VICENTE, Gil (c. 1470- c . 1536), Portuguese dramatist, with an honourable position also in the history of Spanish literature, was born, most probably in Lisbon, about the year 1470. He was of good family, and, after studying law at the then university of Lisbon, became attached to the royal court, in what capacity is unknown. In June 1502 he produced and took the leading part in the performance of his first piece, a kind of dramatic pastoral, after the manner of Juan de la Encina, on occasion of the birth of an heir to the throne (John III.). So successful was this appearance that he soon became the recognized provider of such entertainments at court, during the reign both of Emmanuel and of John. Of his domestic history nothing is known, except that he married a lady named Branca Bezerra, by whom he had a son and a daughter. His outward circumstances, especially in his later years, if some apparently personal allusions in his works are to be literally interpreted, do not seem to have been prosperous. Almost the only personal incident that has come down to us is his successful remonstrance with the clergy of Santarem in 1531, for having taken the earthquakes of that year as a text from which to rouse orthodox fanaticism against the Jews or “Neo-Christians”; the circumstances are related by Vicente in a letter to the king. The time and place of his death are alike uncertain; most probably it occurred at Evora not much later than 1536....
Vicente published various of his pieces during his lifetime, but the first collected edition of his works, edited by his son Luis, did not appear till 1562. It is in black letter folio, and only one copy, that in the Gottingen university library, is now known to exist. A second edition, “emended by the Holy Office,” appeared in 1585, of which also only a single copy is now extant (in Lisbon). The disfavour with which they were viewed by the Inquisition caused them to fall into unmerited neglect, and they do not appear to have been again reprinted till 1834, when they were carefully edited by Feio and Monteiro (Hamburg, 3 vols.). They number forty-two in all, of which seventeen are written wholly in Portuguese and ten wholly in Spanish, while in the remainder both languages are employed. The principles determining his choice of language are not easy to discover, and indeed he seems to have used either indifferently, perhaps in this accommodating himself to the aptitudes of particular actors. It may be observed, however, that, while in the 14th century it had been fashionable for all court poets in the western half of the peninsula to use Galician or Old Portuguese, the practice had changed in the days of John II. of Castile, when Castilian became the favourite speech. In writing chiefly in Portuguese Vicente thus reverted to the older practice; but, on the other hand, it is not surprising that he should have freely used Spanish at a court which stood in such intimate personal relations with that of Castile (of Emmanuel’s three wives two were Castilian princesses and the third was a sister of Charles V. ), and where he had taken Encina as his avowed model. According to their form the works of Vicente are conveniently divided into—(1) obras de devoçao or autos, (2) comedies and tragi-comedies, and (3) farces. The first class includes twelve autos or sacred pieces, intended for performance at Christmas, Epiphany, and other religious festivals. The plots are quaint and conceived entirely in the mediaeval spirit; in their working out many touches of poetical feeling and also of sarcastic humour are introduced. There is a vein of pleasing romance in such compositions as his Dom Duardos and Amadis de Gaula, while the genuine mirthfulness of his farces {Inez Pereira and others), as well as their originality, well entitle him to be spoken of by his compatriots as their “father of comedy” and the national Plautus.
Some typical examples of Vicente’s works may be read in Böhl von Faber’s Teatro Espanοl anterior á Lope de Vega (Hamburg, 1832) and in Ochoa’s Tesoro del Teatro Español (Paris, 1838). An interesting essay, with analyses of many of the plays, occurs in vol. lxxix. of the Quarterly Review (1846-47); see also Ferdinand Wolf's article “Gil-Vicente” in Ersch and Gruber’s Encykl. (sec. i. vol. lxvii.).
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