Frei Elói de Sá Sotto Maior (Ou Sotomayor)

Poet and novelist. The son of a farmer and a lady from Coimbra, he received a bachelor's degree in Canon Law in 1601 from the Universidade de Coimbra. His principal work, Ribeiras do Mondego, is a pastoral romance in prose and verse that, beyond dialogues between shepherds of a more or less conventional design, contains numerous references to the customs and manners of the period, interspersed with autobiographical notes, which constitutes one of its most interesting aspects. In language that is at times artificial, there are beautiful descriptions of nature, imbued with a gentle melancholy. He is also credited with a rare collection of sacred poems.