Um contemporaneo do Infante D. Henrique

The author writes a personal letter that examines mid-fifteenth-century Portugal by focusing on the circle around Prince Henry and on a celebrated contemporary, Álvaro Vaz de Almada. It mixes biographical sketch and genealogy with cultural portraiture, portraying a national character formed by religious fervor, poetic valor, and chivalric honor, and recounting military and maritime engagements that defined the age of discoveries. The essay presents Almada as the archetypal last Portuguese knight, explores tensions between crusading zeal and imperial ambition, and reflects on how later events signaled the fading of that chivalric ethos.