D. Manuel’s letter to Pope Leon X (1513) about the victories he
achieved in India and Malaca narrates, according to the stilus epistularum, with an
almost journalistic sensationalism, the heroic exploits that constitute the main
theme of this elegant obedience oration pronounced by Diogo Pacheco in Tristão
da Cunha’s embassy, the following year (1514) — the most famous of all for its
splendor and for the exoticism of the elephant offered to the Pope.
The letter, aiming at international propaganda, centered on the
laudatio principis as imperator and rex inuictissimus, and is the most complete
expression of the rhetoric of power and of epic glorification in the golden period
of our History of overseas expansion.
D. Manuel’s letter to Pope Leon X (1513) about the victories he
achieved in India and Malaca narrates, according to the stilus epistularum, with an
almost journalistic sensationalism, the heroic exploits that constitute the main
theme of this elegant obedience oration pronounced by Diogo Pacheco in Tristão
da Cunha’s embassy, the following year (1514) — the most famous of all for its
splendor and for the exoticism of the elephant offered to the Pope.
The letter, aiming at international propaganda, centered on the
laudatio principis as imperator and rex inuictissimus, and is the most complete
expression of the rhetoric of power and of epic glorification in the golden period
of our History of overseas expansion.
