Alcoforado (Francisco)
Squire of Prince Henry the Navigator, credited with the account of the discovery of Madeira, which survives only in French and English translations.
Squire to Prince Henry the Navigator. He wrote the Relação do Descobrimento da Ilha da Madeira, which was never printed and whose original Francisco Manuel de Melo claimed to possess, as a precious jewel. There is a French translation of this work under the following title: Relation historique de la découverte de l'isle de Madère, Paris 1671. It was also translated into English under the following title: The First discovery of the island of Madeira, London, 1675.
The French translation of 1671 was reproduced in an edition published in Paris some 50 years ago, which by an evident mistake bears the date 1671, when it must be from eighteen-sixty-something.
Inocêncio Francisco da Silva reports another English translation, held in the British Museum and different from the one mentioned above, entitled An Historical Account of the discovery of the Island of Madeira abridged from the Portuguese original, to which is added an Account of the present state of the Island, in a Letter to a Friend. London, 1750. This version is attributed, on very good grounds, to Dr Johns.
In this article
Time
Years mentioned · 04-
The French translation of Francisco Alcoforado's account was reprinted in Paris, wrongly dated 1671.
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The fraudulent Relation Historique de la découverte de l'isle de Madère, a French version of Alcoforado's account, was published in Paris.
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An English translation of the account of Francisco Alcoforado was published in London.
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An English account of the discovery and present state of Madeira, an abridged version of Alcoforado's narrative attributed to Dr Johns, was published in London.
Place
Places mentioned · 03
- British Museum
United Kingdom. Holds the 1750 English translation.
The British Museum in London holds many of Francis Masson's plants and his manuscript Massonii Flora Maderensis, as well as Downe's Madeiran plant specimens. It also holds the 1750 English translation of Alcoforado's account.
- London
United Kingdom. Where the English translations of 1675 and 1750 were published.
The British capital, the place of publication of many English works on Madeira, including those of the du Canes, Embleton and Bloxam. Mason compared its humidity with Funchal's, and artillery for the Fortress of São Tiago came from there. It hosted the 1909 applied chemistry congress.
- Paris
France. Where the French translation was published in 1671.
The French capital, where Franco de Sousa settled and painted 'Ar livre', and where Juvenal Honório de Ornelas took his medical doctorate in 1834. Padre Luiz Gonçalves da Câmara studied there and met Loyola, and the Barão de Ornelas graduated, practised and died there.
People
People mentioned · 05-
Squire of Prince Henry the Navigator and author of the unpublished account of the discovery of Madeira.
- Francisco Manuel de Melod. 1666
Portuguese writer who claimed to own the original manuscript of Alcoforado's account.
- Henry the Navigator1394–1460
Prince Henry the Navigator, whom Francisco Alcoforado served as squire.
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Bibliographer who reported a further English translation held in the British Museum.
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To whom the 1750 English abridged translation of the account is attributed.