The founder of the Portuguese colonial empire
Document signed ("El Rey").
Portuguese manuscript on vellum. A single sheet, ca. 510 x 250 mm.
€ 18.000,00
A Royal privilege issued for Dona Mécia de Noronha, Countess of Vila Nova de Portimão, confirming a life annuity of 100,000 reais previously purchased for her by her husband, Count Martinho de Castelo Branco, from Dona Maior de Sotomaior.
A characteristic survival of the administrative culture of the Lisbon court, in which fiscal grants and pensions to the nobility were formalised in vellum instruments intended for long-term record. This example was issued during the reign that saw Portugal’s decisive maritime expansion into the Atlantic and Indian Ocean worlds by such navigators as Vasco da Gama, Pedro Álvares Cabral, and Afonso de Albuquerque. Only a few months after the date of the present document, the famous Indian rhinoceros immortalized by Dürer's woodcut would arrive in Lisbon, a diplomatic gift from Gujarat's Sultan Muzaffar Shah II. The revenues of overseas trade under King Manuel "the Fortunate" fuelled the courtly splendour later crystallised in the so-called Manueline style.
Minimal staining and handling. Wants seal; suspension cord partly present.
