[176] Seixal (2500-3000 inh.) in the district of Almada.
[177] Almada, formerly Almadãa (Arab = the mine, but as Englishmen settled there in the 12th century it was later given the fanciful derivation All made or All made it), a town of 10,000 inh., opposite Lisbon on the left bank of the Tagus.
[179] Tojal (= whin-moor, gorse-common), a small village near Olivaes (= olive groves), in the Lisbon district.
[195] The impression produced by the arrival in Rome of King Manuel's elephant, panther and other magnificent gifts was vividly described by several writers. Cf. Damião de Goes, Chron. de D. Manuel, Pt 3, cap. 55, 56, 57 (1619 ed. f. 223 v.-227). According to Ulrich von Hutten the elephant 'fuit mirabile animal, habens longum rostrum in magna quantitate; et quando vidit Papam tunc geniculavit ei et dixit cum terribili voce bar, bar, bar' (apud Theophilo Braga, Gil Vicente e as Origens do Theatro Nacional (1898), p. 191). Cf. also Manuel Bernardez, Nova Floresta, V, 93-4. The head of this celebrated elephant forms the background to a portrait of Tristão da Cunha (head of the embassy to the Pope) reproduced in Senhor Joaquim de Vasconcellos' edition of Francisco de Hollanda's Da Pintura Antigva (Porto, 1918).
[229] In 1517 among other exotic presents a rhinoceros was sent to the Pope. It was however shipwrecked and drowned on the way. It had the honour of being drawn by Albrecht Dürer.
[238] Vicente seems to have coined this intensive of bellisima.
[243]-4 Cesar = King Manuel. Hecuba = his second wife, Queen Maria, daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain.
[249] Prince João, born in 1502, afterwards King João III (1521-57).
[259] The Infanta Isabel (1503-39) married her first cousin the Emperor Charles V, and in her honour on that occasion Vicente composed his Templo de Apolo (1526). Her marriage may have already been planned in 1513, but more probably Vicente altered the passage when he was preparing the 1st edition of his works during the last months of his life. Gil Vicente more than once refers to her great beauty. Her portrait by Titian in the Madrid Prado fully bears out his praises and the expression on her face places this among the most fascinating portraits of women. The Empress is sitting by a window looking on to a beautiful country of woods and blue mountains, in her hand is a book; but one feels that she is thinking of neither book nor scenery but that her thoughts go back in saudade to the soft air and merry days of Lisbon. It might indeed be a picture of Saudade. There is a slight flush on her pale oval face. Her almond-shaped eyes are grey-green, her nose delicately aquiline. In the eyes and in the general expression there is a look of undeniable sadness. Her dress of plum, cherry-pink, gold and brown gives a gorgeously mellow effect and the curtain at the back is plum-brown. If the colouring seems at first too rich this is due to the criminal gold frame which clashes with the dress and the chestnut-golden hair. In a dark frame the picture would be twice as beautiful. The Empress' dress gleams with pearls and she has a jewel with pearls—set perhaps by Gil Vicente—in her hair, large pearl earrings and a necklace of large pearls. She died at Toledo at the age of 36 and lies in the grim Pantheon of the Kings in the Escorial crypt.
[266] Of Prince Fernando, born in 1507, Damião de Goes, who knew him personally, says: 'assi na mocidade como depois de ser homem foi de bom parecer e bem disposto, muito inclinado a letras e dado ao estudo das historias verdadeiras e imigo das fabulosas... Era colerico e apressado em seus negocios e muito animoso, com mostra e desejo de se achar em algun grande feito de guerra, mas nem o tempo nem o estudo do Regno deram pera isso lugar' (Chron. de D. Manuel, II, xix). Cf. Osorio, De Rebvs Emmanvelis (1571), p. 189: 'Fuit in antiquitate pervestiganda valde curiosus: maximarum rerum studio flagrabat multisque virtutibus illo loco dignis praeditus erat.'