeiro, este artigo pretende estudar a evolução da Casa dos Barretos da Quarteira nos séculos XV e XVI. Partindo das origens da linhagem e da Casa em Portugal, o artigo aborda a estratégia de consolidação patrimonial e de engrandecimento da Casa ao longo do século XV, procurando percepcionar as bases exactas do poder alcançado no século XVI. Esta análise permite compreender como os Barretos da Quarteira evoluíram de uma nobreza de serviço provincial algarvia a uma nobreza de serviço cortesã que foi crescentemente acumulando cargos no Império (Marrocos, Índia e Brasil) durante o século XVI. Neste contexto, procura-se debater as condições que tornaram viável a titulação de uma não titular da Casa, D. Francisca de Aragão, em 1599, como 1º condessa de Ficalho, como corolário de uma estratégia prosseguida anteriormente e que tinha como fito a titulação da Casa. Palavras-chave: Casa. Linhagem. Titulação. Algarve. Curialização. Abstract: Departing from an unpublished documental series found at the Library of Rio de Janeiro, this article intends to study the evolution of the House of the Barretos of Quarteira in the XV and XVI centuries. Starting from the origins of the lineage in Portugal, the article approaches the patrimonial and ennoblement strategies of this House in the XV century in order to fully understand the exact basis of its power in the XVI century. This analysis enables to understand how the Barretos of Quarteira evolved from a provincial nobility from Algarve to a courtesan nobility that accumulated relevant offices in the Portuguese Empire (Morocco, India and Brazil) during the XVI century. This article also attempts to debate the conditions in which the entitlement of a non-titular of the House, D. Francisca de Aragão, as 1ª countess of Ficalho, in 1599, occurred as the consequence of a strategy perceived previously in order to achieve a title for the House.

A revision of the initial version of this text has been made without consulting me before final publication. The initial version can be consulted and the final version that was published can also be checked. In this process, several text was removed and also gross errors were committed in the editing process. Therefore, I wish to correct one error in the final version that was made in the editing process: Such is the case "When de Noronha did not support him in his new position with
supplies and men, he complained to the king, who dismissed de Noronha
and made Barreto viceroy of Goa in his place". Moniz Barreto was never named viceroy, but only governor.

A revision of the initial version of this text has been made without consulting me before final publication. The initial version can be consulted and the final version that was published can also be checked. In this process, several text was removed and also gross errors were committed in the editing process. Therefore, I wish to correct one error in the final version that was made in the editing process: Such is the case "He was an influential voice in the king’s council, and in 1559, when João’s son Sebastião was a minor, Francisco
was appointed regedor da casa da suplicação, the head of one the most
important courts in the country". King Sebastião was grandson and not son of King John III.

Twice Vice-roy of India (1568-1571; 1578-1581), a general nominated and kept away, in 1577, from what was to become the Alcazar-Quibir journey and the personage to whom has been attributed the intention of supporting D. António, Prior do Crato, with military aid, from India, in his struggle against Philip II, in 1580-81, D. Luís de Ataíde is a key personage for the understanding of the Realm and the Empire dynamics. Thus, the present work attempts to study the social, political and military path of his figure, linking it to the main events that took place during the reigns of D. Sebastião, D. Henrique and the period of the dynastic crisis. This analysis is done departing from the three main dynamics along the career of Ataíde whose relevance justifies the study of his figure and his times: the House of nobility from which he came, his action as a governor of the Empire in the sixteenth century, mainly through a detailed review of his governments in India as well as of the generelship, and his role in the courts of kings John III, D. Sebastião, D. Henrique and of Philip II. Aiming since the beginning at rebuilding the hole career of D. Luís de Ataíde, the goal is to put in context and debate about the relevance of his action along the several conjunctions of his life.
So, the work is divided into three main sections. In the first one, mainly chapeters I and II, trying to frame the evolution of the House of Atouguia from its foundation in the fifteenth century until the moment when D. Luís assumed it. For this purpose analysis is made of the ambience of his birth as well as of his first military experiences in the Indean Ocean and at Muhlberg, for the occasion of his embassy to Emperor Charles V in 1547, with contextual minutiae. In the second seccion, embrassing chapters III and IV, the career of this nobleman is detailed for the reigns of D. Sebastião, D. Henrique and for the period of dynastic crisis. Beginning with the study of Ataíde´s rapport with the main protagonists in power, we revisit his nominations as vice-roy and general, in 1568 and 1577, and debate minuciously about his policies during the governments of India and his generalship. Focus is also placed on the evolution of his House during this time. In the third section, mainly the V chapter, we analyse the images of D. Luís that have been implanted along the centuries, debating in the Conclusion the pertinancy and correspondence of those images with the historical facts.
Thefore, this works aims contributing not only to the knowledge of the career of D. Luís de Ataíde but also at revisiting and digging deep into a period of transition, the reigns of D. Sebastião, D. Henrique, and the period of the dynastic crisis, mainly in the Empire, hoping to achieve a better knowledge of the historic period that succedded: the philipine Portugal.

In spite of what its main title indicates, this work intends to present the principal facts concerning the political biography of D. Afonso de Noronha, and not only his government of India. In this sense, the study beggins with the analysis of this nobleman´s life since his first years, trying to embody him in the powerful family of the Noronhas de Vila Real, until his well-documentated warrior acts in Ceuta. After this inicial framework, we take the direction of Portuguese Asia, trying to understand the conditions in which D. Afonso´s nomination for vice-roy occured, conjugating oriental and kingdom political cronologies. Next, we analise in detail the afonsine government in political perspective, although passing trough economic, religious and military historical themes. The debate about the impact on this vice-roy´s government is also deepened with the analysis of the sucession of D. Pedro Mascanrenhas and also completed with the study of D. Afonso´s last years of life. Thus, we hope to fullfill the lack of studies for this period of transition in the History of the Estado da Índia and understand whether this government marked a new phasis of the portuguese presence in the Indian Ocean.

"Não me aja por Erasmo" - Intercâmbios culturais na figura de D. Francisco Coutinho e nas controvérsias da Contra-Reforma no Estado da Índia (1561-1564) - Seminário Permanente de Intercâmbios Culturais e Globalização, Fevereiro 2017, FCSH-UNL.

The beginning of the Safavid dynasty coincided with a renewed European interest on Iran, and thanks to an increasing number of printed narratives describing the voyages of Western travellers both the country and its rulers became household names in Europe for the following two and a half centuries. Though Iran had been object of earlier travel writings by Europeans since the Middle Age, the discovery of the printing press made these travelogues available to a larger audience, thus disseminating more information on the country, its history, people, religion and habits than ever before. However, not all travel writings are travelogues, and not all travelogues were published. As the travelogue became a literary genre in Renaissance and Baroque Europe, Iran came to be one of the countries traditionally depicted in these writings. This profusion of narratives, either manuscript or printed, testifies to the interest aroused by Safavid Iran among its contemporaries, and also bears witness to the fascination felt by travellers from different cultural backgrounds during their Iranian sojourn. The rise of Safavids was contemporary with another event in Asian history, the arrival of European powers and their settlement in Asia in the sixteenth century, which meant that more people travelled through Iran than the Italian forerunners of the medieval period did. Starting with the Portuguese and continuing with the Dutch, the English, the French, and including the Poles and the Russians, a plethora of merchants, spies, diplomats, missionaries, pilgrims, globetrotters and many other Europeans travelled over Safavid Iran. The emerging image of Safavid Iran in these travel writings was never one sided, it was complex, though some stereotypes appeared to appeal for the taste of the exotic among its European readers. Religion may have worked as the main filter of alterity, but in time Iranian otherness was established in other comparative categories in Western travel writings. Words and iconography (prints, drawings, paintings) ended up by forming a more complete image of Iran, which left an enduring impression in European minds and imagination.