Públia Hortênsia de Castro explained

Públia Hortênsia de Castro (1548 - 1595) was a scholar and humanist in the court of Catherine of Austria, Queen of Portugal.^{[1] [2]}

Born in 1548 in Vila Viçosa, Portugal, she was named for Hortensia, the famous Roman orator and daughter of Quintus Hortensius, suggesting that her parents intended for her to become a well-educated woman.^{[1] [3] [4]} She evidently studied Greek and Latin, and by the time she was seventeen she was engaged in public debates on Aristotle.^{[1] [3]} There are stories that, dressed as a boy and chaperoned by her brother, she attended the University of Coimbra, in Lisbon, but historians consider this unlikely.^[2] Nonetheless, she is known to have composed psalms in Latin, although they are now lost, and she was well enough admired by King Philip II that he granted her a pension for life.^[3]

She eventually left the court and joined an Augustine convent.^[5] She died in Évora in 1595.

Namesakes

In 1978, Lisbon honored de Castro by giving her name to a street in the area of Carnide.^[6]

Notes and References

1. Book: Sofia . Frade . Hic sita Sigea est: satis hoc: Luisa Sigea and the Role of D. Maria, Infanta of Portugal, in Female Scholarship . Women Classical Scholars: Unsealing the Fountain from the Renaissance to Jacqueline de Romilly . Rosie . Wyles . Edith . Hall . Edith Hall . Oxford University Press . 2016 . 9780191038297 . 58–59 .
2. Book: Boxer, Charles Ralph . João de Barros: Portuguese Humanist and Historian of Asia . Concept Publishing Company . 1981 . 18 .
3. Book: Stevenson, Jane . Women Latin Poets: Language, Gender, and Authority, from Antiquity to the Eighteenth Century . Oxford University Press . 2005 . 9780198185024 . 217.
4. Book: Las Revolucionarias: Literatura e Insumisión Femenina . Estela González de Sande . Ángeles Cruzado Rodríguez . ArCiBel Editores . 2009 . 9788496980723 . Spanish . 52–55 .
5. Web site: Públia Hortênsia de Castro . Escritora: Women Writers Before 1900 . 13 May 2018.
6. Web site: Camara Municipal de Lisboa Edital N.17/78 . 1978 . 13 May 2018.