Pêro de Sousa Ribeiro

Court poet. A close confidant of D. João II, his ambassador to the court of Luís XI and alcaide-mor of Pombal, he was a mandatory presence in the palace's poetic «tournaments», including the most famous of all, on «O cuidar e o suspirar», which opens Garcia de Resende's Cancioneiro Geral. He had the audacity to write a long composition attacking the court's highest nobles, denouncing the luxury and dissolute lives of each and every one (the counts of Marialva, Borba, and Vila Nova are mentioned by name, for example, all married, yet guilty of many extramarital affairs). Those targeted, aided by other younger poets and even by some ladies, subjected the censor to one of the longest and most violent satirical «trials» in verse included in the Cancioneiro, a clear and illuminating demonstration of Portuguese court life in the time of the Perfect Prince.