VICENTE, GIL (c. 1465-1536?), sometimes called the Por tuguese Shakespeare, was born in the latter part of the reign of King Alphonso V. The first half of his life is vague. He was of humble birth and almost certainly spent his boyhood in some mountain village of the north of Portugal. He was perhaps ap prenticed later to his father or uncle, Martim Vicente, goldsmith of Guimardes, and first came to the court at Evora, with many other provincials, on the occasion of the marriage of King Joao II.'s young son and heir to a daughter of the Catholic king in 149o. His work as goldsmith attracted the attention of Queen Lianor, and after the death of her son in 1491, and her husband four years later and the accession of her brother Manuel, Vicente re tained her favour. It was at her request that he contributed (in 1509) a few verses to a poetical contest printed in the Cancioneiro Geral (1516). On the evening of June 7, 15o2, the day after the birth of King Manuel's heir, the future Joao III., Vicente with a few others, dressed as herdsmen, entered the queen's chamber and recited a rustic monologue of 114 lines in Spanish. This primitive Auto da Visitacam pleased Queen Lianor, and for the following Christmas Vicente had ready a longer but equally simple Auto Pastoril Castelhano.
For the next 34 years he was a kind of poet laureate, accom panying the court from Lisbon to Almeirim, Thomar, Coimbra or Evora and staging his plays to celebrate great events and the solemn occasions of Christmas, Easter and Maundy Thursday. The departure of a Portuguese fleet on the expedition against Azamor in 1513 turned his attention to more national themes, and in the Exhortaceio da Guerra (1513) and Auto da Fama (1515), inspired by the splendid victories of Albuquerque in the East, he wrote fervent patriotic verse which still stirs the hearts of his countrymen. Vicente's first wife, Branca Bezerra, may have died at about this time, and it seems that he was a widower when in 1514 he produced the charming Comedia do Viuvo.
His career as goldsmith kept pace with his growing success as dramatist. In 1509 he was appointed overseer of works in gold and silver at Thomar and elsewhere ; in 1512 he was elected to the Lisbon Guild of Goldsmiths, and in Oct. 1513 he became one of
their four representatives on the Lisbon town council. On Feb. 4 of this year he was appointed master of the Lisbon mint, a post which he resigned on Aug. 6, 1517, in favour of Diogo Rodriguez, whose sister Melicia he married, perhaps in the same year. After the death of King Manuel in 1521 and of Queen Lianor four years later, Vicente frequently complains of poverty, but he received various pensions in the new reign ; his accomplished daughter Paula won the favour of Princess Maria (1521-77) ; and he en joyed the personal friendship of King Joao III.
On the occasion of the departure by sea of King Manuel's daughter Beatriz to wed the duke of Savoy in Aug. 1521, Vicente's Cortes de Jupiter was acted in a large room "adorned with tap estry of gold," a fact chronicled by his friend, the poet Resende. The Fragoa de Amor (1524) was also written for a court occasion, the betrothal of King Joao III. to the sister of the Emperor Charles V. In the Auto Pastoril Portugues (1523), the farce 0 Juiz da Beira (1525), the Tragi-comedia da Serra da Estrella (1527) and the satirical 0 Clerigo da Beira (1529-3o) he returned to the people, to the peasants and shepherds of the Beira moun tain country which he knew so intimately.
He devoted himself more and more to the stage and multiplied himself in answer to the critics of Si. de Miranda's school. In 1526 came the Templo de Apolo, followed in rapid succession by the biblical play Sumario da Historia de Deus, the Nao de Amores, the Divisa da Cidade de Coimbra, and the Farsa dos Almocreves.
These last three plays, with the Serra da Estrella, were all pro duced before the court in 1527 at Lisbon and Coimbra. On the other hand the Auto da Festa appears to have been acted in a private house at Evora. The elaborate Auto da Feira (1528), with its living popular types, contains some exceedingly caustic satire against Rome (personified on the stage) : "You remit the sins of the whole world and forget to shrive yourself." It must be remembered that this was not a question of religion but of national politics : the relations of the devout Joao III. with the Vatican were often as troubled as those of his equally pious and even more regalist nephew Philip II. of Spain.