In the various towns where he stayed and produced his plays, writers for the stage sprang up, and these formed the Eschola Velha or school of Gil Vicente, the best known being Affonso Al varez, author of religious pieces ; Antonio Ribeiro, nicknamed "the Chiado," an unfrocked friar with a strong satirical vein who wrote farces in the Bazochian style; and his brother Jeronimo Ribeiro. In Santarem appeared Antonio Prestes, a magistrate, who evinced more knowledge of folk-lore than dramatic talent ; while Camoens himself felt Vicente's influence. Another poet of the same school is Balthazar Dias, the blind poet, whose simple religious autos are still performed in the villages, and are continu ally reprinted, the best liked being the Auto of St. Alexis, and the Auto of St. Catherine. One of the last dramatists of the i6th cen tury belonging to the old school was Simi() Machado, who wrote the Comedy of Diu and the Enchantments of Alfea, two long plays almost entirely in Spanish.
Except Camoens, all these men, though disciples of Gil Vicente, are decidedly inferior to him in dramatic invention, fecundity and power of expression, and they were generally of humble social position. The favour of the court was withdrawn on the death of Gil Vicente and the old dramatists had to face the opposition of the classical school and the hostility of the Inquisition, which early declared war on the popular plays on account of their gross ness. The way was thus clear for the Jesuits, who introduced Latin tragicomedies or dramatized allegories written to com memorate saints or for scholastic festivals. The four Indexes of the 16th century give some idea of the rich repertory of the popu lar theatre, and of the efforts necessary to destroy it ; moreover, the Spanish Index of 1559, by forbidding autos of Gil Vicente and other Portuguese authors, is interesting evidence of the extent to which they were appreciated in the neighbouring country.
The movement commonly called the Renaissance reached Portugal both indirectly through Spain and directly from Italy, with which last country it maintained close literary relations throughout the 15th century. King Alphonso V. had been the pupil of Matthew of Pisa and summoned Justus Balduinus to his court to write the national history in Latin, while later King John II. corresponded with Politian, and early in his reign the first printing press got to work. In the next century many famous humanists took up their abode in Portugal. Nicholas Cleynaerts taught the
Infant Henry, afterwards cardinal and king, and lectured on the classics at Braga and Evora, Vasaeus directed a school of Latin at Braga, and George Buchanan accompanied other foreign profes sors to Coimbra when King John III. reformed the university. Many distinguished Portuguese teachers returned from abroad to assist the king at the same time, among them Ayres Barbosa from Salamanca, Andre de Gouvea of the Parisian college of St. Barbe, whom Montaigne dubbed "the greatest principal of France," Achilles Estaco and Diogo de Teive.
At home Portugal produced Andre de Resende (q.v.), author of De antiquitatibus Lusitaniae, and Francisco de Hollanda, painter, architect, and author of Quatro dialogos da pintura antiga. Women took a share in the intellectual movement of the time, and the sisters Luisa and Angela Sigea, Joanna Vaz and Paula Vicente, daughter of Gil Vicente, constituted an informal female academy under the presidency of the Infanta D. Maria, daughter of King Manuel. Luisa Sigea was both an orientalist and a Latin poetess, while Publia Hortensia de Castro defended theses at Evora in her 18th year.
The Italian School or Os Quinhentistas.—The Italian school was founded by SA de Miranda, a man of excellent char acter, who, on his return in 1526 from a six years' stay in Italy, initiated a reform of Pcirtuguese literature which amounted to a revolution. He introduced and practised the form of the sonnet, canzon, ode and epistle in ottava rima and in tercets. At the same time he gave fresh life to the national octosyllabic metre (medida velha) by his Cartas or Satiras which with his Eclogues, some in Portuguese, others in Castilian, are his most successful composi tions. His chief disciple, Antonio Ferreira (q.v.), a convinced classicist, went further, and dropping the use of Castilian, wrote sonnets much superior in form and style, though they lack the rustic atmosphere of those of his master, while his odes and epistles are too obviously reminiscent of Horace. D. Manoel de Portugal, Pero de Andrade Caminha, Diogo Bernardes, Frei Agos tinho da Cruz and Andre Falcao de Resende continued the erudite school, which, after considerable opposition, definitively tri umphed in the person of Luis de Camoens. The Lima of Ber nardes contains some beautiful eclogues as well as cartas in the bucolic style, while the odes, sonnets and eclogues of Frei Agos tinho are full of mystic charm. Immediately on its appearance The Lusiads took rank as the national poem par excellence, and its success moved many writers to follow in the same path; of these the most successful was Jeronymo Corte Real (q.v.). All these poems, like the Elegiada of Luis Pereira Branddo on the disaster of Al Kasr, the Primeiro cerco de Diu of the chronicler Francisco de Andrade, and even the Affonso Africano of Quevedo, for all its futile allegory, contain vigorous descriptive passages.