RIBEIRO, BERNARDIM (1482-1552), the father of bu colic prose and verse in Portugal, was a native of Torrao in the Alemtejo. He studied at the University of Lisbon, was intro duced by one of his relatives to the court of King Manoel, and became secretary to King John III. in 1524. Ribeiro's early verses are to be found in the Cancioneiro Geral of Garcia de Resende (q.v.). He took part in the historic Seroes do Paco, or palace evening entertainments, which largely consisted of poetical improvisations; there he met and earned the friendship of the poets Sa de Miranda (q.v.) and Christovao Falcao who soon became his literary comrades and the confidants of his romantic passion for a lady who has been variously identified by literary historians. All that is certain is that the upshot of the affair was banishment from court. Ribeiro had poured out his heart in five beautiful eclogues, the earliest in Portuguese, written in the popular octosyllabic verse. He is said to have gone to Italy, and possibly was there when he wrote his moving knightly and pastoral romance Menina e Mop, in which he related the story of his passion, personifying himself under the anagram of "Bimnarder," and the lady under that of "Aonia." When he returned home in
1524, the new king, John III., restored him to his former post. But his mind was already unhinged by trouble. About 1534 a long illness supervened, then melancholia. In 1549 the king gave him a pension; in 1552 he died insane in All Saints hospital in Lisbon.
The Menina e Moca was not printed until after Ribeiro's death (Ferrara, 1554.) It is divided into two parts, the first of which is cer tainly the work of Ribeiro (ed. Dr. Jose Pessanha, Oporto, 1891), while as to the second opinion is divided.
See Visconde Sanches de Baena, Bernardim Ribeiro (1895) ; Dr. Theophilo Braga, Bernardim Ribeiro e o Bucolismo (Oporto, 1897) ; A. F. G. Bell, Portuguese Literature (1922).