Gil Vicente - Life

Life

The year 1465, the date proposed by Queirós Veloso, is the commonly accepted year of Vicente's birth. However, Braamcamp Freire proposes the year 1460, while de Brito Rebelo proposes between 1470 and 1475. Vicente's own works indicate contradictory dates. The Velho da Horta ("Old Man of the Garden"), the Floresta de Enganos ("Forest of Mistakes"), and the Auto da Festa ("Act of the Party") indicate 1452, 1470, and before 1467, respectively. Since 1965, when official festivities commemorating the 500th birthday of the writer were held, the date of 1465 has been almost universally accepted.

Though Frei Pedro de Poiares conjectured Barcelos was Vicente's birthplace, evidence for this is scarce. Pires de Lima, on the other hand, proposed Guimarães, which better accounts for Vicente's identification as a jeweller. The people of Guimarães have embraced this theory; a municipal school in Urgezes is named after the playwright. There's some stories about Gil Vicente's father,that was from this parish in Guimarães, so, people believe that Gil Vicente have lived here too. Another conjecture places his birthplace at Lisbon. The Beira region is also a candidate because of various references to it in his plays, more exactly the location of Guimarães de Tavares, that has been mistaken with Guimarães.

Gil Vicente married Branca Bezerra, who bore him two sons: Gaspar Vicente (died 1519) and Belchior Vicente (born 1505). After her death, he married Melícia or Milícia Rodrigues (abbreviated as Roiz), of whom were born Paula Vicente (1519–1576), Luís Vicente de Crasto (who organised the compilation of Vicente's works), married to Mór de Almeida and had issue, Joana de Pina (died 1584) (daughter of Diogo de Pina de Baião and wife Mécia Barreto, daughter of Francisco de Aguiar and wife Madalena Barreto) and had issue, and Isabel de Castro, without issue, and Valéria Borges (or Vicente), who was married firstly to Pero Machado, without issue, and secondly to Dom António de Meneses, son of Dom Luís de Meneses, of the bastards of the Lords de Cantanhede, and wife Brites de Aguiar, and had issue .

Vicente died in an unknown location, some say Évora. The year of his death is commonly recorded as 1536, the year after which he ceased writing; no further reference to him is found in subsequent documents of the era. His place of burial is unknown. No surviving portraits of Gil Vicente remain.