Fonti e ricerche per la storia della santità
in Portogallo nel Seicento
This study aims to present an overview of a set of sources to the holiness
in Portugal, in the 17th Century, paying particular attention to the printed
production over the century – religious chronicles, biographies, devout lives,
collections of «saints»’ lives, «martyrologies» – in order to disclose the Portuguese
hagiographic overview of that time, taking into account the period of
dual monarchy between 1580 and 1640, using the most recent literature on this
issue. The author seeks to show that the “hagiographic literature” produced in
Portugal and its overseas territories, especially in the 17th Century, reflects not
only the identity effort of the religious orders in the building of an «internal»
holiness, but also, in the case of other texts, concerns of territorial and cultural
order, valuing the construction of a Portuguese sacred space.