[1510-1512]. Carta de Álvaro Vaz de Fonseca, escribano y consejero, para su hermano.

Letter from Álvaro Vaz de Fonseca, a law oficial and an adviser, to his brother.

The author clarifies to his brother certain issues.

This letter was found in the collection Coleção de Cartas (within Cartas Missivas and Other Documents) which collects, in 4 packs, loose documents of uncertain or incomplete date. The contextualization of each letter is done by using information from the letter itself.

Apparently Álvaro Vaz de Fonseca was a law official from a factory at Cochín (India). He was side by side with Duarte Pacheco Pereira during the valiant defence of this fortress against the forces of Zamorín de Calicut (India). In 1506 he is a factor in Flanders. Just after the Portuguese victory of 1510 in Diu (Subrahmanyam, 1997:257), having reneged on the Portuguese crown, he appears as an adviser to the Sultan of Cairo (Egypt) during an audience with the ambassadors of Gujarat. In a letter from 1512 written in Rhodes and addressed to the King Manuel I of Portugal, Fray André do Amaral, chancellor in chief and commander of the Order of Hospital, describes the relevant role played by Álvaro Vaz de Fonseca in the preparation of a new Mamluk army formed to counter the Portuguese rule in the Indian Ocean (Corpo Cronológico, parte I, maço 11, doc. 47). This letter is addressed to a “brother” about whom no information has been obtained. On the basis of the biographical details aforementioned it can be surmised that this letter was written from Cairo between 1510 and 1512.

Reference Bibliography:

Sanjay Subrahmanyam

The career and legend of Vasco da Gama

Cambridge

Cambridge University Press

1997