[1542]. Carta de Manuel Serrão, mercador, para Mécia Gomes, sua mãe.

Family letter from Manuel Serrão, merchant, to his mother, Mécia Gomes.

The author answers to all the questions in a letter he had received from his mother. They mostly concern trade, debts and news about family and friends. He bitterly complains about the lack of support given by his father in their trading business.

This letter is related to a set of other letters from Antwerp and London to Lisbon, written in 1542. Given the reference to D. Miguel da Silva being nominated cardinal in Rome, which took place in 1539, we conjecture that it was written in 1542.

This letter belongs to the collection Fragmentos, kept in the Torre do Tombo National Archive. This collection was initially composed by administrative and judicial documentation from the XVI century, which was too damaged to be included in the Corpo Cronológico or the Núcleo Antigo collections.