Baiardo (Luís José)

The Portugal dictionary states that he was born in this city on 30 April 1775, but we have serious reasons for believing that he was a native of mainland Portugal, although he lived for some years in Madeira. In his day he won renown as a dramatist, but his plays later fell into complete oblivion. He was private secretary to the bishop of this diocese, Dom Friar Joaquim de Meneses e Ataíde, and this prelate is credited, on good grounds, with the authorship of some of the works that Baiardo presented as his own. In Funchal he held the post of clerk (escrivão) of the ecclesiastical court. In 1821 he left for Lisbon, where he devoted himself exclusively to writing, translating and adapting various works for the theatre. His literary works are listed in the Diccionario Bibliographico of Inocêncio Francisco da Silva. Among them is one of interest to the history of this island, entitled Carta escripta a um sujeito da provincia da ilha da Madeira ou o landum dos bordões, que tocou Sebastião Xavier Botelho, com variações compostas por Luis José Baiardo; ou desforra das invectivas que contra ele escreveu o dito Botelho na sua “Historia verdadeira dos acontecimentos da ilha da Madeira”. It is a pamphlet of 33 pages, published in Lisbon in 1821.