The presentation, in Portugal, of the first full translation of Fernão Lopes’ Chronicles into English will take place at the Monastery of Batalha on the 19th of October, at 7 pm, during the International Conference “Architectures of the Soul”, organized by the Institute of Medieval Studies, Universidade Nova de Lisboa.
The five-volume publication, with the collective title of The Chronicles of Fernão Lopes (Boydell & Brewer / Tamesis, 2023), dedicates the first four to chronicles in translation, preceded by introductions and original studies authored by national and foreign specialists, and the fifth, the extensive bibliography and index covering all the chronicles.
On September 7th, its launch took place in the USA, taking place at the Embassy of Portugal in Washington DC, with the presence of the Ambassador, Doctor Francisco Duarte Lopes, and the Cultural Attaché, Doctor Sandra Pires, in collaboration with the Library of Congress represented by Dr. Suzanne Schadl, Director of the Latin American, Caribbean and European Division, and Dr. Henry Widener, librarian responsible for the Portuguese Collection. The session also featured presentations from three collaborators in this project: Doctors Amélia Hutchinson and Juliet Perkins and Professor Rita Costa Gomes.
Launch session at the Portuguese Embassy in Washington DC, USA. From left to right: Sandra Pires (Cultural Attaché), Suzanne Schadl (Library of Congress representative), Francisco Duarte Lopes (Portuguese Ambassador), Amélia Hutchinson (general editor), Juliet Perkins (translator and editor of the index), and Rita Costa Gomes (consultant and author of the introduction to the second volume).
This edition of Fernão Lopes’ work in English was undertaken at the request of medievalists at universities in the USA and the United Kingdom, having benefited from funding from American institutions (National Endowment for the Humanities), British institutions (Anglo-Portuguese Society), and
Portuguese (DGLAB, FLAD and Instituto Camões). It is expected to stimulate research and dialogue in areas such as: Medieval Studies in general, Social History, Philosophy of History, Political Science, Diplomacy, Military Studies, Women’s Studies, Economics, Public Administration,
Agriculture and Rural Administration, Medieval Medicine, Literature, Religion, and others.
Readers of Fernão Lopes’ chronicles can now benefit from the support of Fernão Lopes Portal, a website provided by IEM and available here.