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Anselmo Castelo Branco: Proﬁling an

Alchemist Prophet
José Vieira Leitão
International Journal of Divination and Prognostication
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International Journal of Divination
& Prognostication 2 (2020) 83–149
brill.com/ijdp
Anselmo Castelo Branco: Profiling an

Alchemist Prophet
José Vieira Leitão

Centro de História da Sociedade e da Cultura, Faculdade de Letras,
Universidade de Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal
jose.cv.leitao@gmail.com
Abstract
The prophet, alchemist, and physician Anselmo Castelo Branco, while not an
unknown name in Portuguese letters, still stands as a largely misunderstood author of
the intellectually troubled Portuguese eighteenth century. He is mostly known for his
alchemical opus, the Ennoea, and so far scholars have only given superficial attention
to his non-alchemical works, leading to significant bias.
While not denying Castelo Branco’s relevance as a medical and alchemical writer,
this article hopes to be the first to offer a detailed reconstruction of this author’s
biography as well as an extensive analysis of all his known written works. Besides his
known contributions to the sciences, his ideas on the Portuguese messianic cult of
Sebastianism, prognostication, and the definition of accurate prophecy are analyzed,
revealing a complex and nuanced vision which aimed to harmonize the fragmented
fields of Portuguese eighteenth-century messianism and millenarianism.
Keywords
Anselmo Castelo Branco – Sebastianism – prophecy – alchemy – teratology – Fifth

Empire – Miracle of Ourique – António Vieira
1 Introduction
Prophecy and prognostication have long held a relevant position not only
within Portuguese letters but within the very notions of Portuguese identity
and culture. As they manifest in this country, such trends consistently base
themselves on idealized narratives of providence and divine favor, which
© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2021 | doi:10.1163/25899201-12340014

84 Leitão
continuously inflate Portuguese history with a persistent sense of sacrality

and symbolic meaning. While these can be interpreted as distinct ideologi-
cal currents until the sixteenth century, the disappearance of King Sebastian
in the Battle of Ksar-el-Kebir (1578) and the resulting literature solidly tied all
of these into one of the most long-lived and politically inﬂuential messianic
movements in Europe – that is, what has come to be known as Sebastianism.1
The persistence of such ideas results in a vision of history as an ever-changing
riddle that needs continuous interpretation and accurate understanding for
the fulfillment of national messianic or millenarian ambitions. During the
early modern period, ideas such as Sebastianism were far from marginalized.
By the seventeenth century, they had become intertwined with the notion of
a biblical Fifth Empire to be led by Portugal or expanded to encompass the
whole of the Braganza Dynasty in its prophetic hopes, and they were actively
entertained and debated within the upper echelons of the Portuguese human-
ities and sciences.
The constant discourse surrounding Portuguese imperial prophetism in the
modern period should also be seen as a political necessity and a stabilizing
factor during moments of turmoil or external aggression. Writers in this tra-
dition, such as Manuel Bocarro Francês (1588?–1668)2 or the Jesuit António
Vieira (1608–1697), express and transmit a sense of Portuguese ontological
security by tying national history to the biblical narrative, making the idea of
an eternally independent and eventually prosperous Portuguese kingdom an
unquestionable certainty.
Yet, as the eighteenth century unfolded, novel philosophical and scientific
debates echoing throughout Europe began to leave their mark on such local
cultural expressions. During this period, the medical doctor Anselmo Caetano
Munhós de Abreu Gusmão e Castelo Branco emerged to yet again reconcep-
tualize deep-seated prophetic ideas. Besides using the common prophetic
sources that had been instrumental since the fourteenth century to construct
idealized visions of Portuguese future history, Castelo Branco innovated by
drawing in equal measure on scientific theories about the nature of matter
and the principles of metallic transformation that emerged from his work as
an alchemist and the author of what is probably the only modern Portuguese
book solely dedicated to alchemy and chrysopoeia: the Ennoea.3
1 Givens, “Sebastianism in Theory and Practice in Early Modern Portugal,” 127.

2 Also known as Jacob Rosales, a Portuguese Jewish physician, mathematician, and astrologer.
3 Full title: Ennæa, ou Applicaçaõ do Entendimento Sobre a Pedra Philosophal, Provada, e
Defendida Com os Mesmos Argumentos Com Que os Reverendissimos Padres Athanasio Kircker
no Seu Mundo Subterraneo, e Fr. Bento Hieronymo Feyjoo no Seu Theatro Critico, Concedendo
a Possibilidade, Negaõ, e Impugnaõ a Existência Deste Raro, e Grande Mysterio da Arte
Magna [Ennæa, or Application of the understanding of the philosophical stone, proved
International Journal of Divination & Prognostication 2 (2020) 83–149

Anselmo Castelo Branco: Profiling an Alchemist Prophet 85
Even if unique in his overlapping roles – a prophet and an alchemist, a phy-

sician and natural philosopher – Castelo Branco should not be understood as
being scientifically isolated. Despite Portugal’s alleged “late Enlightenment,”
numerous names rose up within the Portuguese academic world throughout
the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries to spearhead novel philo-
sophical and scientific ideas in the debate between “Ancients” and “Moderns.”4
Collectively, such medics, thinkers, natural philosophers, and even prophets
represent a particular moment in Portuguese learning and scientific develop-
ment, a period when multiple and often contradictory intellectual paradigms
coexisted within the same environment due to an increasing openness within
the traditionally conservative Portuguese academic world towards scientific
ideas originating from Protestant countries. Writers such as Paracelsus and
Van Helmont, while not representing novel ideas in Northern Europe, were
at this moment looked upon by Portuguese medics who were sympathetic to
the Enlightenment as intellectual heroes, whose ideas could be used to break
away from the strict Galenic and Aristotelian standards of the University of
Coimbra’s medical/scientific curriculum.
Castelo Branco’s life lies at a unique intersection between the longstanding
Portuguese tradition of prophetism and the reception of novel scientific ideas
on the processes of nature. This article hopes to be the first to accurately trace
Castelo Branco’s biography and provide a comprehensive and reliable account,
as far as the currently available sources allow. Through the analysis of his works,
both printed and in manuscript, this paper aims to sketch his intellectual, sci-
entific, and religious positions within the complex intellectual landscape of
the first half of the Portuguese eighteenth century. Furthermore, this paper
seeks to understand the conception of prognostication outlined in Castelo
Branco’s complex prophetic and messianic works; his ideas on Sebastianism
and the Portuguese Fifth Empire and their overlapping with alchemy; and his
and defended with the same arguments with which the Most Reverend Fathers Athanasius
Kircher in his Mundus Subterraneus and Friar Benito Jerónimo Feijoo in his Teatro Crítico,
while conceding its possibility, deny and contest the existence of this rare and great mystery
of the Great Art]. This book was originally printed with the title Ennæa due to a printer’s
error, but its intended title was indeed Ennoea, as acknowledged by Castelo Branco (see his
supplemento do supplemento [supplement’s supplement] to Ennæa, n.p.). I will consistently
refer to this book by its intended title Ennoea in the body of this article but by its printed title
Ennæa in the footnote references and bibliography.
4 A long academic debate in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century between
Portuguese religious and intellectual conservatives and pro-enlightenment experimentalists
and philosophers. Among medics, the debate played out between proponents of Galenism
(understood in the context of a classical Aristotelian cosmology) and those of chymical med-
icine (and occasionally Paracelsianism).

86 Leitão
constantly changing opinion on the nature of Portuguese future imperial glory.

Such an analysis will ultimately show that his written works are historically
relevant and deserve renewed scholarly attention.
2 State of the Field
The uniqueness of Castelo Branco within the history of Portuguese medicine

and science has periodically commanded a certain degree of attention towards
his work, resulting in a number of published studies that attempt to offer
some form of understanding of his often complex cosmological ideas, overall
alchemical notions, and, to a lesser extent, prophetic concepts. Upon closer
analysis, it becomes clear that all of these studies are based on a limited set of
sources. Primary among these is Castelo Branco’s major work, the Ennoea (a
work structured as a dialogue between the characters of Enodato and Enodio,
a teacher and a student, respectively), in which he not only discusses his major
influences, favored authors, and scientific positions in considerable detail, but
occasionally also discloses several apparent elements from his personal life.
The most often quoted secondary sources are the entries on Castelo Branco
found in the dictionaries of Portuguese authors by Diogo Barbosa Machado
and Inocêncio Francisco da Silva, the Bibliotheca Lusitana (1741–1758)5 and the
Diccionario Bibliographico Portuguez (1858–1923), respectively.6
The most visible and relevant studies appeared in the late 1980s and span
a period leading up to the late 2000s. Yvette Centeno’s introduction to a fac-
simile edition of the Ennoea, published in 1987 by the Calouste Gulbenkian
Foundation, is the first of these.7 Overall, this work offers a reliable description
of this single book, also briefly mentioning some of Castelo Branco’s other writ-
ings and intellectual predilections (but solely those he reveals in the Ennoea),
such as teratology and the analysis of “prodigies.” While Centeno makes clear
efforts to offer her perspective and critical thoughts on Castelo Branco’s
alchemical worldview, her attempt suffers from her use of an excessively spec-
ulative Jungian methodology, which often results in numerous problematic
projections and unfounded and profoundly un-historical statements.
Also from 1987 is Manuel J. Gandra’s introduction to a selection of Castelo
Branco’s writings (with the Ennoea, once again, as its major part) privately
5 Machado, Bibliotheca Lusitana Historica, Critica, e Cronologica, 1:178–79.

6 Silva, Diccionario Bibliographico Portuguez, 1:75.
7 Centeno, nota de apresentação [introductory note] to Ennoea, 5–32.

published by José Medeiros, a Mafra author of esoteric books.8 While still not
free from projections derived from Jung or Mircea Eliade,9 Gandra’s study is
probably the most reliable and extensive of all the research on Castelo Branco
to date, offering an updated bibliography and exploring some of his religious
and prophetic positions. Still, in his attempt to derive biographical elements
from Castelo Branco’s known books and life events, Gandra occasionally
engages in risky, but well-meaning speculation.
Of all Castelo Branco scholars, Gandra has undoubtedly written and pub-
lished the most. This is due in part to the relevance that the town of Mafra
has in Castelo Branco’s prophetic works. Gandra, apart from being a scholar
of Portuguese esotericism and alchemy, happens to also be a local historian of
Mafra, as evidenced by his privately published Subsídios para a Bibliografia
Crítica das Fontes e Estudos Respeitando ao Hermetismo em Portugal (Supple-
ments for a critical bibliography of sources and studies regarding Hermetism
in Portugal)10 and the entry on Castelo Branco in his dictionary-like O Monu-
mento de Mafra de A a Z (The Monument of Mafra, from A to Z).11 Yet, most
information on Castelo Branco appears to derive from his 1987 work, which,
to date, still stands as the most complete and focused work on Castelo Branco
ever produced.
In this same line, Gandra further authored a noteworthy study entitled
“Alquimia em Portugal” (Alchemy in Portugal), printed in 2001 in Discursos
e Práticas Alquímicas, the proceedings of the 1999 conference I Colóquio
Internacional “Discursos e Práticas Alquímicas.” While this study repeats
much of the information provided in Gandra’s 1987 work, it also attempts to
place Castelo Branco into the wider phenomenon of Portuguese alchemy.
In 1991 the essay “A Alquimia e o ‘Projecto Áureo Português’” (Alchemy and
the “Portuguese Golden Project”) by José Manuel Anes was published in the
University of Coimbra’s non-periodical serial Via Latina. While this essay opens
with a direct quote from Castelo Branco’s Ennoea, it does not delve deeply into
his life or any of his books, but rather uses this quote as the starting point for
an exploration of Portuguese “mythemes,” such as Sebastianism, the Fifth
Empire, and saudosismo.12 Ultimately, Anes relies on essentialist conceptions
8 Gandra, nota preambular [prefatory note] to Ennoea, 5–43.

9 Gandra, nota preambular to Ennoea, 8.
10 Gandra, preâmbulo [preface] to Subsídios para a Bibliografia Crítica das Fontes e Estudos
Respeitando ao Hermetismo em Portugal.
11 Gandra, O Monumento de Mafra de A a Z, 1:154–57 (the title of this book refers to the Mafra
National Palace).
12 Saudosismo, frequently presented as an untranslatable Portuguese word signifying
“the present feeling of longing for something in the past with the hope of regaining it

88 Leitão
of Portuguese identity, largely basing his work on the methodologies of Gilbert

Durand, Henri Corbin, Eliade, and other like-minded Portuguese authors,
such as Dalila Pereira da Costa and António Quadros.13 While this does not
remove any merit from this essay as an exercise of philosophy of history, it
once again creates an unhistorical and excessively idealistic work which does
not offer much for the understanding of either Castelo Branco or his prophetic
or alchemical ideas.
Interestingly, in 2001 Anes explored the works of Castelo Branco in the essay
“O Segredo Debaixo de Uma Pedra” (The secret under a stone).14 This essay pro-
vides a relatively in-depth analysis of some aspects of the alchemical processes
and materials described in the Ennoea, offering an interpretation of Castelo
Branco’s concrete alchemical practices and concepts. He proposes a mixed
interpretation of this work, moving away from excessively “Jungian” readings
by pointing out how the Ennoea describes concrete operative and laboratorial
practices, which, however, do not inherently deny potential “spiritual” inter-
pretations. Beyond this, Anes also sporadically quotes Castelo Branco in his
2008 PhD thesis Hermes Redivivo, which focuses on French twentieth-century
alchemy. In this later work, in contrast to his 2001 study, Anes projects largely
contemporary, symbolic interpretations upon Castelo Branco, often citing
Centeno’s introduction to the Gulbenkian edition of the Ennoea,15 for example.
One further essay, by A. M. Amorim da Costa, can also be found in the
records of the VI Colóquio Internacional “Discursos e Praticas Alquimicas,”
held in 2006, which are currently hosted on the website of the online publica-
tion Triplov.16 This essay is entitled “O Sonho Alquímico de Enodato e o Perfil
do Filósofo Natural” (The alchemical dream of Enodato and the profile of the
natural philosopher) and, once again, focuses solely on the Ennoea, more pre-
cisely on a particular section that describes a symbolic dream of Enodato, one
of its dialoguing characters. The essay compares this section of the text with
the work of Lucian of Samosata, A True Story, and other early modern utopias
in the future,” refers to a complex aesthetic, literary, and religious-philosophical move-

ment largely created in the early twentieth century by the poet and philosopher Teixeira
de Pascoaes (pseudonym of Joaquim Pereira Teixeira de Vasconcelos, 1877–1952). Basing
himself on a particular reading of Portuguese history and literature, this sentiment of
longing was presented by Pascoaes and his followers as the defining feature of Portuguese
identity and spirituality. For Sebastianism and the Fifth Empire, see below.
13 Anes, “A Alquimia e o ‘Projecto Áureo Português,’” 29.
14 Also printed in 2001 in Discursos e Práticas Alquímicas, the proceedings of the 1999 con-
ference I Colóquio Internacional “Discursos e Práticas Alquímicas.”
15 Anes, “Hermes Redivivo – A Alquimia, Símbolo, Mito e Rito e Seus Ressurgimentos
Actuais,” 128.
16 Amorim da Costa, “O Sonho Alquímico de Enodato e o Perfil do Filósofo Natural.”

as narratives of scientific development. While this does not detract from the
value of the essay, Amorim da Costa uncritically repeats Castelo Branco’s bio-
graphical information as given in the Ennoea and by Barbosa Machado.
Finally, in 2016 an article of my own on Castelo Branco appeared, titled
“Alchemy, Prophecy, and Politics in Eighteenth-Century Iberia.” It offers no
new information regarding Castelo Branco’s biography and largely draws on
the same sources as the authors above. The article focuses on Castelo Branco’s
refutation of the anti-alchemical ideas of the Spanish intellectual Benito
Jerónimo Feijóo and pays substantial attention to Castelo Branco’s subscrip-
tion to Portuguese Sebastianism, as presented in the Ennoea.
Notably, all of the aforementioned studies largely focus on a single book by
Castelo Branco, the Ennoea, and many tend to circle around a single aspect of
this one work. Consequently, none offer a dedicated, coherent, and in-depth
understanding of the multiple facets of Castelo Branco’s overall literary cor-
pus. This myopia, and the visibility that editions of the Ennoea have enjoyed
since the late 1980s, has promoted a view of Castelo Branco solely as an
alchemist, a view which overshadows his contributions as a medical doctor
and, more importantly, a writer of remarkable prophetic literature, a topic to
which he devoted a much greater part of his work and of his life. Furthermore,
none of the existing studies question the accuracy of authors such as Barbosa
Machado, or even Castelo Branco himself, when it comes to the portrayal of
details of his life.
3 Biography
3.1 Early Years and Immediate Family

On the title page of the Ennoea, Castelo Branco offers that he was a “doctor in
the University of Coimbra, familiar of the Holy Office,17 physician of the most
excellent Lord Duke of Aveiro, and from the most ancient town of Soure,”18 a
town to the southwest of Coimbra. Any other biographical elements need to
be sought within his own books, either in personal anecdotes or minor narra-
tive tangents.
As a certified Inquisition familiar, Castelo Branco’s whole life had to be,
at one point, fully documented by the Holy Office. For anyone to be formally
17 A lay Inquisition cooperator. For more information on this position, see below under sec-
tion 3.3.
18 “Doutor na Universidade de Coimbra, Familiar do Santo Officio, Medico do Excellentissimo
Senhor Duque de Aveiro, e natural a antiquissima Villa de Soure.” Ennæa, title page.

90 Leitão
associated with the Inquisition, no matter the social position, this was often
a grueling process of genealogical and moral investigation, where applicants
would be scrutinized for “blood purity” (no Jewish or Muslim ancestry) and
social standing. Consequently, his Inquisition records19 are an invaluable clue
about Castelo Branco’s life. The local records of Soure also provide ample bio-
graphical data.
While the exact date of Castelo Branco’s birth remains unknown, he was
baptized in Soure on 26 November 1690,20 which would indicate that he
was born shortly before this date. He was the third child of his parents, António
Munhós de Abreu, a canonist, and Simoa Godinho da Rosa. This information
not only, for the first time, establishes a reliable birth date for Castelo Branco,
but also allows for the clarification of several points frequently offered as
part of his biography. As mentioned, the Ennoea is structured as a dialogue
between Enodio and Enodato, with Castelo Branco somewhat explicitly iden-
tifying himself with the latter.21 Yet, taking into consideration his actual year
of birth, it is noticeable that Enodato occasionally provides incompatible
information. The paradigmatic example of this is his claim of having met the
Grand Duke of Tuscany, Cosimo III, in Lisbon.22 Indeed, the Grand Duke spent
a period of time in Lisbon; however, this is documented as having happened
in 1668 and 1669,23 twenty-one years before the birth of Castelo Branco. This
suggests, then, that Castelo Branco and Enodato are not one and the same,
and Enodato should more properly be considered a literary character inspired
by Castelo Branco – a kind of literary alter ego (one of many, in fact) – and not
Castelo Branco himself. Consequently, the statements Enodato makes regard-
ing his own life, such as having traveled throughout Italy and France,24 cannot
be uncritically accepted as historical facts of Castelo Branco’s life. Any of the
biographical information provided in the Ennoea must always be corroborated
by other documents or sources.
Castelo Branco’s date of baptism potentially resolves another claim: his
possible meeting with the Salamantine writer and physician Diego de Torres
Villarroel (1693/4–1770), as proposed by Gandra.25 This idea stems from
19 That is, his diligência de habilitações, a term generally referring to the documents on the
due diligence conducted before the assignment of any office or position within the Portu-
guese Inquisition.
20 AUC, Paróquia de Soure, Baptismos 1681/1720, fol. 91r.
21 Prologo galeato [defensive foreword] to Ennæa, 172–73.
22 Ennæa, pt. 2, p. 88.
23 Radulet, “Cósimo III Medici and the Portuguese Restoration.”
24 Ennæa, pt. 2, p. 88.
25 Gandra, nota preambular to Ennoea, 28–29.

Villarroel’s mention of meeting a certain alchemy master in Coimbra in his

El Ermitaño y Torres.26 Gandra further proposes that Torres Villarroel’s forced
absence from Coimbra in 1732 was due to the animosity of a particular old
man living there, with both of these Coimbra figures potentially being one
and the same – namely, Castelo Branco. While it is not impossible that Castelo
Branco and Torres Villarroel could have met in Coimbra, Castelo Branco was
just a few years older than Torres Villarroel and not really an old man dur-
ing the time these events supposedly transpired. Furthermore, in 1732 Castelo
Branco was most likely living in Lisbon, not Coimbra, as suggested by his
Inquisition records.
Castelo Branco’s father was also from Soure, the son of Mateus de Munhós
de Abreu and Maria Leoa, both from this same town. His mother, Simoa, was
from Condeixa-a-Nova, a town to the northeast of Soure and halfway between
this town and Coimbra. His maternal grandparents were named Manuel
Simões Godinho, also a familiar of the Holy Office,27 and Cristina Antunes,
both from Condeixa-a-Nova.28
His father, António Munhós de Abreu, is described by Barbosa Machado as
having been a doctor of canon law and by Castelo Branco himself as the “most
notable jurist of this century.”29 However, the documents show that at the time
of Castelo Branco’s birth, his father merely signed himself as a Licentiate, and
his name has not been found in the records of the University of Coimbra, indi-
cating that he must have graduated from some other institution.
Overall the Munhós de Abreu family appears to have been relevant to the
local Soure institutions of power and authority, as Joachim Ramos de Carvalho
points out.30 A man named Mateus Munhós de Abreu, presumably Castelo
Branco’s paternal grandfather, was a frequent board member of the Soure
Santa Casa da Misericórdia (a Catholic lay charity brotherhood founded in
1498) from 1685 to the end of the seventeenth century.31 Also, overlapping
with this tenure, Castelo Branco’s father and uncle, António de Munhós de
Abreu and captain Luís Munhós de Abreu, occupied significant positions in
the same institution throughout most of the 1690s, with Luís being elected
26 Torres Villarroel, El Ermitaño y Torres, 93.

27 ANTT, Tribunal do Santo Ofício 1536/1821, Conselho Geral do Santo Ofício 1569/1821,
Ministros e Familiares, Diligências de Habilitação, nº 21498.
Ministros e Familiares, Diligências de Habilitação, nº 757, fol. 2r.
29 Systema Medico, bk. 5, chap. 1, sec. 3, n.p.
30 Carvalho, História da Santa Casa da Misericórida de Soure, 51–52.

92 Leitão
provedor (head of the board) in 1695, 1696, and 1721.32 Overall, as Fernando
José Gouveia Pais indicates, most positions of authority and influence in Soure
were monopolized by a relatively small number of families, the Munhós de
Abreu being one of these.33 Notably, none of the families involved in these
local Soure power constellations belonged to the greater noble houses, and
their members frequently signed their names with academic titles, rather than
with titles of nobility.34
Castelo Branco had two older siblings: Angelica, a girl born in 1687,35 and
António, a brother born in 1688.36 Records of at least seven younger siblings
exist: two sisters also named Angelica, born in 169537 and 169738 respectively;
Alexandre, born in 1699;39 Joaquim, born in 1702;40 Josefa, born in 1704;41 José,
born in 1706;42 and finally Rosa Maria, baptized in 1709.43 This large list of
registered baptisms did not, however, mean an extended number of living sib-
lings, as childhood deaths were a frequent occurrence in Soure, as noted by
Pais.44 This is best illustrated by the presence of three sisters named Angelica
on this list, suggesting that the older two of these died in infancy, with the
name passed on to the next daughter born.
Apart from this, there is no extensive information on his siblings, except
that, according to his familiar records at the Inquisition, one of his brothers
became a priest (i.e., his older brother António) and another a Franciscan
friar.45 Furthermore, Castelo Branco mentions that his brother José was a cor-
poral in the Terço da Armada da Coroa de Portugal46 (Regiment of the Navy of
the Crown of Portugal, a military unit founded in 1618).

33 Pais, “Reconstituição de Uma Comunidade Histórica,” 58.
35 AUC, Paróquia de Soure, Soure 1613/1910, Baptismos 1681/1720, fol. 44v.
37 AUC, Paróquia de Soure, Soure 1613/1910, Baptismos 1681/1720, fol. 141r.

3.2 Academic Studies

It is unknown if Castelo Branco attended any official learning institution in
his youth, but he claims to have enrolled in a Coimbra private academy, orga-
nized by Francisco de Meneses, future canon of the Patriarchy of Lisbon, and
frequented by those studying the humanities and the “divine sciences.” It is
unknown when he might have joined this academy, but he mentions that
he left before his fifteenth birthday.47 It is likely that he learned Latin during
this period.48
Although this particular academy has not been accurately identified among
the many active in the Portuguese early eighteenth century, academies of this
sort tended to be very heterogeneous in terms of internal orientation and ide-
als, being mostly semi-informal groups and gatherings of an elite interested
in discussing new developments in literature, rationalist philosophy, and
science.49 Typically, the members of such groups, beyond coming from the
upper political echelons of Portuguese society, were individuals driven by a
profound sense of pride who strove for the elevation of their country50 rela-
tive to the rest of Europe. Most notable among these was Francisco Xavier
de Meneses, the fourth Count of Ericeira (distinct from the Lisbon canon
Francisco de Meneses), organizer and director of various such groups.
Shortly after his departure from this Coimbra-based academy around 1704
or 1705, Castelo Branco’s name can be found associated with the University of
Coimbra. From 1699 to 1771, ten different individuals can be identified in the
university’s student records with the surname of either “Munhós,” “Munhós
de Abreu,” “Munhós de Gusmão,” or “Munhós de Abreu Gusmão Castelo
Branco,” all hailing from Soure and the majority of them studying canon law,
indicating a significant academic tradition of jurists in Castelo Branco’s family.
Among all of these, only two enrolled in medicine: Manuel Munhós de Abreu,
a student from 1700 to 1708,51 and Anselmo Munhós de Abreu, enrolled from
1707 to 1719,52 which seems to be how Castelo Branco signed his name at this
young age.
47 Dedication in pt. 1 of Ennæa, n.p.

48 Machado, Bibliotheca Lusitana Historica, Critica, e Cronologica, 1:178.
49 Amorim da Costa, “Da Farmácia Galénica à Farmácia Química no Portugal Setecentista,” 24.
50 Walker, Doctors, Folk Medicine and the Inquisition, 96.
51 AUC. Universidade de Coimbra. Índice de alunos da Universidade de Coimbra 1537/1919-
11-14, “Manuel Munhós de Abreu,” last updated 19 April 2018, http://pesquisa.auc.uc.pt/
details?id=141125.
52 AUC. Universidade de Coimbra. Índice de alunos da Universidade de Coimbra 1537/1919-
11-14, “Anselmo Munhós de Abreu,” last updated 19 April 2018, http://pesquisa.auc.uc.pt/
details?id=140532.

94 Leitão
His association with medicine seems to have been a complex topic for Castelo
Branco. In his unpublished work Systema Medico53 he asserts that he studied
medicine as a kind of personal vocation, against the advice of his family and
his own predilections. As a result, he claims to “have always inclined myself
to the lessons of other arts and sciences, as somebody who had no will and
was embarrassed about being a physician.”54 This polymath tendency seems to
hold true when one looks at his university records. Although he enrolled as a
Coimbra medical student for the first time in the academic year of 1707/1708,55
he already took the exam for a bachelor of arts (philosophy) in the previous
year, which he passed simpliciter on 6 April 1707.56 Throughout the academic
years 1707/1708 to 1713/1714, he was continuously enrolled as a medical student;
in between, however, he took the exams for a licentiate in arts57 on 15 May 1709
and for a master of arts on 5 October 1710,58 both successfully.
During this period one can also find a certain António Munhós, son of
another António de Munhós, from Soure, entering Coimbra to study canon
law59 – this was most likely Castelo Branco’s older brother. Of additional note
during his early adulthood, Castelo Branco mentions that, at age twenty-two
(around 1712), he was heavily afflicted by a tertian fever,60 which forced him
to withdraw to a farm he owned in Vale or Casal dos Reis, on the shores of
the Arunca River. The same estate, “watered with many fountains of the most
excellent water,”61 also seems to be described by Enodato, who claims to take
53 Full title: Systema Medico, Galeno-Chymico do Morbo Humgarico, ou Do Summo Grao

das Febres Agudas, Cholericas, Ardentes, Atrabilias, Intermitentes, Perniciosas, Continuas,
Malignas, e Pestillentas, Complicadas Com Todos os Sympthomas Funestos, e Mortaes,
Especialmente Com Vomitos Pretos e Dejecçoes Atrabiliarias, Como Forão as Que na Quadra
do Outono do Anno de 1723 Infestarão Esta Corte de Lisboa Oriental, e Occidental; Chamados
Vulgarmente: Vomitos Pretos [Medical system, Galenic-chymical, of the morbus hun-
garicus: Or, of the supreme degree of acute, choleric, burning, atrabilious, intermittent,
pernicious, continuous, malignant, and pestilent fevers, complicated by all the fatal and
deadly symptoms, especially by black vomits and atrabilious evacuations, as were those
which in the autumn of the year of 1723 infested this court of Oriental and Occidental
Lisbon; Commonly called: black vomit].
54 “Me incliney sempre a licao de outras artes, e sciencias, como quem não tinha vontade, e
se envergonhava de ser Medico.” Systema Medico, bk. 5, chap. 1, sec. 3, n.p.
55 AUC, Universidade de Coimbra, Matrículas 1707–1708, fol. 244v.
56 AUC, Universidade de Coimbra, Actos e Graus 1706–1707, fol. 149v.
57 AUC, Universidade de Coimbra, Actos e Graus 1708–1709, fols. 150v–152r.
58 AUC, Universidade de Coimbra, Actos e Graus 1710–1711, fol. 135r.
59 AUC, Universidade de Coimbra, Índice de alunos da Universidade de Coimbra 1537/
1919-11-14, “António Munhós,” last updated 20 April 2018, http://pesquisa.auc.uc.pt/
details?id=249658.
61 “Regada com muitas fontes de exelentissima agoa.” Ennæa, pt. 2, p. 29.

refuge there and indulge in hunting and fishing,62 activities Castelo Branco
also mentions as having spent the “best part of my youth”63 pursuing. Enodato
further claims to have a library at this place.64
Finally, in May of 1714, Castelo Branco graduated in medicine, with a first
attempt on the eighteenth and a second on the twenty-third, formally gradu-
ating on the twenty-fifth and being approved nemine discrepante.65 Strangely
(and perhaps influenced by his family), even though already a double graduate
in arts and medicine, in the academic year 1714/1715 Castelo Branco’s name can
be found yet again as an enrolled student of the Coimbra Instituta,66 the name
given to a preparatory course in Coimbra that typically served as a precursor to
either the study of law or canon law.
3.3 Adult Life

Now a double graduate and a certified physician, twenty-six-year-old Castelo
Branco married Teresa Maria Caetana da Fonseca67 on 25 December 1716. She
was born in Avessada, close to Condeixa-a-Nova, and baptized in 1701,68 mak-
ing her about fifteen at the time of their marriage. Teresa was the daughter of
captain Giraldo Simões, also from Avessada, and Joana Maria da Fonseca, born
in Coimbra, and also had a half-brother named Manuel Henriques Brazão,69
a familiar of the Holy Office.70 In Castelo Branco’s marriage record, his father,
António Munhós de Abreu, signed his name with the title “doctor,” and not
“licentiate” as had been the case up until 1709 (the baptism of Castelo Branco’s
sister Rosa Maria); the same is noted in 1715 in the documentation relating to
his father’s membership in the Santa Casa da Misericórdia charity.71
62 Ennæa, pt. 2, p. 28.

63 “O melhor da minha mocidade.” Systema Medico, bk. 5, chap. 1, sec. 3, n.p.
64 Ennæa, pt. 2, p. 30.
65 AUC, Universidade de Coimbra, Actos e Graus 1713–1714, fols. 129v–130r, fol. 131r.
66 AUC, Universidade de Coimbra, Matrículas 1714–1715, fol. 221r.
67 AUC, Paróquia de Condeixa-a-Velha, Condeixa-a-Nova, 1578/1911, Casamentos 1686/1791,
fol. 16v.
68 AUC, Paróquia de Condeixa-a-Velha, Condeixa-a-Nova, 1578/1911, Mistos 1578/1742,
fol. 208v.
Ministros e Familiares, Diligências de Habilitação, nº 757, fol. 2v.
70 See ANTT, Tribunal do Santo Ofício 1536/1821, Conselho Geral do Santo Ofício 1569/1821,
Ministros e Familiares, Diligências de Habilitação, nº 19601.
71 Carvalho, História da Santa Casa da Misericórida de Soure, 296.

96 Leitão
Still academically restless, Castelo Branco enrolled as a medical student in

Coimbra for two additional years, from 171872 to 1720.73 It is entirely unclear
why he returned, but the reason why he eventually abandoned his path as an
eternal student was most likely the birth of his first daughter, Mariana. Her
baptism in 171974 in Soure was remarkable in that, “due to necessity,” it was
performed at home and in that the rites were administered by the child’s aunt
Angelica. Such baptisms were frequent when there was a significant chance
that the newborn would not live long enough to be taken to church, which also
indicates a difficult birth. The fact that Angelica performed the baptism could
also indicate that she was a midwife by trade or at least was present at the time
of birth. A few years later, in 1722, Castelo Branco became a father once again,
this time of a boy named Anselmo like himself, who was also baptized at home
“due to necessity,” but this time by “Father António Munhós de Abreu,” Castelo
Branco’s older brother.75
Around the same time, António, by far Castelo Branco’s most historically
visible brother, even though a priest, seems to have been involved in local scan-
dals. As noted by Pais, around 1721 he was accused of fathering a boy named
Diogo, the son of Catarina Cardosa, a separated married woman of ill repute.
Although both were admonished in court, by 1730 they had a second son,
named Tomás, for which Catarina was jailed for two months in 1731.76
In 1724, most likely for professional reasons, Castelo Branco moved with his
wife to Lisbon, or more precisely, Occidental Lisbon, changing residences with
some frequency in his first two years there. He is reported to have originally
lived in the Parish of Santos, followed by Santíssimo Sacramento, and even-
tually settling in the Rua da Atalaia in the Parish of Encarnação77 (currently
Bairro Alto). It is in this residence that, on 7 September 1726, Teresa died,78
leaving Castelo Branco a widower.
Overall the move to Lisbon seems to have been professionally beneficial. As
mentioned in the title page of the Ennoea, there Castelo Branco became the
personal physician of the Duke of Aveiro (most likely Gabriel de Lencastre,
1667–1745), head of a powerful Portuguese noble house whose palace was

75 AUC, Paróquia de Soure, Soure 1613/1910, Baptismos 1720/1746, fol. 27r–v.
78 ANTT, Paróquia de Encarnação 1611/1911, Registo de Óbitos 1620/1911, Livro de Registo de
Óbitos 1718/1736, fol. 100r.

located in São Lourenço (currently Azeitão).79 Furthermore, he seems to have

grown quite familiar with the most notable medics of his time, becoming per-
sonally acquainted with João Curvo Semedo (1635–1719), an Alentejo-born
medical doctor, Coimbra graduate and eventually a physician of the royal
house;80 Francisco da Fonseca Henriques (1665–1731), another Coimbra
graduate81 and personal physician to King John V;82 Francisco Xavier Leitão,
physician of the royal house and director of the Senhora da Luz Hospital;83 and
Manuel da Cruz, professor of medicine in Coimbra and one of Castelo Branco’s
former masters,84 among others. He would become familiar with other
Enlightenment figures, such as Francisco Xavier de Meneses85 (in the Ennoea,
Enodato claims to have participated in his conferences)86 and most likely
Rafael Bluteau, a qualificador (book examiner) who approved the Ennoea on
behalf of the royal court87 and who also was the writer of the first Portuguese
dictionary, the Vocabulario Portuguez e Latino (1712–1721), and Castelo Branco’s
most frequently cited local author.
In July of 1727, Anselmo Castelo Branco initiated a petition to the Holy
Office to become a familiar, a process which extended into 1732. Familiares
were usually charged with executing arrests and accompanying prisoners
and were expected to serve as potential informants.88 Many social benefits
were associated with this role. Inquisition agents were exempt from military
service, general taxation, and governmental requests to house troops in their
lodgings. They also received favor in the distribution of consumer goods and
became immune to royal jurisdiction, needing only to answer to the courts of
the Holy Office.89
Familiares enjoyed the further advantage of being protected from exces-
sive prying by Inquisition censors conducting visitations.90 As pointed out by
79 Azevedo, Solares Portugueses, 111.

82 Cruz and Cruz, Sinopse da Vida e Obra de Francisco da Fonseca Henriques, 45–46.
86 Ennæa, pt. 2, p. 2.
87 Drumond Braga, “Controlando as Consciências,” 185.
88 Torres, “Da Repressão Religiosa para a Promoção Social,” 120.
90 Visitations were most often conducted by Inquisition-appointed censors in printers’
shops, book shops, monastery and college libraries, private libraries, and on recently
docked ships. Based on their findings, the censors could also interrogate suspected book
buyers, who could then find their books confiscated. It was possible to apply for an

98 Leitão
Timothy Walker, for a physician sympathetic to the Enlightenment or one with

the variety of interests of Castelo Branco, this meant an extra layer of security
should he own or try to acquire books by authors who were listed in the Index
Librorum Prohibitorum or otherwise suspected of heresy, such as Paracelsus,91
whose books were formally prohibited in Portugal since 1597.92
Castelo Branco’s association with the Inquisition was also considerably
delayed. The procedure for admitting someone as familiar focused not only
on the applicant but also on his family members. Therefore, a large part of the
Holy Office investigations was devoted to the life of his deceased wife, Teresa,
as well as his children. To further complicate the matter, either shortly before
or during the initial stages of this process, Castelo Branco remarried.93
His second wife was Antónia Josefa de Quadros Sarmento e Sampaio, bap-
tized in 1702 in the Parish of Santa Catarina.94 She lived in the Calçada do
Combro, literally down the street from Castelo Branco, and was the daughter
of António Pereira Quadros de Almendra, a criminal judge from Lisbon, and
Brigida Bernarda da Silva de Moraes, from Vimieiro95 in the Alentejo region.
Their marriage record has not yet been found, but they are registered as living
together in the Rua da Atalaia as early as 1727 in the Encarnação Parish’s Rol
de Confessados96 (a registry book listing the obligatory confession and com-
munion of every single individual within a parish during the time of Lent).
Checking all of these dates, given that the Rol was written at an uncertain date
(most likely after Lent, depending on the local priest’s disposition), this means
that they would have got married less than a year after Teresa’s passing. At
this time, two other individuals, besides Castelo Branco and his second wife,
resided in their home: his brother José (the soldier) and an unknown Francisco
Aires, probably a house guest or tenant.
exemption so as to be able to read prohibited books and in this way avoid the censors.
Although there are few historical sources on these exemptions, familiares would have had
easier access to them and in general have enjoyed considerable leeway in dealing with
suspect books. See Marcocci and Paiva, História da Inquisição Portuguesa, 94–97.
92 Sá, Índice dos Livros Proibidos em Portugal no Século XVI, 840.
94 ANTT, Paróquia de Santa Catarina 1572/1911, Registo de Baptismos 1572/1911, Livro de
Registo de Baptismo 1701/1721, fol. 22r
96 AHPL, Freguesia da Encarnação, Rol de Confessados da Freguesia da Encarnação 1727–
1729, fol. 37v.

One of the immediate results of Castelo Branco’s second marriage was a

considerable delay in processing his application to become a familiar, as
a whole new investigation needed to be conducted to determine the moral
standing and “blood purity” of his second wife’s family. In order to aid in the
process, Castelo Branco wrote several letters to the Holy Office pointing out
that several members of his wife’s family were themselves familiares, and most
genealogical details could be sought in their respective documentation.97
However, an apparently grave disagreement with his new father-in-law about a
“demand … for him to give me some foodstuffs”98 severely hindered his efforts,
as Judge António Pereira refused to aid him in any efforts to determine his
own genealogy.
It is uncertain what became of Castelo Branco’s children during this period.
One witness in his familiar diligence mentions that both were raised in Ega,99
a small village between Soure and Condeixa-a-Nova that Castelo Branco men-
tions in his Vida, Nascimento, e Morte de Xdato Fæmineis100 and the Escudo
Apologetico.101 Yet, another witness offers the conflicting information that only
Mariana resided in Ega, in the local priest’s house (potentially receiving some
form of education) and that Anselmo lived in Lisbon,102 with his father and
stepmother according to yet another witness.103
Finally, the last piece of information discernible from Castelo Branco’s
Inquisition records is that, at an uncertain date, he and his wife moved to
98 “Demanda … para me dar alimentos.” ANTT, Tribunal do Santo Ofício 1536/1821, Conselho
Geral do Santo Ofício 1569/1821, Ministros e Familiares, Diligências de Habilitação, nº 757,
fol. 201r.
100 Vida, Nascimento, e Morte de Xdato Fæmineis, 8.
101 Full title: Escudo Apologetico, Contraposto aos Golpes do Descuido Critico, Composto
pelos Sapientissimos Dous Censores do Xdato Fœmineis, Collegiaes do Antigo Collegio de
Gestas, Fundado nas Obras Novas, e Imperfeitas, Que Estão no Sitio da Cotovia [Apologetic
shield, opposed to the blows of critical carelessness, composed by the most wise two cen-
sors of the Xdato Fœmineis, collegians of the old College of the Gestas, which has been
established in the new and imperfect buildings that are in the Sitio da Cotovia]; Escudo
Apologetico, 17–19.
Ministros e Familiares, Diligências de Habilitação, nº 757, fols. 72v–73r.

100 Leitão
the Rua da Rosa das Partilhas104 (currently Rua da Rosa, a street adjacent to the
Rua da Atalaia in the Bairro Alto). No evidence of this move was registered by
the local parish, and in fact, Castelo Branco simply disappears from the Rol
de Confessados of Encarnação Parish after 1727. As mentioned, his Inquisition
evaluation ended in 1732, and his several letters to the Holy Office, if credible,
attest that he was still living in Occidental Lisbon by this year, although in an
unknown location.105
I was not able to find any information regarding the specifics of Castelo
Branco’s remaining life. My investigation of the records of the several parishes
of Lisbon has failed to determine if he had any children with his second wife,
the date of his passing, or any other details. He may have simply moved to
some other city or town, although my research in the Soure archives has like-
wise failed to provide any additional information. What is known is that in the
early 30s of the eighteenth century he published the vast majority of his works,
mostly between 1732 and 1734. The only exception (apart from his unpublished
manuscripts) is his two-volume work Vieira Abbreviado,106 published in 1746,
but most likely not by himself.
3.4 Later Years and Descendants

A great deal of speculation revolves around Castelo Branco’s death. Based on
Barbosa Machado’s Bibliotheca Lusitana, Inocêncio da Silva claims that Castelo
Branco was still alive in 1759, but this seems to be an error: in the fourth volume
of his work, Machado lists all the authors mentioned and states which were
still alive at the time of writing. Silva apparently takes this information to mean
that Castelo Branco was alive at the time of the printing of the fourth volume
of the Bibliotheca Lusitana, in 1759, while what seems to be rather implied is
simply that he was still living during the printing, in 1741, of the first volume, in
which Castelo Branco in fact is listed.
Survival even until (at least) 1741 amounts to considerable longevity for
Castelo Branco. Throughout his work he is constantly preoccupied with and
complaining about his personal suffering, be it his health, ill fortune, or pov-
erty. While the exact details of his personal life will probably never be known
beyond blank dates and the associated events, his literary image is that of a
106 Full title: Vieira Abbreviado em Cem Discursos Moraes, e Politicos, Divididos em Dous
Tomos [Vieira abbreviated in one hundred moral and political discourses, divided into
two tomes].

suffering author, constantly struggling with the world and his ill-fated “errand
star.”107 He presents this struggle with his astrological “misfortunes”108 as the
reason for his constant assumption of new names, pseudonyms, and literary
personalities, such as those of Enodato and Enodio; all complex ruses and
faked literary deaths to continuously avoid what he believed would be his ulti-
mate tragic destiny.
Gandra points out109 that Castelo Branco twice complains in his manuscript
Systema Medico about an apparent illness that afflicted him with convulsive
movements, preventing him from finishing the transcription of the prologue
and the final proofs of the last chapters of this work.110 Gandra proposes
that this illness could have been caused by some form of poisoning resulting
from his alchemical work, which could have eventually lead him to an early
grave. This is indeed a possibility, as in his other manuscript, the Juramento
Prophetico,111 Castelo Branco mentions that “I was not a wise man, but I tasted
the fruit of the tree of science, which not only took my life early but also
left me with my eyes open shrouded in the pages of my work,”112 which cer-
tainly suggests a work-related disease for a man who, as shall be seen, lead an
intense and troubled intellectual life, seeking meaning in crucibles, monsters,
stars, and prophecies.
Further elements that can also give credence to Castelo Branco’s feeble
health are two of his pamphlets, mentioned previously, the Vida, Nascimento, e
Morte de Xdato Fæmineis and the Escudo Apologetico. Published in 1732 under
different pseudonyms, both of these publications are nonetheless explicitly
related, with the Escudo Apologetico presenting itself as a sequel to the first.
While the names of their supposed authors are distinct, both men claim to live
in the “hospice/hospital of the Loreto” – that is, a hospice or hospital main-
tained by Our Lady of Loreto (Nossa Senhora do Loreto/Nostra Signora di
Loreto), the Lisbon church in close proximity to the Bairro Alto catering since
107 Juramento Prophetico, fol. 7v.

110 Prologo [foreword] to Systema Medico, n.p; Systema Medico, bk. 6, chap. 2, sec. 8, n.p.
111 Full title: Juramento Prophetico, ou Concordia do Mysterioso Juramento do Augustissimo
Monarcha Lusitano D. Afonso I Com os Vaticínios dos Prophetas Canonicos: Pedra Firme,
em Que Se Estabelece o Real Edificio da Historia Prodigiosa, Passada, Presente, e Futura
[Prophetic oath: Or concordance of the mysterious oath of the Most August Portuguese
Monarch Afonso I with the predictions of the canonical prophets: A firm stone on which
the royal edifice of the prodigious history, past, present, and future, is established].
112 “Não fuy homem sabio, mas da arvore da sciencia provei o fructo, que não so me tirou
antecipadamente a vida, mas deixou ainda com os olhos abertos amortalhado nas folhas
da minha obra.” Juramento Prophetico, fol. 7v.

102 Leitão
1518 to the city’s Italian community. It is known that the resident Brotherhood
of Our Lady of Loreto engaged in numerous charitable activities, providing
alms and medical services to the local population (beyond its own Italian con-
gregation), and had planned to build a hospital as early as 1623.113 Yet, as noted
by Sergio Filippi, actual construction was continuously postponed; all the
while, until 1739, new board members kept being elected, with no construction
ever happening.114 As this state of affairs persisted in the period when Castelo
Branco was most likely writing and publishing his books and pamphlets, his
mention of a (in fact non-existing) hospital of the Loreto could be an oblique
reference to the delays, as both pamphlets are aggressively satirical works of
social criticism. Consequently, the pseudonymous authors’ claim of living in
the hospice/hospital of the Loreto is not a viable piece of biographical infor-
mation for Castelo Branco. These references are most likely just a joke using
the device of nonexistent authors living in a nonexistent hospital that “offers
water when it rains, refreshment when it is cold, warmth to all when it is hot.”115
Some further details can be gleaned once again from the records of the
University of Coimbra, where, from 1739 to 1752, a student named Anselmo
Caetano Munhós de Abreu Gusmão Castelo Branco, from Soure, “son of
another [Anselmo],”116 can be found enrolled in canon law.117 A few years later,
from 1768 to 1780, a student from Coimbra named José Caetano Munhós de
Gusmão, “son of Anselmo Caetano Munhós de Gusmão,” is also found enrolled
in law.118 In all likelihood, these two were Castelo Branco’s son and grandson,
respectively. Together with the information that in 1775 a woman named Ana,
“daughter of Doctor Anselmo Caetano Munhós de Gusmão,” died in the Parish
of Almedina in Coimbra,119 these records largely confirm that Castelo Branco’s
son eventually settled in this city. Overall, his family seems to have returned to
its traditional occupation as jurists and legislators, apparently turning its back
on a legacy of science and brilliant alchemical and prophetic thinking.
113 Colen, “A Irmandade de Nossa Senhora do Loreto de Lisboa,” 258.

114 Filippi, La Chiesa degli Italiani, 106–7.
115 “Agoa se chove, refresco se faz frio, e agasalha a todos quando faz calma.” Vida, Nascimento,
e Morte de Xdato Fæmineis, n.p.
117 AUC, Universidade de Coimbra, Índice de alunos da Universidade de Coimbra 1537/1919-
11-14, “Anselmo Caetano Munhós de Abreu Gusmão Castelo Branco,” last updated
19 April 2018, http://pesquisa.auc.uc.pt/details?id=189283.
118 AUC, Universidade de Coimbra, Índice de alunos da Universidade de Coimbra 1537/1919-
11-14, “José Caetano Munhos de Gusmão,” last updated 19 April 2018, http://pesquisa.auc
.uc.pt/details?id=181134.
119 AUC, Paróquia de Almedina, Coimbra, 1520/1911, Óbitos 1747/1911, fol. 65v.

4 List of Written Works
The full extent of Castelo Branco’s works is a topic very much open to
debate. The most often quoted list appears in Barbosa Machado’s Bibliotheca
Lusitana, which gives under the name of Castelo Branco: the Ennoea (two
parts), Castelo Branco’s alchemical opus; the Oraculo Prophetico,120 a book on
teratology and prophecy; and the first volume of the Vieira Abbreviado, a work
offering thematic summaries of the works and sermons of the Jesuit António
Vieira, one of Castelo Branco’s major theological and prophetic influences.121
Following these, Machado identifies three more works that he claims
Castelo Branco had written under various aliases and pseudonyms. It is wholly
unknown how Barbosa Machado acquired information about the true author-
ship; however it is quite possible that he simply asked Castelo Branco himself,
who, as mentioned, was alive at the time Machado wrote the first volume of the
Bibliotheca Lusitana. Three teratology pamphlets appear in this category:
the Onomatopeia Oannense,122 published under the name of Jacome Fernandisi,
a supposed author of Italian origin whose work had been translated into
Portuguese by a certain Monsieur Roberto Wainger; the aforementioned Vida,
Nascimento, e Morte de Xdato Fæmineis, published under the name of Vasco de
Mendanha Coelho; and its sequel, the Escudo Apologetico, published under the
names of André Paulino Carregueiro da Costa Botado and Marcos Valentim
Páo Botelho Pegado. Finally Barbosa Machado also mentions what appears to
be a poetry book, entitled Historia Gallega, published under the name of Jorge
Martins in 1734, a book which remains completely unknown today.123
Inocêncio da Silva largely repeats this list, simply adding new information
about the second volume of the Vieira Abbreviado and also mentioning that
120 Full title: Oraculo Prophetico, Prolegomeno da Teratologia, ou Historia Prodigiosa, em Que
Se Dá Completa Noticia de Todos os Monstros [Prophetic oracle, prolegomenon of teratol-
ogy, or prodigious history, in which is given complete notice of all the monsters].
121 Machado, Bibliotheca Lusitana Historica, Critica, e Cronologica, 1:178–79.
122 Full title: Onomatopeia Oannense, ou Annedotica do Monstro Amphibio, Que na Memoravel
Noite de 14. Para 15. de Outubro do Prezente Anno de 1732 Appareceu no Mar Negro, e Saindo
em Terra Falou aos Turcos de Constantinopla Com voz tão Alta, e Horrivel, Que Parecia hum
Trovão, Respirando Com Tanta Furia, Que o Alento Era Mais Impetuoso, e Forte, do Que a
Mayor Tempestade, e Com Esta Tormenta Subverteo os Navios do Ponto Euxino, e Arrasou
Mesquitas, Torres, e Palacios da Corte Othomana [Onomatopoeia oannensis, or anecdote of
the amphibious monster which on the memorable night of the 14th to the 15th of October
of the present year of 1732 appeared from the Black Sea and, coming to land, spoke to the
Turks of Constantinople with such a high and horrible voice that it seemed like thun-
der, breathing with such fury that its strength was greater and stronger than the greatest
storm, and with this torment capsized the ships of the Euxine Sea and leveled mosques,
towers, and palaces of the Ottoman court].

104 Leitão
the Historia Gallega enjoyed two editions in the same year (1734), with the last
one containing extra “comments, or necessary warnings.”124
Of the contemporary authors, Gandra provides the most complete list
produced to this point and offers detailed descriptions of some of Castelo
Branco’s works. In addition to all the above-mentioned works, in his 1987 essay,
Gandra also provides the titles of Castelo Branco’s two known manuscripts,
both currently held in the Portuguese National Library: the Systema Medico
Galeno-Chymico, an extensive medical book dealing with fevers in general
and, in particular, the morbus hungaricus125 (typhus);126 and the Juramento
Prophetico,127 a book on prophecy which arguably represents Castelo Branco’s
most impressive and mature exposition of his messianic ideas. Gandra also lists
the Polymathia Medica Hermetico-Galenica,128 a book Castelo Branco mentions
in the Ennoea as having three volumes and being dedicated to D.129 Gabriel de
Lencastre, the eighth Duke of Aveiro,130 but which is entirely unknown today.
We can further add to this list the title of what seems to be yet another
unknown medical work, the Arcanologia Medica. In his Systema Medico,
Castelo Branco mentions twice that a book with this title is in the process
of publication131 and claims that it contains “the doctrine of the best writ-
ers, reduced to the briefest and clearest lesson.”132 However, it is possible that
Arcanologia Medica is an alternative title of the Polymathia.
Furthermore, even though difficult to ascertain, there is evidence to indi-
cate that two more teratology pamphlets were authored by him: the Relaçaõ
do Admiravel Phenomeno133 and the Consequencias do Fenomeno,134 both from
124 Silva, Diccionario Bibliographico Portuguez, 1:75.

125 Also referred to as Febre Castrensi. See Teichmeyer, Dissertatio Inavgvralis Medica de
Morbo Hvngarico Sive Febre Castrensi.
126 For the identification of morbus hungaricus with exanthematous typhus see Györy,
Morbus hungaricus, especially pp. 114–124.
127 Gandra, nota preambular to Ennoea, 39–42.
129 The abbreviation D. is used for Dom, the title prefixed to the Christian name of a
Portuguese of rank, roughly equivalent to the English “Lord.”
130 Prologo galeato to Ennæa, 171.
131 Systema Medico, bk. 3, chap. 1, sec. 21, n.p; bk. 4, chap. 1, sec. 21, n.p.
132 “A doutrina dos melhores escriptores, reduzida â liçaõ mais breve, e mais clara.” Systema
Medico, bk. 3, chap. 1, sec. 21, n.p.
133 Full title: Relaçaõ do Admiravel Phenomeno, Que Appareceo na Noyte de 5 de Agosto Deste
Presente Anno Sobre a Cidade de Constantinopla, e do Discurso, Que Sobre a Sua Observação
Fez Hum Arabe [Account of the admirable phenomenon which appeared in the night of
the 5th of August of this present year over the city of Constantinople and of the discourse
which an Arab made over its observation].
134 Full title: Consequencias do Fenomeno, Que Appareceu em Sinco de Agosto do Anno Prezente
Sobre Contantinopla [Consequences of the phenomenon which appeared on the fifth of
August of the present year over Constantinople].

1732. A clue for Castelo Branco’s authorship of the Relaçaõ is found in the pub-
lication license for his Escudo Apologetico, which is printed on the last page of
that work and mentions that the Relaçaõ, the Onomatopeia, “and others” were
submitted for evaluation together with the Escudo Apologetico,135 suggesting
that all these writings had the same author.
A number of hints suggest that the Consequencias do Fenomeno, too,
should be identified as one of Castelo Branco’s works: It is mentioned in
the Escudo Apologetico as being kept in the library of the (fictional) hospital
of the Loreto church between two other writings by Castelo Branco; namely,
the Onomatopeia and the Historia Gallega. Also, its author is given as Jacome
Fernandes, a name remarkably close to the Onomatopeia’s Jacome Fernadisi,
and both of these pamphlets have the same publisher, Mauricio Vicente de
Almeida. Finally, the Consequencias do Fenomeno claims to be a sequel to the
Relação do Phenomeno (even though the latter purports to have a different
author, António Nunes), and the text of the Relação also references the name
Jacome Fernandes,136 which indeed suggests that all three pamphlets have the
same author, even if definite proof is probably impossible.
5 Prophetism, the Miracle of Ourique, Sebastianism, Brigantism, and

the Fifth Empire in Eighteenth-Century Portugal
Castelo Branco’s works can be grouped into two main categories: those dealing
with medicine/alchemy and those dealing with Portuguese prophetic preoccu-
pations. Even if apparently distinct subjects, these appear in Castelo Branco’s
works as interdependent and intimately related aspects of reality. Thus, an
understanding of his works requires some form of comprehension of local
Portuguese expressions of messianism and millenarianism.
As mentioned, Castelo Branco’s prophetism builds itself around a local
literary tradition of multiple overlapping narratives, dating back to the four-
teenth century and in active construction during his own lifetime – namely,
the Miracle of Ourique, Sebastianism, the Portuguese Fifth Empire, and
Brigantism.
The Miracle of Ourique originates in a narrative of which the first writ-
ten records can be found in the fourteenth century.137 It is, in essence, a
legend focusing on the first Portuguese king, Afonso Henriques (1109–1185)
135 Escudo Apologetico, 24.

136 Relaçaõ do Admiravel Phenomeno, 6.
137 Eduardo Franco and Cardoso Reis, “O Quinto Império de Sebastião de Paiva,” 59.

106 Leitão
and his miraculous victory over a much greater Muslim army due to divine
intervention. This narrative emerged around the time of the Avis Revolution
and the Portuguese succession crisis of 1383–1385 and is often thought to have
been propaganda meant to reinforce the independence and autonomy of the
Portuguese kingdom in opposition to Castilian conquest.138
This narrative underwent a number of stages in its development, originating
in a medieval knightly narrative, undergoing several transmutations during the
fifteenth century,139 and by the sixteenth evolving into a monastic legend now
featuring miraculous elements, such as a vision of Christ by King Afonso.140 In
this form, it relates the founding of Portugal before the Battle of Ourique as a
providential kingdom of (and for) Christ, whose rulers are divinely protected
and anointed directly by God, thereby transmitting the idea of Portugal as a
second Israel and of the Portuguese as a new chosen people.
It acquired its most widespread form in the Juramento de Afonso Henriques
(Oath of Afonso Henriques), composed in the 1590s141 by the Cistercian friar
Bernardo de Brito. This version not only is an in hoc signo vinces narrative,
equating the first Portuguese king to Constantine I, but also mirrors the bibli-
cal story of Gideon.142
In this last form, the legend of Ourique can be understood as carrying a
clear political message, having been written during the Iberian dynastic union.
Thus, besides reaffirming the Portuguese divine right of independence, it also
offers cryptic prophetic elements regarding Christ’s plan for King Afonso’s
sixteenth generation, when his lineage would be reduced/weakened but
ultimately reach global triumph. Such prophetic elements within this nar-
rative seem to have been written in order to explain the disappearance of
King Sebastian (1554–1578) during the Battle of Ksar-el-Kebir in Africa and the
divinely willed and unavoidable ultimate liberation of the Portuguese king-
dom from Castilian captivity.
The subsequent rise of Sebastianism – that is, the belief that King Sebastian
had not died in Ksar-el-Kebir and that his return to claim the Portuguese
throne and liberate the kingdom was imminent – can be seen as a result of
both the propagation of the Ourique narrative by influential Cistercian pro-
independence chroniclers such as António Brandão (1584–1637)143 and the
138 Lima, O Império dos Sonhos, 104.

139 Buescu, “Um Mito das Origens da Nacionalidade,” 51–56.
141 Lima and Megiani, “An Introduction to the Messianisms and Millenarianisms of
Early-Modern Iberian America, Spain and Portugal,” 16.
142 Lima, O Império dos Sonhos, 111–12.
143 Brandão, Terceira Parte da Monarchia Lusitana, fol. 126v.

efforts of its main proponent in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries,

D. João de Castro (1550?–1628?), the major synthesizer of Sebastianism who
firmly connected the legend of the oath of Afonso Henriques with the figure of
Sebastian as well as with the idea of the Fifth Empire derived from the Book
of Daniel,144 thereby creating the Portuguese messianic and prophetic faith
par excellence in 1587.
In particular, Castro took the Trovas do Bandarra (Songs of Bandarra) and its
prophecies of the encoberto, the “hidden one,” as a clear and canonical source
for the messianic nature of the lost King Sebastian.145 The Trovas is a book
of folk prophecies written by Gonçalo Anes Bandarra, a new-Christian shoe
cobbler from the town of Trancoso. His prophecies are permeated by ideas
that are Jewish in their form, tone, and style, like those of Isaac Abravanel,146
but are characterized by a rather clear Portuguese nationalistic stance. In their
original form, they were not Sebastianic but rather an expression of previous
Iberian forms of Messianism, which can be found, for example, in the proph-
esies of Saint Isidore of Seville.147 Only through Castro’s appropriation, who
managed to construct a solid “theology” and literary tradition, did they become
a central source for what would become known as Sebastianism.
As a pioneer of modern Portuguese prophetism, Castro’s work resulted
in a number of unique features characteristic for Sebastianism. Sebastianic
narratives always base themselves on pre-existing prophecies148 and are
never creative in themselves. Such narratives and prophecies arise through
the constant rereading and reinterpretation of biblical or other preexistent
stories, shying away from explicit heresy and continuously seeking official
church approval.
With the restoration of Portuguese independence in 1640 and the accla-
mation of King John IV of the House of Braganza as the first king of the
third Portuguese dynasty, a section of the populace, either for political rea-
sons or out of genuine faith, quickly accepted the new king as the encoberto
of the Sebastianist prophecies. Consequently, during this period, there was
an extensive process of rewriting and rereading of all previous prophecies
focusing on King Sebastian, in order to establish the divine legitimacy of the
144 Lima and Megiani, “An Introduction to the Messianisms and Millenarianisms of Early-
Modern Iberian America, Spain and Portugal,” 16–17.
146 Tavares, “O Messianismo Judaico em Portugal,” 144.
147 Tavares, “O Messianismo Judaico em Portugal,” 147.
148 Lima and Megiani, “An Introduction to the Messianisms and Millenarianisms of
Early-Modern Iberian America, Spain and Portugal,” 16.

108 Leitão
new king.149 As a result, the movement split into two opposing camps: the
orthodox Sebastianists, who supported the identification of the encoberto as
King Sebastian and who still expected his (miraculous) physical return; and
the heterodox Sebastianists, also referred to as Joanists, who supported the
identification of the encoberto with King John IV.
Early examples (among others throughout the empire) of this new
Sebastianist reading were the Lisbon sermons of the Cistercian Luís de Sá or
the Franciscan João Conceição,150 who paved the way for the Jesuit António
Vieira (1608–1697) to rise during this period as the ultimate proponent of the
Joanist movement, after having been converted from orthodox Sebastianism.151
Vieira’s influence cannot be overstated. Presenting himself as similar to
the biblical Daniel or Joseph (a divinely inspired interpreter of visions and
dreams),152 through remarkable biblical exegesis, reinforcement of the narra-
tive of Ourique153 and interpretation of the Trovas (now partly rewritten to
fit John IV’s claim to the throne), Vieira continuously and tirelessly supported
the new Braganza dynasty for the rest of his life by identifying, one after the
other, all the kings of this line with the encoberto when the previous one had
failed to uphold his prophetic hopes. In this way, throughout his career, Vieira
identified the encoberto as John IV, Afonso VI, Peter II and John V,154 giving rise
to what might more accurately be called Brigantism – that is, a shift in focus
from a single individual within the Braganza dynasty to the whole dynasty as
divinely favored to fulfill the prophecies of the Portuguese Fifth Empire.
All these influences play a significant role in the writings of Castelo Branco,
an admitted follower and admirer of Vieira and his works. Far from detracting
from his medical or alchemical theories, such politico-religious ideas in fact
often fit into the same worldview as his idiosyncratic medical position. While
the relation between prophecy, alchemy, and medicine is not always evident,
Castelo Branco approaches all of these fields with a common repertoire of
symbols, metaphors, and interpretative strategies that suggests that his ideas
on metallic transformations, human health, and the functioning of prophecy
were undergirded by an overarching cosmology.
150 Tähtinen, “The Intellectual Construction of the Fifth Empire,” 417.
152 Lima, “Dreams and Prophecies,” 105.
153 Lima, “Dreams and Prophecies,” 114.
154 Cohen, “Millenarian Themes in the Writings of Antonio Vieira,” 26.

6 Analysis of Castelo Branco’s Writings and Their Underlying

Cosmological and Scientific Paradigms
6.1 Ennoea
Arguably Castelo Branco’s most fundamental and important work, the Ennoea
stands as the only known Portuguese book to unambiguously proclaim itself as
an alchemical treatise, dealing specifically with chrysopoeia and argentopoeia,
that is, the transmutation of other metals into gold and silver, respectively.
Castelo Branco had planned to publish this as his final opus, after the Vieira
Abbreviado, the Polymathia Medica, and the two volumes of his Systema
Medico, intending it as his final crowning achievement.155
In terms of structure, the Ennoea is divided into two parts, the first carrying
the date of 1732 and the second that of 1733. It is unclear if these were origi-
nally published separately, as all known copies of the Ennoea feature a single
publication license, suggesting that they have always been printed together.
The book is further accompanied by extensive sections presenting “auxiliary”
material, making this the structurally most complex of Castelo Branco’s works.
The title page is immediately followed by a dedication to the Lisbon canon
Francisco de Meneses, which quickly develops into an extensive argumen-
tation and exposition of Castelo Branco’s prophetic ideas. While not always
coherent in his position as either an orthodox Sebastianist or a Brigantine (but
most often pointing to King John V, grandson of John IV and the ruling king
for most of Castelo Branco’s life, as the future emperor of the Fifth Empire),
Castelo Branco sets forth his faith in a divinely appointed, future Portuguese
Empire, a faith grounded in the narratives of the Miracle of Ourique and the
most common tropes about the Portuguese Fifth Empire and Sebastianism. In
doing so, he demonstrates an impressive capacity for biblical exegesis and for
weaving prophecies (biblical or not) into a single vision of Portuguese future
glory, a vision that is explicitly inspired by Vieira.
The Ennoea continues with an extensive prologue – in essence, Castelo
Branco’s apology for alchemy. This section of the text is notable for establish-
ing many of Castelo Branco’s positions on the scientific debates of his time, his
intellectual stance on the reality of alchemy, as well as his literary influences.
The apology was a necessity for Castelo Branco: publishing this book in the
first half of the eighteenth century, and his very position as a Holy Office famil-
iar, required an extensive exposition of scientific and theological/religious
theory in order to conceptualize alchemy as a legitimate endeavor, especially
155 Prologo galeato to Ennæa, 171–72.

110 Leitão
when many of his sources were either prohibited (such as Paracelsus) or Pagan
and Muslim authors.
Of note in this section is Castelo Branco’s extensive refutation of Athanasius
Kircher’s arguments against the existence of the philosopher’s stone, as set out
in the latter’s Ars Magna Lucis et Umbrae, as well as his defense of Paracelsus
against accusations of magical practice.156 These two opening sections of the
Ennoea occupy about one third of the whole volume, but they seem to pay
off by ultimately defining alchemy as something non-offensive to Catholic
dogma and intellectual sensitivities, and as something of potential Portuguese
national interest.
According to the Inquisition publication licenses (placed immediately after
the prologue), the Ennoea appears to have been accepted for publication,
for the most part, merely as an intellectual curiosity or an exercise of “specu-
lation.” Alchemy, for the Inquisition censors, was largely a vain science of no
real worth, but also of no real threat to “the faith and good customs.”157 An
alternative and more positive reading, even if still skeptical regarding the real-
ity of chrysopoeia, is given in the royal publication license written by Rafael
Bluteau, probably a personal acquaintance of Castelo Branco, and placed
immediately after the Holy Office license. Here, Bluteau, while not expressing
genuine belief in the creation of the lapis, still describes its pursuit as useful
due to the resulting “fortunate abortions”158 – that is, the chymical159 byprod-
ucts of alchemical operations.
Following the licenses, a few more pages are dedicated to errata and correc-
tions, after which the actual first part of the book finally begins. The first part
is once again largely an apologia, detailing the “ancientness, and excellence of
the Great Art, and its two greatest mysteries,” chrysopoeia and argentopoeia.
Castelo Branco proceeds by offering a history of alchemy, tracing it through
Egypt, Greece, the Hebrews, Romans, and Arabs, and finally to several known
instances in his own time. This section ends with an extensive refutation of
Feijóo’s denial of the philosopher’s stone in the third volume of his Teatro
Crítico Universal (originally published in 1729).160
The second part of the Ennoea is dedicated to Francisco de Sousa da Silva
Alcoforado Rebelo, a Porto nobleman, expert in Latin grammar, philosophy,

157 Licenças do Santo Officio [licenses of the Holy Office] in Ennæa, n.p.
158 Licença do Paço [licence of the Palace] in Ennæa, n.p.
159 The archaically spelt chymistry is used here to refer to an inclusive precontemporary cat-
egory covering both of what today would be referred to as “alchemy” and “chemistry,”
respectively. See Newman and Principe, “Alchemy vs. Chemistry.”
160 See Leitão, “Alchemy, Prophecy, and Politics in Eighteenth-Century Iberia.”

and theology, as well as in sacred and profane history.161 This dedication is

much less remarkable than the first one; Castelo Branco justifies it by the
“parables” in the Ennoea, which should be dedicated to someone skilled in
their decoding.162 In terms of content, this part contains Castelo Branco’s
original contribution to the alchemical debate. Following the book’s dialogi-
cal structure and referring extensively to alchemical symbolism and technical
language, Castelo Branco discusses the matter of the philosopher’s stone, the
philosophical mercury, its digestions, and the several operations required to
arrive at the final results of chrysopoeia and argentopoeia. Of particular note
in this part is Enodato’s description of an “enigmatic dream,” an extended sec-
tion of complex symbolism.
Overall, the Ennoea is deeply informed by an aggressively critical and
reformist mentality. Before setting forth any of his own alchemical ideas or
methods (which are only provided in the last 100 pages of a 600 page book),
Castelo Branco makes a point of attacking the major detractors of alchemy,
such as Kircher or Feijóo, and carve out a new space and conception for
alchemy within the Portuguese academic world, referring extensively to the
authorities of his own time, such as Bluteau (from whom he draws many of
his definitions), Francisco Xavier de Meneses, António Vieira, and even Feijóo
(when this is convenient to him).
Situated in the eighteenth-century Portuguese debate between “Ancients”
and “Moderns,” Castelo Branco’s initial and most basic defense for alchemy
rests on underlining the inherent enchantment of the world. This type of argu-
mentation was common in the first half of the Portuguese eighteenth century,
and was also extensively used, for example, by the medical doctor Bernardo
Pereira in his Discurso Apologetico, a small 1719 pamphlet-like work, whose sole
purpose is to demonstrate the existence of phenomena which defy rational
explanation, leaving thus room within reality for divine, miraculous, and fan-
tastical occurrences. Equally, Castelo Branco’s defense of chrysopoeia and the
philosopher’s stone lies in the impossibility of the rational understanding and
denial of such “marvels.”163
This impossibility is, for him, also strictly tied to his religious concepts and
their relation to alchemy and Nature in general. Nature, as the first aspect of
creation, lies at the top of Castelo Branco’s cosmology, immediately below
God. This extends beyond mere material conceptions of Nature and in par-
ticular includes the stars and the heavens (which are much more relevant in


112 Leitão
his prophetic works). Consequently, Nature precedes Scripture as the carrier

of the original divine law;164 the law of Nature is the first teacher of man, thus
giving legitimacy to pagan and non-Judeo-Christian writers and natural phi-
losophers, who learned from God’s first-appointed teacher.
Nature is equally the teacher of Art and the master of faith.165 In it one may
find the corollaries and the fundament of all divine Scripture, and in its works
Nature displays the rudiments of the mysteries of faith.166 Equally, this meant
that the Hermetic mysteries, derived from the same Nature, were inferior to
those of faith. In historical terms, Castelo Branco proposes an idea of religious
progression: idolatry with its fables, derived from Nature, was the vehicle by
which the Gentiles could become aware of the true faith, or at least its even-
tual mysteries; idolatry, even with its errors, was the path towards the reality of
the mysteries of the true religion.167 In this sequence, Catholicism ultimately
enlightened the mysteries of Nature, and Hermetic philosophy enlightened
Catholicism and was the ultimate expression of the understanding of its mys-
teries: the truth of Nature leads to the falsehood of gentility, which leads to
the truth of Christianity, and the truth of Christianity to the truth of Art. All
of these natural/religious/Hermetic mysteries are subject to a principle of
circular transformation, which connects all of Castelo Branco’s scientific and
cosmological ideas and is also fundamental to his conception of Sebastianism.
This framework also means that any religion that recognizes alchemy as a
true Art is not without validity, for it has come to understand the mysteries
of the true faith as transmitted by Nature and enacted in Art. The several pagan
and Muslim authors Castelo Branco quotes throughout the Ennoea are thus
presented as just and good men, even if partially deluded in their religious fine
points. Even though Castelo Branco had a clear preference for Catholic authors,
the fact that Geber was Muslim or Paracelsus a heretic did not invalidate their
righteousness, virtue, or religious piety, for their knowledge of science could
have only come from genuine divine revelation.168 This sentiment is pervasive
in all of Castelo Branco’s writings; accordingly, he constantly demonstrates
a surprising level of religious tolerance. Even so, Christians, and Catholics in
particular, can always acquire a much deeper understanding of all Hermetic
mysteries, and they are the only ones gifted with glory upon death,169 for their

168 Ennæa, pt. 2, p. 7.
169 Ennæa, pt. 2, p. 11.

religion is the most perfect of all,170 and the very philosopher’s stone is the
symbol of the Holy Trinity.171
Cross-checking the Ennoea for all relevant references reveals that Castelo
Branco’s intellectual position in the eighteenth-century “Art versus Nature”
debate might not have been entirely consistent. Art, he admits, recreates
Nature, as Nature stands as the precursor to all reality, which includes the pro-
duction of miracles.172 Yet Art, it seems, is also capable of exceeding Nature.173
Castelo Branco does not directly address how these two positions can be har-
monized. Extrapolating from the Ennoea, the solution might be that he sees
Nature as a merely passive urgrund of reality, manipulated by an active God
who derives miracles and mysteries out of it. In the same manner, Art is an
active practice, extracting miracles from Nature which the latter would not
spontaneously produce if undisturbed. Should this solution to the reconcili-
ation of Art and Nature be accurate, it would also explain his position on the
nature of metals and metallic transformations. While Castelo Branco again
is not entirely coherent, his overall conception is often compared to that of
Albertus Magnus:174 the different metals are in essence the same matter but
exhibiting different stages of decay or disease. All metals are meant by Nature
to be gold, but they are afflicted by an infirmity that Nature, unattended, can-
not cure. Thus Art, through the lapis, can exceed Nature and cure this illness
of the metals, restoring all of them to their perfect healthy state,175 the same
being true for human bodies.
6.2 Onomatopeia Oannense, Relaçaõ do Admiravel Phenomeno, and

Consequencias do Fenomeno
Apart from the Oraculo Prophetico, all of Castelo Branco’s teratology, marvel,
or portent books were written under pseudonyms – as was common in this
particular genre of literature during this period, according to Ana Margarida
Ramos.176 In most respects, Castelo Branco’s fairly extensive output on monsters
and wonders is typical for Portuguese eighteenth-century chapbook culture.
Portuguese chapbooks on monsters reached their peak in the late seven-
teenth and the first half of the eighteenth centuries.177 Compared to the rest
170 Ennæa, pt. 1, p. 218.

174 Ennæa, pt. 1, pp. 120–21.
176 Ramos, “Os Monstros na Literatura de Cordel Portuguesa do Século XVIII,” 233.
177 Subrahmanyam, “Monsters, Miracles and the World of Aja’ib-o-Gharib,” 299.

114 Leitão
of Europe, this type of literature emerged relatively late, as the most notable
examples of this genre had already appeared around the fifteenth and six-
teenth centuries in other regions such as Germany and Italy.178 There are many
reasons for this late arrival, and all help to explain Castelo Branco’s predilec-
tion for this form of literary expression. As pointed out by Palmira Fontes da
Costa, the rise of this genre in Portugal is associated with anti-Enlightenment
ideals, a form of rebellion against the normalization and disenchantment of
the natural world179 – a topic already witnessed in Castelo Branco’s Ennoea.
In general, these pamphlets and chapbooks had a somewhat periodical
nature and were usually sold by the Brotherhood of the Blind180 and in the
Terreiro do Paço in Lisbon (as confirmed on the cover page of the Onomatopeia
Oannense). By definition, they were a form of folk literature, but were also read
at the court and enjoyed widespread popularity.181 In the Portuguese case, tera-
tology and prodigy literature often dealt with issues of imperial rise and fall,
with particular focus on the Ottoman and Portuguese Empires. Tying in with
Sebastianic and Brigantine traditions, these narratives mostly were concerned
with the moral punishment of the enemies of Christendom in general182
and Portugal in particular, underlining the idea of Portuguese divine protec-
tion and providence.183 This nationalistic and religious appeal resulted in
the occasional explicit support of these publications by King John V184 and
even the Inquisition.185
The pamphlets often presented their narrative content as translations of
Italian or Spanish letters,186 relaying stories of inexplicable appearances of great
monsters and beasts, whose names or physical features symbolized the fall
of the Turkish Empire and the rise of the Portuguese, often associated with
Sebastianic iconography. Such pamphlets had also inherited much from
travel literature,187 offering numerous details on the local geography, ethnog-
raphy, and politics of the regions mentioned in them. The descriptions of
monsters and prodigies derived to a large extent from the tradition of bestiaries
178 Daston and Park, Wonders and the Order of Nature, 180.
179 Costa, “O Entendimento do Corpo Monstruoso no Portugal do Século XVIII,” 1.
181 Figueiredo, “Papéis Volantes do Século XVIII,” pt. 1, p. 57.
183 Figueiredo, “Papéis Volantes do Século XVIII,” pt. 1, pp. 59–60.
187 Costa, “Between Fact and Fiction,” 68.

as pedagogical morality works,188 for which Sanjay Subrahmanyam has further

proposed a continuity with the Indo-Persian wonder literature.189
The first teratology work that can be unambiguously attributed to Castelo
Branco is the Onomatopeia Oannense, published in 1732, without doubt after
15 October of that year (as it refers to events supposedly having occurred on
this date). Of all Castelo Branco’s pamphlets, this one has attracted the most
academic attention and is often offered as a prime example of the imperial
style of teratology pamphlets of the Portuguese eighteenth century.
Its full title, Onomatopeia Oannense, ou Annedotica o Monstro Amphibio
(Onomatopoeia oannensis, or anecdote of the amphibious monster) can be
interpreted as a hint that this text is not meant to be taken at face value but
rather (as proposed by Ramos) as a simple anecdote.190 Not contradicting
this hypothesis is the fact that this title was most likely taken from the entry
“Oannes” in Bluteau’s Vocabulario Portuguez e Latino, which is quoted verba-
tim in the Ennoea191 and once again in the Onomatopeia itself:192
Oannes. Half man, & half fish monster, who used to be seen in Egypt.
It is said that in the morning he would come out of the red sea, & and
walk around the City of Babylon, & in the afternoon he returned to the
sea. During the day, to those who would listen to him, he taught all forms
of Sciences, & Arts, Agriculture, Architecture, Mathematics, natural &
moral Philosophy, Medicine, &c. In the space of four hundred years there
were four Oanes, & these were called Anecdotes….193
This small pamphlet narrates the appearance of a gigantic amphibious mon-

ster that emerged from the Black Sea (instead of the Red Sea, as given in the
Vocabulario Portuguez e Latino) in Constantinople, uttering five destructive
and prophetic letters to the Ottoman court and then disappearing once again.
These five letters, the five Latin vowels A E I O U, in addition to being uttered
by the monster, were also described as being symbolically displayed in the
189 Subrahmanyam, “Monsters, Miracles and the World of Aja’ib-o-Gharib,” 304.
192 Onomatopeia Oannense, n.p.
193 “Oannes. Monstro meyo homem, & meyo peixe, que antigamente foy visto no Egypto.
Dizem que pela manhãa sahia do mar vermelho, & andava nos contornos da Cidade de
Babylonia, & pela tarde se restitohia ao mar. De dia aos que o hiao ouvir, ensinava todo o
género de Sciencias, & Artes, Agricultura, Architectura, Mathematicas, Philosophia natu-
ral, & moral, Medicina, &c. No espaço de quatrocentos annos apparecerão quatro Oanes,
& forão chamados Annedotes….” (Bluteau, Vocabulario Portuguez, e Latino, 6:5).

116 Leitão
monster’s body: its two arms formed an A; in its hands it held a scepter and a
globe – that is, the I and O; and the crown on its head formed an E and a V/U.194
As so often,195 this description bears significant similarities to another pam-
phlet, the 1727 Emblema Vivente by José Freire de Monterroio de Mascarenhas,
a fellow in several Portuguese intellectual academies and an unavoidable
name in the history of Portuguese chapbooks, many of which prophesize the
fall of the Ottoman Empire.196
Following in the narrative, “the celebrated preacher Vani Effendi” gives sev-
eral interpretations for the letters, but ultimately they are taken to signify the
name of a king whose empire will crush that of Constantinople. While this
king’s name is not revealed, Portugal and Lisbon are mentioned in Effendi’s
discourse, specifically as the seat of the future Fifth Empire, and the mys-
terious monarch is further compared to an eagle. In Castelo Branco’s own
symbolism, the eagle is often taken to be a symbol of King John V, including
in the Ennoea,197 and the five letters can easily be construed to actually spell
out the king’s name: IOAM V (the E being turned to form an M). This pamphlet
is therefore a clear instance of Castelo Branco proclaiming King John V as the
first emperor of the Fifth Empire, making it an explicitly Brigantine work.
In terms of authorship, as mentioned, the Onomatopeia is presented as a let-
ter by an Italian man named Jacome Fernandisi, a captive in Constantinople,
that has been translated into Portuguese by a Monsieur Roberto Wainger, a
master of languages at the court of Lisbon. It is this aspect of the pamphlet
that connects it with the two other mentioned previously: the Relaçaõ do
Admiravel Phenomeno and the Consequencias do Fenomeno. Both pamphlets
were published in 1732 and both refer to the same event, supposedly happen-
ing on 5 August of that year: not the appearance of a monster but rather of a
heavenly sign, a “globe of fire … spitting out flames.”198
In terms of prophetic content, both pamphlets focus on the manifestation
of the letters V S V as a result of the above-mentioned fiery event. In very clear
terms, the Relaçaõ describes these as the mark of a prince, which indicates, fol-
lowing the narrative of the Miracle of Ourique and the sixteenth generation,
194 The same five letters, as noted by Subrahmanyam, were also used by the Austrian Empire
to signify Austriae est imperare orbi universo in Latin and simultaneously Alles Erdreich ist
Österreich untertan in German, both in effect meaning “all the world is subject to Austria.”
The topic of the Austrian and Russian wars against the Ottoman Empire is a constant in
Portuguese teratology.
195 Costa, “O Lugar das Imagens na Percepção e Entendimento do Corpo Monstruoso,” 19.
196 Machado, Bibliotheca Lusitana, 2:853–58.
198 “Hum globo de fogo … despedindo chamas.” Relaçaõ do Admiravel Phenomeno, 3.

that the letters should be read as Victor Sebastianus Venit.199 Thereby, the
Relaçaõ presents itself as an orthodox Sebastianic text.
The Consequencias, while explicitly claiming to be a sequel to the Relaçaõ,
seems to largely contradict the latter’s supposed prophecy. It gives the letters
a new meaning by decoding them as Venturatus Sublimes V, which, while not
certain, is probably another reference to King John V, making it a Brigantine
pamphlet. This discrepancy, alongside a thorough analysis of both pamphlets,
makes it appear quite possible that they actually might not have the same
author, as they seem to occupy opposite trenches of the Portuguese prophetic
debate. Be that as it may, the Consequencias does seem to be extremely close
to Castelo Branco’s ideals and the narrative he offers in the Onomatopeia.
Consequently, Castelo Branco might simply have hijacked the Relaçaõ’s narra-
tive and characters from another author, producing an “unlicensed” sequel to
fit his own purposes, for whatever reason.
6.3 Vida, Nascimento, e Morte de Xdato Fæmineis and Escudo

Apologetico
Two more teratology works that explicitly present themselves as connected are
the Vida, Nascimento, e Morte de Xdato Fæmineis and the Escudo Apologetico.
Both were published in 1733 and, if their dedication text is to be believed, writ-
ten half a month apart (the Vida on 17 November, the Escudo on 1 December).
These two texts differ considerably from typical eighteenth-century
Portuguese teratology pamphlets in a number of respects: They are signifi-
cantly more extensive than Castelo Branco’s previous pamphlets, with the Vida
having twenty pages and the Escudo twenty-four, slightly above the average
four to sixteen pages of other teratology chapbooks.200 Both contain a dedica-
tion and largely break away from the stereotyped presentation format which
usually characterizes the genre. Lastly, both are clearly satirical texts, using
teratology and other forms of prediction as an excuse to weave into the text
social and intellectual criticism directed at the citizens of Lisbon and Coimbra.
The Vida, published under the pseudonym Vasco de Mendanha Coelho, had
a purpose that was not well concealed – namely, to make profit. This pamphlet
focuses on the supposed monstrous birth of two conjoined girls, collectively
named Xdato. In the text’s dedication to the “Cartapacio de Generos,” the List
of Things, this monster’s name is revealed as meaning “give me money” – an
etymology Castelo Branco took from Bluteau’s dictionary.201 This should not be
199 Consequencias do Fenomeno, 6.

200 Ramos, “Os Monstros na Literatura de Cordel Portuguesa do Século XVIII,” 260–61.
201 Bluteau, Vocabulario Portuguez & Latino, 8:608, s.v. “X.”

118 Leitão
taken as a surprise, as ultimately, like most of Castelo Branco’s other pamphlets,

the sole purpose of this work was to generate some income. While it may be an
unreliable source of biographical information, in his dedication in the Vida, he
bitterly complains about his lack of “things,” and in his other books, including
the Ennoea,202 he frequently claims that these are just a means by which he
hopes to acquire some recognition or income.
The text of the Vida describes several monsters and monstrous births, some
of which are easily identifiable as being derived from other pamphlets and
reports both from Portugal and abroad. In contrast to the Onomatopeia, they
are given a more or less medical and physiological analysis, far removed from
ideas of prophecy or divine foreboding. Still, many of the analyses are given
a twist, making it obvious that most of the descriptions are largely jocose,
presented so as to create a double entendre or provide satirical social com-
mentary. Castelo Branco evidently relies heavily on his medical training here,
as he briefly debates Fonseca Henriques’s theory of generation (probably taken
from the latter’s book Medicina Lusitana) and Michael Ettmüller’s theories on
the formation of the fetus.203
Overall, in the Vida Castelo Branco denies the inherent prognostic capacity
of monsters and monstrous births as well as their interpretation as forms of
divine punishment or warning. He rejects the idea that the maternal imagina-
tion had an influence on the fetus, an opinion advanced by Ettmüller, Daniel
Sennert (whom he respectively refers to as the wisest among the Hermetic and
the most learned among the Galenic204 – a statement which greatly aids in
identifying Castelo Branco’s mixed medical position), and Rodrigo de Castro (a
Portuguese professor of medicine who was mostly active in Hamburg).205 For
him, monsters were not the result of the mother’s or God’s imagination, but
merely of that of the medics.
The Escudo Apologetico followed this publication as an explicit sequel,
claiming to be a defense against two purported censors and critics of the Vida.
The pamphlet names André Botado (botado, lit. “dropped”) and Arcos Pegado
(pegado, lit. “taken”) as its supposed authors and, like the Vida, was printed
in the press of Mauricio Vicente de Almeida. Its dedication was offered to
the “Cartapacio de Preteritos,” the “List of Pasts,” who is claimed to actually
be the same “individual” as the one to which the Vida is dedicated.

205 Machado, Bibliotheca Lusitana, 3:639–710.

The Escudo opens with a prologue, followed by the actual defense against the
two mentioned critics. The prologue contains a quite entertaining, humoristic
narrative, relating a meeting of all the scoundrels (mariolas) of the Terreiro
do Paço, Rossio, Ribeira das Naus, Madalena, São Nicolau, Cais de Santarém,
Pedra, and Carvão206 – all Lisbon locations within relatively short distance
from the Loreto church. The meeting is held to decide how to defend the fel-
low scoundrel who wrote the Vida. This section of the text is full of nonsensical
narrative tangents, and numerous other prognostic and teratological books are
mentioned and evaluated: most of them are found to be unworthy of attention,
including those of Castelo Branco himself. Ultimately, the prologue states that
the Escudo Apologetico should not have the purpose to defend the Vida itself,
but rather to defend its author against the attacks directed at him.
The defense, as the main component of the Escudo Apologetico, is largely
built on a debate about morality, offering yet another opportunity for Castelo
Branco to satirize society and culture. In fact, there is no evidence that the
criticism this pamphlet claims to defend itself against actually existed, as nei-
ther the book containing the purported criticism, the Descuido Critico, has ever
been found, nor the college to which the supposed critics are said to belong,
the Collegio Gestiano. The name of this college could merely be a play on the
words gestar (gestate) or gestação (gestation) related to Castelo Branco’s denial
of Ettmüller’s, Sennert’s, and Castro’s theories on the generation of fetuses, a
denial that might have spurred legitimate criticism from some of his medi-
cal colleagues.
As a whole, both the Vida and the Escudo stand out from the rest of the
eighteenth-century Portuguese teratology pamphlets not only by their critical
stance on teratology itself but also, despite their satirical nature, by being eru-
dite texts207 much closer to actual medical and scientific debates than those
surrounding prophetism or Sebastianism.
6.4 Oraculo Prophetico

Castelo Branco’s final work on teratology, the Oraculo Prophetico, published in
1733 (its commercialization license is dated 14 November),208 is the only one
on this subject that was published under his own name. Although it is a slim
publication, calling it a pamphlet would be inaccurate, as it numbers ninety-six
206 Escudo Apologetico, 3.

207 This is also noted by Ramos in “Os Monstros na Literatura de Cordel Portuguesa do
Século XVIII,” 409–11.
208 Oraculo Prophetico, 96.

120 Leitão
pages. Also, this work explicitly claims to be the first part of a larger work, the
rest of which remains completely unknown, if it ever was written.
Its title page, clearly inspired by António Vieira’s História do Futuro (History
of the future; Vieira’s most influential work, aiming to establish the Portuguese
Empire as the future Fifth Empire), is remarkable on its own and points to
the book’s immediate purpose. It introduces the work as “prophetic oracle,
prolegomenon of teratology, or prodigious history, in which is given complete
notice of all monsters, composed for the confusion of ignorant people, satisfac-
tion of wise men, extermination of false prophecies, and explanation of true
prophecies.”209 Overall, the Oraculo Prophetico follows the same intellectual
thread as the Vida and the Escudo by largely dismissing monsters, monstrous
births, and common teratology as unreliable sources of prophecy. The work
is a clear denunciation of teratology and “teratoscopists” as deluded fools. In
this respect, Castelo Branco clearly follows Aristotle’s opinion on the nature of
monsters, as extracted from On the Generation of Animals.210
The Oraculo Prophetico presents a clear and carefully laid-out argument,
steering away from the satire and theater of false names and pseudonyms
that characterized Castelo Branco’s previous works. It invokes authors such as
António Vieira, makes subtle nods to Brigantine and Fifth Empire prophecies,
and resorts to ample biblical and erudite argumentation. It is safe to assume
that this work provides a generally forthright account of Castelo Branco’s posi-
tions and genuinely reflects his thoughts and ideas on the topics of teratology
and prophecy. The exposition of his ideas in the Oraculo is consistent with
that given in the prologue of the Ennoea but elaborated by adducing numer-
ous further sources intended to determine what designates prophecy as valid
or invalid.
In this extremely erudite book, Castelo Branco quotes an immense quan-
tity of teratology pamphlets,211 including his own, and other reports of
appearances of monsters. However, he only introduces these to underscore
the foolishness of taking them as sources of information about the future.
For Castelo Branco, true prophecy essentially consists in making concealed
knowledge manifest, divining hidden events and facts, and explaining divine
or angelic acts and utterances. Teratoscopists are not able to achieve any of
this, for they only offer their pronunciations a posteriori of events. Given this
inherent limitation, teratoscopists can only look into the past and present, and

211 These are mostly taken from Ulisse Aldrovandi’s Monstrorum Historia, although Castelo
Branco quotes Bartolomeo Ambrosini, Aldrovandi’s posthumous editor.

only with a considerable degree of uncertainty, while true prophets see the
present and the future with absolute exactitude.212
To counterbalance the falsehood of teratology, Castelo Branco spells out
what to him are the sources of true prophecy in an age where prophets them-
selves have been silenced and God no longer speaks to them: the “monsters
of heaven” and the analysis and investigation of the past. The concept of the
“monsters of heaven” is somewhat obscure. With this expression, Castelo
Branco seems to refer to the fantastical visions that occasionally appear in
the skies, such as meteors, comets,213 and also the stars and planets.214 The
concept is problematic because Castelo Branco, as an Inquisition familiar,
could not subscribe to the validity of astrology to determine the human will
or future events (i.e., judicial astrology), as church doctrine limited its applica-
tion to understanding the influence of the stars on natural events (such as the
weather) and disease (i.e., natural astrology). However, he does not seem to
have been particularly well versed in astrology, and ultimately, he attempts
to get around this restriction by referring to the stars as a part of Nature, which,
consequently, carry with them inherent divine significance, as Nature is the
original carrier of divine law. This leads him to interesting tangents, such as
dedicating his book, which deals only indirectly with the Fifth Empire, to the
planet Mars, the fifth planet, for “the Fifth Empire belongs to the fifth planet,
the conquest of the world to the God Mars.”215
Castelo Branco’s theories related to the examination of the past as a source
of prophecy are by far his most complex and pose the most problems. In
them, he is heavily influenced by António Vieira, whom he quotes extensively.
He even reproduces full passages (without acknowledging the source) from
Vieira’s História do Futuro, notably the debate on the two hemispheres of time:
the visible past and the invisible future.216 Castelo Branco expands on Viera to
formulate his own idea of cyclical time:

214 Castelo Branco seems to follow the etymology of monster as monstrare, meaning “to
demonstrate or show.” In this way, the known stars, the zodiac, and the planets fall into
his category of “monsters of heaven,” as they equally demonstrate cosmic relations with
potential biblical and prophetic meaning.
215 “O Imperio Quinto pertence ao Quinto Planeta, a conquista do Mundo ao Deos Marte.”
Oraculo Prophetico, 4.
216 Vieira, Historia do Futuro, 9–10.

122 Leitão
I confess that, in the past successes, one may foresee future events; for the
future ones, even if these are to come, are already past; and God restores
the past to renew the future.217
It is here that one may start to grasp Castelo Branco’s complex cosmol-
ogy (which only comes into its full maturity in his manuscript Juramento
Prophetico). Nature (and everything within it), the divine, Scripture (and its
characters), and the future all reflect each other and operate on a principle of
cyclical transformation. In the Oraculo, Castelo Branco posits that prophecy
is the act of creating future time and future history. As divine utterance, the
future is not only evident in Scripture, but also in the past and its characters, in
Nature and its processes, and in the stars and other “monsters of heaven.” Thus,
prophecy is the mechanism for the transformation of history, just as alchemy is
the mechanism for the transformation of Nature. By this analogy, a proper and
faithful alchemist ultimately is also a prophet, a role Castelo Branco claims for
himself:218 someone capable of interpreting the voices of the divine as these
manifest in Nature and, equally, in Scripture.
Unfortunately, the Oraculo does not further expand on this; as it was con-
ceived as the first part of a larger work, its purpose seems to have been to
simply provide a concept and a definition to be taken up later in the work.
According to Castelo Branco, its continuation would then be an exposition of
numerous monsters, both heavenly and earthly.
Castelo Branco’s teratology works, when considered as a whole, fall into three
categories that mutually overlap, not the least because the texts frequently
comment on each other (explicitly and implicitly) or provide (sometimes con-
tradictory) answers to the same topics and thus can be considered parts of the
same multi-layered meta-narrative. In the first category are the Onomatopeia,
the Relaçaõ, and the Consequencias. These three fit very much into the tradition
of eighteenth-century Portuguese popular literature. Regardless of whether
they correspond to Castelo Branco’s true convictions, they present themselves
as serious accounts, with no discernable traces of satire or social criticism.
In the second category are the Vida and the Escudo, which are not serious in
their form or content. They stand largely in opposition to the writings in the
first category, explicitly mentioning some of the latter and denouncing them
as ridiculous and scientifically invalid. The Vida and the Escudo also exhibit
217 “Confesso, que nos successos já passados, se pòdem antever os acontecimentos futuros;
porque os futuros, ainda que estão por vir, jà saõ passados; e Deos restaura o passado, para
renovar no futuro.” Oraculo Prophetico, 83.

a narrative structure that allowed Castelo Branco to deliver severe social and
intellectual criticism to his contemporaries.
The third category is comprised of the Oraculo, which seems to be the most
sincere of Castelo Branco’s teratology works – it is also the only one that he
published under his own name. The Oraculo, a complex discourse on the legiti-
macy of prophecy and prognostication that takes recourse to both biblical and
scientific arguments, conveys Castelo Branco’s actual opinion on prodigies
and monsters.
The purpose of these different types of pamphlets is difficult, if not impos-
sible, to determine. The Oraculo appears to have been intended as a detailed
multi-volume exposition of his ideas on prophecy and how it can be derived
from the material world. The remaining works, however, present themselves
collectively as counterproductive self-sabotage. Castelo Branco apparently
derived some form of pleasure from the creation of complex theaters of false
authors and opinions, engaging in controversy with none other than himself
and his own books. Ultimately, the aim might have been the one he explicitly
puts forth in the Vida: making money. Quite likely, there is no deep or complex
significance behind these books, and Castelo Branco was just trying to market
them the best he could, writing them in ways he believed his audience would
be most interested in reading.
6.5 Vieira Abbreviado

The last known printed work by Castelo Branco is the two-volume Vieira
Abbreviado, which seems to have had a troubled publication history, as Barbosa
Machado mentions that the first volume was published in 1733, while the sec-
ond was unheard of as late as 1741.219 So far, no copies of this 1733 edition have
been located. The only known versions date from 1746.
This is a strangely late publication, particularly considering that Castelo
Branco already had alluded to this two-volume work in the Ennoea,220 in
which he indicated that the Vieira Abbreviado was to be offered to Joseph,
Prince of Brazil (and future King Joseph I of Portugal) – a historical charac-
ter of significant relevance in some of his Brigantine Fifth Empire prophecies.
Although the extant copies of the Vieira Abbreviado clearly give Castelo Branco
as the author of the work, the dedications are written by a certain Manuel da
Conceição, who also claims to be the person responsible for its publication.221
Furthermore, the first volume is dedicated to Lourenço Baptista Feio, an

221 Dedication in vol. 1 of Vieira Abbreviado, n.p.

124 Leitão
eighteenth-century theologian and noted preacher,222 and the second volume

to Francisco de Almeida Jordão, a knight of the Order of Christ and a Coimbra
graduate in canon law.223 Although both these individuals were contempo-
raries of Castelo Branco, they are unlikely to have been his choice, as he tended
to be extremely deliberate in his dedications. Thus the publication of these two
volumes was most likely undertaken by Manuel da Conceição, who, although
fairly unknown, has been identified by Gandra as a book dealer from the Rua
Direita do Loreto.224 Apparently, Conceição had acquired the rights to publish
Castelo Branco’s work, though it is unknown how he had been able to do so:
Had Castelo Branco himself sold the rights? Had he died and the rights had
become available for acquisition? Had his widow sold them? Consequently, it
is not preposterous to consider that by 1746, Castelo Branco might have fallen
into ruin or even have died, making the Vieira Abbreviado, possibly, a post-
humous publication.
In terms of content, these books present in essence summaries of several
topics from the sermons of António Vieira, one of the great promoters and
theorizers of the Brigantine Fifth Empire and one of Castelo Branco’s major
influences and most-quoted authors. In terms of structure, they mostly function
as a kind of dictionary or encyclopaedia, listing one hundred topics alphabeti-
cally, such as death, fortune, love, or sadness, and offering extended quotes
from those of Vieira’s sermons that addressed these topics. Interestingly, topics
such as prophecy, messianism, and the Fifth Empire are notably absent, as are
quotes from Vieira’s books on prophecy and future history. It is entirely unclear
whether these omissions were intentional, and if so, whether they were the
choice of Castelo Branco or Manuel da Conceição.
Given his predilections, the Vieira Abbreviado is not an entirely implausible
publication by Castelo Branco, but it is still very much an outlier compared
to everything else written by him. Apart from the information that he was a
noted fan of Vieira, the two volumes, overall, do not offer much in terms of
understanding their author.
6.6 Systema Medico

The earliest of Castelo Branco’s known manuscripts is the Systema Medico. Its
dedication carries the date of 7 September 1729, which most likely also makes
it earlier than the Ennoea, as the latter work extensively addresses the third


volume of Feijóo’s Teatro Crítico Universal, which also gives 1729 as its publica-
tion year, implying that the final version of the Ennoea is later.
According to its full title, the Systema Medico’s subject is the cure of the
morbus hungaricus, or “black vomit,” – that is, typhus – but further analysis
reveals that it deals with a whole gamut of fevers, in particular the fever that
ran rampant in Lisbon in October of 1723. Indeed, Lisbon was afflicted by an
epidemic that year, with victims “vomiting black matter, with evacuations of
the same kind,”225 an epidemic identified in current research as yellow fever,
most likely brought into the kingdom from Brazil, as proposed by Luís Ferrand
de Almeida.226
In terms of structure, Castelo Branco mentions that the Systema Medico was
composed over the course of six months and meant to consist of six parts,
though only five seem to have been written. Albeit somewhat elusive, there
seems to have been some kind of wager or even bet involved in this ambitious
writing project, with Castelo Branco eventually complaining that due to health
issues, he would probably not be able to finish this work, even though he was
being morally supported by Meneses, the Count of Ericeira.227
As it stands, this manuscript contains only five parts/books. Castelo Branco
explains this by stating that the work was intended to consist of two volumes,
with the first (i.e., the missing sixth part) entirely dedicated to God and meant
to prove that “the most effective remedy to all illness is to appeal firstly to
God.”228 This medical ideology is not without precedent in the Portuguese
eighteenth century – the above-mentioned physician Bernardo Pereira is its
paradigmatic example.229 In essence, it might be called a pia medicina – the
concept of a medical practice that bases its authority entirely on Scripture.
Considering Castelo Branco’s established parallels between Scripture,
Nature, and Art, it stands to reason that his medical practice would not, in
any way, be removed from proper religious observance, which by itself entails
proper observation of Nature and proper practice of Art. Associated with
this might also be his acceptance, in the Systema Medico, of the reality of
225 “Vomitavaõ negro, com dejeçoens da mesma sorte.” Cunha, proémio to Discurso, e
Observaçoens Apollineas, sobre as Doenças, que houve na Cidade de Lisboa Occidental, e
Oriental o Outono de 1723, n.p., quoted in Almeida, “Febre Amarela em Lisboa,” 38.
226 Almeida, “Febre Amarela em Lisboa,” 38.
228 “Maes efficaz remedio de todas as molestias, he recorrer primeiro a Deos.” Dedication in
Systema Medico, n.p.
229 Pereira, “Prologo a Quem Ler Este Livro,” foreword to Anacephaleosis Medico-Theologica,
Magica, Juridica, Moral, e Politica, n.p.

126 Leitão
astrological influences over daily life and, consequently, medicine.230 All these
concepts seem to circle each other in a tightly knit cosmology that guides
Castelo Branco’s practice and further development of medicine and prophecy.
The other five parts/books, which in fact make up the whole of the known
manuscript of the Systema Medico, are dedicated to King John V. Clearly
imbued with Brigantine ideas of the Fifth Empire, the dedication of this manu-
script further illuminates Castelo Branco’s prophetic constructions. While all
concrete prophecy absolutely corresponds to that found in the dedication of
the Ennoea, he expands on his obsession with the number five in the dedi-
cation to the Systema Medico. These five books are dedicated to King John V,
whom Castelo Branco compares to Mars (the fifth planet), the star to which he
dedicated the Oraculo Prophetico. The number five is also represented by the
five letters of the name of the king ( João V in the original Portuguese, with
the roman numeral read as a letter), the same number of letters found in the
imperial names of Júlio (Julius) and Cesar (Caesar). Yet according to Castelo
Branco, John V, as the first emperor of the Fifth Empire, will be superior to
all of these, being symbolized, in his reading of the prophecy of Zechariah,
by the eagle, an animal whose name also has five letters (águia) and who is
the empress of birds.231 Castelo Branco explains that his convulsive illness pre-
vented him from writing a prologue for the Systema Medico; however, in the
Oraculo Prophetico he mentions that the Systema Medico was supposed to dis-
cuss the great year of Plato232 and Plato’s ideas on cyclical time, most likely
among other subjects.
In terms of content, the Systema Medico was innovative, with ambitions for
medical reform in line with the Ennoea. Castelo Branco essentially proposed a
new paradigm for the understanding and treatment of fevers. In doing so, he
carved out his position between the “Ancients” and the “Moderns” in extremely
authoritarian and even aggressive terms.
Regarding its influences, the Systema Medico is rich with quotes and cita-
tions, many of which stem from forbidden authors, such as Paracelsus. Castelo
Branco is universally positive towards Ettmüller and Thomas Willis. He does
not entirely denounce but also not completely accept the opinions of other
historically significant doctors, such as Galen and Hippocrates, or of his
contemporaries, such as Pedro Miguel de Heredia.233 As for his Portuguese col-

231 Dedication in Systema Medico, n.p.
232 Also referred to as the perfect year; a conjectured time period of 36,000 years after which
all celestial bodies would return to their original positions.
233 Physician of Philip IV of Spain, and a “moderate Galenist” of the seventeenth century.

leagues, he seems to be largely positive towards Curvo Semedo and his secret
“Curvian Remedies” as well as towards Fonseca Henriques, whom he calls one
of the “oracles of the Medical art.”234
Surprisingly, the Systema Medico has very few references to metallic rem-
edies or cures, the most notable exception being references, taken from
Curvo Semedo, to oil of mercury, “the most admirable remedy that Medicine
possesses,”235 and to mercury fixated with gold, apparently prescribed as a
cure for painful urination. Other than this, there are a few general mentions
of Egyptian and Roman alchemy,236 which are very much consistent with the
content of the Ennoea but not discussed in any medically relevant way.
6.7 Juramento Prophetico

Castelo Branco’s second known manuscript stands as his most mature and
complex prophetic expression. While still referring to the various concepts
presented in the prologue of the Ennoea and the Oraculo Prophetico, the
Juramento should be understood rather as breaking away from the general pro-
phetic ideology of both those works, in the sense that it no longer subscribes
to a simple Brigantine worldview. While numerous parallels can still be drawn
between what are likely to be Castelo Branco’s earlier works and the current
one, the cosmologies and the future history they each describe are ultimately
incompatible. Still, the Juramento is explicitly connected with the Oraculo
Prophetico.
While an initial reading might suggest that Castelo Branco planned the
Juramento as a stand-alone book, careful analysis reveals that it is actually an
individual section of a much larger work on prophecy and the Portuguese Fifth
Empire – most likely Castelo Branco’s prophetical magnum opus. This larger
book would have been called História Prodigiosa (Prodigious history) and was
planned to consist of two volumes, with the Juramento contained in the first,237
which would have been dedicated to King John V once again. The index of this
first volume is included in the manuscript of the Juramento and, although the
planned parts are presented out of order, one can still discern that the first vol-
ume alone was to consist of six books.238 Almost the entire first volume was to
be dedicated to the concept of future time and the coming empire of Christ on
earth according to biblical exegesis. In particular, the first volume would have
234 “Oraculos da arte Medica.” Systema Medico, bk. 4, chap. 1, sec. 21, n.p.
235 “O maes adimravel medicamento, que tem a Medicina.” Systema Medico, bk. 3, chap. 1,
sec. 21, n.p.
237 Juramento Prophetico, fol. 3r.

128 Leitão
covered the narrative of Ourique in depth, announcing Portugal as the very

empire of Christ and the first Portuguese king, Afonso Henriques, as its foun-
dation stone. The second volume – of which no section has been found – was
to focus on King Sebastian,239 which reveals a clear departure from Castelo
Branco’s previous Brigantine position.
Interestingly, the title of this planned great work, História Prodigiosa, is given
in the Oraculo as the title of the full work of which the Oraculo was but the
first part.240 The significance of this is unclear at this point, but the index of
the Juramento lists large sections that seem to correspond to the content of the
Oraculo – namely, those explaining prophecy as based on the “book of heaven”
and the “monsters of heaven.”241 Furthermore, in the text of the Juramento,
Castelo Branco mentions that he has written an escudo prolegomeno,242 which
he defines as an epilogue to the História Prodigiosa intended to function as
a shield (escudo) against attacks on this work.243 This is most likely a refer-
ence to the Oraculo, which, having already been published and, consequently,
approved by the Inquisition censorship office, was intended to preempt most
attacks against the new, larger work, since both followed the same argumenta-
tive lines.
On its title page, the Juramento Prophetico announces its focus on the
Juramento de Afonso Henriques (Oath of Afonso Henriques) by Bernardo
de Brito244 and the latter’s agreement with canonical biblical prophecies.
Castelo Branco consecrated the whole volume to the crucified Jesus Christ but
dedicated it particularly to the encoberto, the “hidden one” of the Trovas do
Bandarra. The author of the Juramento is once again given as a pseudonym,
Rustico Agricola, or “Rustic Farmer,” a name which is explained in the prologue
as being a reference to Zechariah 13:5,245 a biblical passage detailing the end
and shame of prophecy. By this reference, Castelo Branco seems to claim the
mantel of a hidden or former prophet.
In its approach to the Juramento de Afonso Henriques, the Juramento
Prophetico focuses particularly on Isaiah and follows Vieira as its major trend-
setter (although, as the text progresses, Castelo Branco gradually distances

244 Castelo Branco specifically follows Bernardo de Brito’s presentation of the Juramento as
given in the Primeyra Parte da Chronica de Cister, fol. 125r.
245 “Non sum propheta homo agricula ego sum.” Juramento Prophetico, fol. 7v.

himself from this Jesuit author and develops his own concept of the Portuguese
Fifth Empire).
Another significant source that can be identified is the Apparatus Historicus
of 1728, a book written by José Pinto Pereira, a doctor of theology mostly active
in Rome,246 with the purpose of laying the groundwork for the canonization of
the first Portuguese king.
In the Juramento Prophetico, Castelo Branco creates a parallel between
divine Scripture and the Ourique narrative. He thereby claims that to analyze
the Bible is to see into the future of Portugal, just as Portugal, as revealed in
the Juramento de Afonso Henriques, is to be the future empire of Christ, which
will be the Fifth Empire. This view is deeply connected to Castelo Branco’s
ideas of cyclical time, in which Portuguese history is destined to repeat biblical
history – or rather, in which Portuguese history is the primary concern of the
biblical narrative – so that King Afonso Henriques is referred to as a returned
Gideon247 (a purposeful parallel in the construction of the Ourique narrative,
as pointed out by Luís Filipe Silvério Lima)248 or as a returned Isaiah.249 This
fundamental aspect of the first Portuguese king and his “oath” can be traced all
the way back to the Ennoea, where king Afonso is equated with Saint Peter250
by identifying him as the foundation stone of the future global church of
Christ to be established by the Portuguese Empire (in which Portugal will be
the new Israel).251 Yet in the Juramento Prophetico, Castelo Branco once again
revises the role of Scripture and now places it in a clearly inferior position to
Nature. For Castelo Branco, true prophecy is read in the “book of heaven” to
which Scripture merely functions as a commentary.252 This parallel between
the “book of heaven” and Scripture is taken to its extremes as Castelo Branco,
abandoning his true Brigantine faith, now claims that King Sebastian is like the
ever-returning sun253 and, in biblical terms, a symbolic returning Christ254 (in
that the expected appearance of King Sebastian does not constitute Christ’s
actual second coming).
The reintroduction of King Sebastian into Castelo Branco’s prophetic cal-
culations is at the very core of the Juramento, which thus aims to radically
246 Machado, Bibliotheca Lusitana Historica, Critica, e Cronologica, 2: 891–92.


130 Leitão
reconceptualize and reconcile the opposing positions of Sebastianism and

Brigantism. For Castelo Branco, the true understanding of the Ourique proph-
ecy, to which he ascribes biblical authority, demands the return of King
Sebastian as the future emperor of the Fifth Empire. For him, their obses-
sion with King Sebastian had caused the Sebastianists to degenerate into
idolaters,255 while on the other side of the debate, the Joanists/Brigantines
were ignorant of prophecy and the Bible – they essentially lacked faith.256 The
middle ground that Castelo Branco carves out manages to fit both ideologies
into a single cosmology that aims to lay the groundwork for a complex future
imperial bureaucratic and hierarchical machine in which both King Sebastian
and the Brigantine princes could take the position of rulers.
As a result, a great deal of the text is dedicated to the genealogical trac-
ing of Portuguese kings and nobles intended to identify multiple descendants
of King Afonso in the sixteenth generation, in which the original Ourique
narrative places the fall and rise of a new age. In doing so, Castelo Branco
demonstrates that multiple legitimate candidates for ruling the Fifth Empire
can coexist, and therefore, that multiple contradicting prophecies can be true
simultaneously.
Overall, the Juramento Prophetico is a truly ambitious work and one of
the most remarkable of the Portuguese eighteenth century. Its proposals are
unprecedented and unparalleled in all of Portuguese messianism, and it often
brushes quite close to heresy. Perhaps for this reason, the text actually ends
with an “author’s protestation,” which is essentially Castelo Branco’s declara-
tion of faith and obedience to the Catholic Church and its dogmas.257 Had
this project ever been finished and published, it would probably have placed
Castelo Branco solidly on the map as one of the most remarkable and versatile
Portuguese theorizers of the Fifth Empire.
7 Mapping Castelo Branco’s Messianism and His Vision of the

Fifth Empire
Taking into consideration all of his known books, Castelo Branco’s ideas on the
nature of the Fifth Empire lack coherence. His opinion constantly evolves and
shifts and at no point during this process can he be said to fully subscribe to a
single side of the complex field of Portuguese messianism and providentialism.


Castelo Branco starts off close to the position of the Brigantines; he sub-
scribes to the notion that the Fifth Empire will be founded by a Brigantine
Prince, most likely John V. In this period he occasionally refers to King
Sebastian, but this often seems to be a reference to a merely metaphorical or
symbolic Sebastian. His major works of this phase are the Ennoea, the Systema
Medico, and the Oraculo Prophetico, in all of which he names the first Emperor
of the Fifth Empire explicitly as John V and provides ample prophetic argu-
ments to support his position.
Eventually, by the time he writes the Juramento Prophetico, Castelo Branco
begins to demonstrate a clear Sebastianic point of view. His references to
Sebastian are no longer symbolic, and he clearly states that the future emperor
of the Fifth Empire is the physical Sebastian, the Portuguese king who dis-
appeared in the Battle of Ksar-el-Kebir, having been taken from the world
like Enoch.258
Still, even within these apparently opposing positions, Castelo Branco occa-
sionally presents prophecies and interpretations of Scripture that contradict
each other. It seems as if he was less concerned about the coherence between
his various prophecies and biblical interpretations than about supplying
ample scriptural authority to justify his vision of an inevitable Portuguese
Fifth Empire.
In addition, Castelo Branco’s work as an alchemist makes a comparison
with John of Rupescissa unavoidable. Separated by four hundred years, both
of these men resolutely placed themselves within a long-standing tradition of
alchemist-prophets with a particular preoccupation with the Fifth Empire.259
It is hard to determine the influence of Rupescissa on Castelo Branco, as he
only makes a single reference to him in the Ennoea,260 a reference that carries
no particular significance. Furthermore, both authors’ approaches to prophecy
are diametrically opposed. Rupescissa envisages a much more personalized
avenue for the prediction of future events: the gift of prophecy is something
which is obtained by personal purification and endows humans with a spe-
cial capacity to perceive and predict the future.261 In contrast, Castelo Branco,
while implicitly claiming the title of prophet, never places himself as the cre-
ator of original prophecies but merely as their interpreter. By de-personalizing
his prophecies and basing them all on either Scripture or local cultural author-
ities (such as the narrative of Ourique or António Vieira), Castelo Branco

259 DeVun, Prophecy, Alchemy, and the End of Time, 14–15.
261 DeVun, Prophecy, Alchemy, and the End of Time, 1–2.

132 Leitão
removes his circumstantial self from his arguments to avoid becoming a target
of Inquisitorial censorship and to advance universal acceptance of his brand of
prophetism by Portuguese society, a goal he desperately wanted to achieve.
In addition, basic cosmological assumptions separate Rupescissa from
Castelo Branco. Rupescissa appears to have been influenced by eschatological
ideas current among the Spiritual Franciscans,262 particularly by the beliefs
of Joachim of Fiore about the impending arrival of the “third age” of the Holy
Spirit. Castelo Branco, on the other hand, is an evident non-Joachimite by
virtue of his claims that the current law of Christ is to stand until the end of
the world263 and that the nature of the Fifth Empire is simply that of a global
church propagated by Portugal. At no point does Castelo Branco claim any form
of social revolution or a new spiritual age. Rather, the Fifth Empire is already
present in the world. All that is missing is its global expansion, a goal that will
be achieved by Portugal by establishing a future in which the Portuguese king
and the church will in conjunction rule over the whole world.
Therefore, a study of the whole spectrum of Castelo Branco’s prophetic
ideas must distinguish between the different stages of his writing. The complex
symbolic meaning and ambiguous significance of the figure of King Sebastian
connects not only his Brigantist and Sebastianist phases but also his ideas on
prophecy and his ideas on alchemy.
7.1 Sebastianism and Alchemy in the Ennoea

Besides cementing the functioning of prophecy on the same principles as
alchemy, the figure of King Sebastian represents a particular crossroads
in Castelo Branco’s writing. As I have already pointed out in a previous article,264
Castelo Branco is not the first to bring Sebastianism and alchemy together in
a single text. About one century earlier, Manuel Bocarro Francês included the
text Annotaçam Crysopea in his work Anacephaleoses da Monarchia Luzitana –
a text Castelo Branco acknowledges to have read.265 Francês is a clear example
of an early Brigantine writer, and although loosely fitting into the literary
traditions of Sebastianism, he was one of the first to associate the figure of
the encoberto with a non-literal Sebastian. For him this would be D. Teodósio,
father of the future King John IV.266
262 Crisciani, “Opus and sermo,” 7.

264 Leitão, “Alchemy, Prophecy, and Politics in Eighteenth-Century Iberia,” 311.
266 Quadros, Poesia e Filosofia do Mito Sebastianista, 61.

In Francês’s Anacephaleoses, alchemy and prophecy, while coming close,

never actually touch, and both subjects remain separate concepts, neither
interacting with or reflecting each other. Exactly the opposite is true for
Castelo Branco. There is, however, a complication: the most explicit mentions
of the intricate connection of Sebastianism and alchemy, which in fact refer
to King Sebastian himself, are found in books that are part of Castelo Branco’s
Brigantine period, which casts considerable doubt on the actual significance
of all such references.
The first and most relevant reference can be found in the Ennoea, when,
in the voice of Enodato, Castelo Branco states that the Count of Ericiera,
Francisco Xavier de Meneses, “called once in my presence the philosopher’s
stone the Sebastianism of [natural] philosophy; for all men of great judgment
are chrysopoeians, as all heroes of great understanding are Sebastianists,”267
concluding: “The Sebastianists are discreetly compared to the Hermetics; for
there is as much doubt about the existence of the lapis as there is about that of
the Lord King Sebastian; for both are hidden. But let us leave Sebastianism now,
about which I have no doubts.”268 While these quotes introduced by Enodato
are somewhat ambiguous, what they appear to transmit is the idea that the
philosopher’s stone is to natural philosophy/science what Sebastianism is to
Portuguese pro-independence efforts: it is the greatest mystery, something
only men of greatness understand and pursue. This is likely to have fed into
Castelo Branco’s self-image as an intellectual warrior and reformer,269 toiling
for Portuguese greatness, but what the quoted statement also proposes is the
idea of King Sebastian as the equivalent of the philosopher’s stone in Castelo
Branco’s idiosyncratic worldview. Furthermore, the philosopher’s stone, the
material by which imperfect metals are purified into gold, is further associated
with the stone of the biblical prophecy of the Fifth Empire found in the book
of Daniel, which relays a dream of King Nebuchadrezzar II. In his dream, the
king saw a statue made of several metals: the head made of gold, the chest and
arms of silver, the belly and thighs of bronze, the legs of iron, and the feet of
mingled iron and clay. A stone then falls, crushes the statue, turns into a moun-
tain and fills the whole world, thereby symbolizing the Fifth Empire, which
267 “Chamou em huma occasiaõ na minha prezensa à Pedra Philosophal Sebastianismo da

Philosophia; porque todos os homens de grande juízo saõ Chrysopeios, assim como os
Heroes de grande entendimento saõ Sebastianistas.” Ennæa, pt. 1, p. 20.
268 “Estaõ discretamente comparados os Sebastianistas, com os Hermeticos; porque tanta
duvida tem a existência do Lapis, como a do Senhor Rey D. Sebastião; porque ambos estão
encubertos. Porèm deixando agora o Sebastianismo, em que naõ tenho duvida.” Ennæa,
pt. 1, p. 20.

134 Leitão
crushes all other previous empires, symbolized by the different metals that are
increasingly corrupted when moving from the head to the feet of the statute.
Castelo Branco attaches explicit alchemical symbolism to this dream by claim-
ing that the same vision is displayed in the first and last images of the Mutus
liber,270 in which a man, whom he identifies as Nebuchadrezzar, dreams of a
flying human figure, the statue of Nebuchadrezzar’s dream.271
Castelo Branco identifies the stone of the dream as Christ272 and at the same
time as the philosopher’s stone273 and associates both with Sebastian. From an
alchemical perspective, Nebuchadrezzar’s statue is composed of increasingly
corrupt metals, and the stone, understood as the philosopher’s stone, effects
the cure of this corruption. Thus, King Sebastian is the stone that cures the
infirmity of history, the decay of empires, and brings forth the fifth and eter-
nal empire of the world – the new golden age. In essence, as I have already
proposed,274 Castelo Branco’s prophetism amounts to an alchemy of history:
the philosopher’s stone and King Sebastian both embody different aspects
of the idea of Christ as a transformative cosmic principle of renewal, rebirth,
and salvation from sin, sickness, or decay – a principle that permeates the cos-
mos on all its levels and promises to bring about the full maturity and health
of history and Nature.
7.2 Brigantism in Castelo Branco’s Earlier Writings

While Castelo Branco’s attitude towards King Sebastian above has been largely
deduced from the Ennoea, the role the monarch plays in the rest of his pro-
phetic writing is not clear at all. What might be said is that Castelo Branco
comes across as a shy Brigantine who in his early writings is never able to avoid
King Sebastian entirely, be it as a fable, symbol, or an actual physical person.
For Castelo Branco, the Fifth Empire does not rest on a supernatural prin-
ciple. The Fifth Empire is the church of Christ, which, equated to the stone
of Daniel,275 simultaneously possesses both a spiritual and temporal/political
nature. As a spiritual empire, it exists already in heaven,276 but its temporal
270 The Mutus liber [The mute (or: silent) book] is a highly influential alchemical or Hermetic
work, published in 1677, that is mostly made up of illustrations. Flouret, in “À pro-
pos de l’auteur du Mutus Liber,” has proposed to identify the pseudonymous author as
Isaac Baulot.
273 Ennæa, pt. 1, p. 184.

manifestation needs to be brought into existence. This is the role of Portugal,

which has been elected as a nation of Christ and for Christ in the oath of
King Afonso Henriques, as retold by Bernardo de Brito. Thus, Portugal itself is
the Fifth Empire on earth in potential and as such is indistinguishable from the
Church of Rome.
The necessity of a Portuguese global empire compels Castelo Branco’s neg-
ative view of the Ottoman Empire. While he is remarkably tolerant towards
Islam as a religion, the position of the Ottoman Empire as a rival to the
Portuguese demands its destruction so that the culmination of history can be
achieved. In his prophetic reading, Castelo Branco further identifies Portugal
as the woman of the Apocalypse, who is clothed with the sun: the moon under
her feet symbolizes the Ottoman Empire and Islam, which Portugal has always
defeated; and the twelve stars crowning her represent the twelve bishops of
Portugal (i.e., the bishops of Braga, Évora, Coimbra, Leiria, Guarda, Lamego,
Viseu, Porto, Miranda, Portalegre, Elvas, and Faro).277
Castelo Branco identifies King John V as the first ruler of the Fifth Empire
based on Ezekiel’s vision of the chariot. The four “living creatures of the char-
iot,” resembling a man, a lion, an ox, and an eagle, Castelo Branco claims,
represent the previous four empires. Yet, the fifth figure above these he identi-
fies as a royal eagle that symbolizes the emperor of the Fifth Empire278 and
also the stone of Daniel.279 Given that these living creatures are also taken
to represent the four evangelists, with the eagle representing Saint John, the
royal eagle therefore must represent another John. Actually, there are two
Johns in the Portuguese dynastic line who must be considered, John IV and
John V. To decide this question, Castelo Branco refers back to the oath of
Afonso Henriques, according to which the ruler of the Fifth Empire will only
arrive after the sixteenth generation. He identifies King Peter II as the ruler in
this sixteenth generation. This king not only can be equated with Saint Peter
but is also the son of John IV and father of John V. Therefore, Castelo Branco is
certain that John V can be identified with the future global emperor280 and in
the Systema Medico further associates him with the eagle.
As a Portuguese Empire, the Fifth Empire would be based in Lisbon. Castelo
Branco’s determination of this matter once again rests on Ezekiel: if John V
will be the first emperor, his seat of government must be the Fifth Empire’s
capital. Lisbon’s division into an occidental (where Castelo Branco lived) and


136 Leitão
an oriental part will result in two distinct courts with two vicars, who are none
else than the emperor and the pontiff of the Fifth Empire. They will exercise
secular and ecclesiastic power, but govern united as one, in the same way as
Lisbon is one city divided into two.281 Yet, given the extent of the Portuguese
Empire, which in the west expands as far as to Brazil, a third part of Lisbon
needs to be included. Therefore, Castelo Branco looks to Mafra (as he puts it,
“the fifth essence of all marvels”),282 a small town a short distance from Lisbon,
where construction of a palace-monastery had begun in 1717 and where Castelo
Branco places the imperial court of the Fifth Empire.283 Castelo Branco divides
the court of the coming Fifth Empire into three political and administrative
bodies: the emperor, John V, in Mafra; the pontiff (in his time Clement XI) in
Occidental Lisbon; and Joseph, Prince of Brazil, in Oriental Lisbon.284
At this point in his prophetic thinking, Castelo Branco is an attentive reader
of António Vieira and his Brigantine ideas. Apart from his alchemical musings,
much of his innovations are merely those necessary to apply Vieira’s prophe-
cies to a new time where these were no longer viable. As Castelo Branco leaves
his Brigantine phase behind, he will abandon Vieira more often and actually
criticize some of his prophetic and historical readings directly, as he arrives at
his own mature synthesis of Sebastianism and Brigantism.
7.3 Hybrid Sebastianism in the Juramento Prophetico

Even though the date of the Juramento Prophetico’s composition is unknown,
it is Castelo Branco’s most extensive and complex exposition of his vision of
the Fifth Empire and Portuguese messianism. This work exhibits a number
of difficult-to-resolve contradictions – contradictions that are visible not only
between Castelo Branco’s different writings but even within this single one.
Most of the fundamental tenets of the Juramento are already implied in the
Ennoea. Everything the Juramento offers in regard to King Afonso Henriques
can already be extracted from the earlier work, but the much more detailed
presentation makes clear that Castelo Branco is engaged in a continuous
construction of his views, to which he constantly adds and rarely subtracts.
This is particularly visible in his revisitation of the vision of Ezekiel: In the
Ennoea, he identified King John V as the first emperor of the Fifth Empire. This
is still true in the Juramento, but now he claims that King Sebastian, at the


same time, will be the ruler of the global Fifth Empire.285 Overall, it is clear
that at this point, King John V is less of a priority in Castelo Branco’s prophetic
interpretations, some of which he revises so as to considerably reduce John V’s
cosmic relevance.
Castelo Branco dedicates an immense amount of space to identifying
the sixteenth generation of descendants of King Afonso Henriques among the
Portuguese kings of recent history. In the process, he presents various genea-
logical lines and alternative family trees, all with the purpose of demonstrating
that there is no single sixteenth-generation Portuguese king. Ultimately, as a
result of his complex calculations, both King John IV and King Sebastian can
be identified as King Afonso’s sixteenth-generation successors,286 while in the
past Castelo Branco had only considered King Peter II (the son of John IV and
father of John V). This is a shift of extreme significance, for it not only allows
him to much more freely retain and reuse many of Vieira’s prophecies about
John IV and the Braganza Dynasty but also to reapply all unfulfilled prophecies
made by Vieira about John IV to Sebastian.287 While he now openly disagrees
with Vieira’s Brigantine convictions, Castelo Branco still attempts to salvage
Vieira’s prophecies.
Having identified the two protagonists of the sixteenth generation, Castelo
Branco proposes that the Fifth Empire will be ruled by both Sebastian and
the House of Braganza. Sebastian will be emperor of the world, while the
princes of Braganza will be the kings of the universal monarchy.288 The kings
of Braganza, subjects of Emperor Sebastian, will be twenty-four in number
(the number of the elders given in the Book of Revelation)289 and will in fact
be priest-kings290 by virtue of the unified nature of the church of Christ and
the Portuguese empire. The twenty-four kings are also the twenty-four hours
of the day291 as well as the twelve signs of the zodiac, which Castelo Branco
doubles to twenty-four by claiming that there are “twelve invisible and rational
[signs] and another twelve starry and visible [signs], as the Mathematicians
explain.”292 While this is a difficult passage to understand, Castelo Branco here
seems to simultaneously use concepts associated with the tropical and the

286 Juramento Prophetico, fols. 37r–38v.
292 “Doze invisiveis, e racionais, e outros doze estrellado, e visiveis, como se explicaõ os
Mathematicos.” Juramento Prophetico, fol. 45v.

138 Leitão
sidereal zodiac as if these distinct systems were mutually compatible rather

than mutually exclusive – an artifice he not only resorts to for doubling the
zodiac to fit his prophecy of twenty-four kings but also for doubling every other
number he might need increased. In this way he places, below the twenty-four
kings of Braganza, a further seventy-two princes who represent the seventy-
two constellations of the heavens293 (these seventy-two probably resulting
from doubling the thirty-six zodiacal decans). Fitting into Castelo Branco’s
reading of the “book of heaven,” the hours of the day and the zodiac are con-
cepts subject to the trajectory of and the heavenly divisions created by the sun,
the symbol of King Sebastian and Christ.
While not stated explicitly in the Juramento, the many apparent contra-
dictions between Castelo Branco’s various prophecies might ultimately be
mitigated by the absence of a claim that King Sebastian will found the Fifth
Empire or be its first emperor. In fact, Castelo Branco never addresses when
or how King Sebastian will reappear in the physical world. John IV is most
likely the first to be deemed the encoberto due to his role in the restoration of
Portuguese independence from the Spanish crown in 1640, making him the
symbol of the phoenix, similar to the sun, but not the sun itself.294 John V,
however, being the eagle, the only creature which can gaze directly into the
sun – should Castelo Branco’s reading of Ezekiel still stand – will be the one
to establish the Fifth Empire through miraculous military conquest, an empire
which will eventually be headed by the returned King Sebastian, the sun, the
Christ-like joint ruler, together with the pope, of the universal empire.
8 Conclusions
The uniqueness of Castelo Branco, in both eighteenth-century Portuguese let-

ters and sciences, is undeniable. Yet, his work as a whole has only attracted
sporadic attention from scholars so far, and he has become a tragic common
target of ahistorical projections and biased methodological approaches. There
is still a distinct lack of reliable information about him, due to the few hints
provided by his own books and the scarcity and contradictory nature of pri-
mary sources.
Extensive archival research is necessary to acquire a grasp of his personal
life. His books and opinions need to be understood as belonging to a very
specific and particular intellectual environment. The uniqueness of Castelo
293 Juramento Prophetico, fols. 44r–45v.

294 Juramento Prophetico, fols. 79v–80r.

Branco does not mean that he is an isolated island. To the contrary; authors
such as Bluteau, Meneses, Vieira, Fonseca Henriques, Curvo Semedo, and the
many others mentioned in this article need to be taken into consideration to
understand the genealogy and evolution of Castelo Branco’s ideas on prophe-
tism, medicine, and alchemy. Accordingly, many biased readings of Castelo
Branco’s work result from misunderstanding the complex intellectual land-
scape of the first half of the Portuguese eighteenth century as well as Castelo
Branco’s sources.
While this article probably represents the most determined effort so far to
establish a comprehensive and reliable understanding of Castelo Branco, it
certainly is not the final word on him. He remains very much a mystery, both
in the details of his life and of his works. Nothing is still known about his later
years (should he have survived his illness and apparent poverty), and several
of the writings he names as his own have yet to be discovered or identified.
Given Castelo Branco’s nature as a complex and often contradictory author,
it is impossible to say whether the observations offered here on his opinions
and positions will stand untouched should any of his missing works be found,
or even whether the order of composition of the known ones can finally be
established. Still, this article offers an initial but earnest and robust attempt
to sketch out a coherent understanding of Castelo Branco. Thereby, it hopes to
provide the basis for further research.
According to our current observations, Castelo Branco seems to be much
more of a prophetic writer than a medical or alchemical one. Even if all these
interests are founded on similar cosmological principles, his main preoccupa-
tion was in the realm of prophecy. Here, he seems to have believed, his glory was
to be found. While certainly innovative, assertive, and, at times, even aggres-
sive in his medical writings, it is for assuming the role of a new Zechariah,
Ezekiel, or Daniel (like Vieira before him) that he wanted to be remembered.
Still, his often explicit desire for living on in the memory of posterity does
not answer some of the most important questions about his highly original
and heterodox oeuvre: what was the ultimate objective of his books, and
whom was he writing for? If we simply take his word for it, or that of some
of his pseudonyms, much of his literary production might just have been
intended for monetary gain. His less evolved teratological pamphlets belonged
to a popular literary genre that was certain to earn him funds and recognition.
However, this is hardly a satisfactory answer when we take into consideration
the effort, wit, and erudition put into their production.
In his more scientifically oriented books, such as the Ennoea and the
Systema Medico, Castelo Branco has the explicit intention to glorify Portugal
before the rest of Europe through his medico-alchemical ideas. On the other

140 Leitão
hand, in the Oraculo and the Juramento he also aimed to be remembered

alongside D. João de Castro and António Vieira as one of the great synthesizers
of a new Sebastianist paradigm and as a creator of future history. In essence,
Castelo Branco wanted the world to notice Portugal, and he wanted Portugal
to notice him.
The extremely limited impact his prophetic works ultimately had in the
long tradition of Portuguese messianism and millenarianism might have sev-
eral explanations. The first and most obvious is Castelo Branco’s obsession
with King John V. Unlike Vieira, who, through continuous revision of his ideas,
managed to largely depersonalize his prophecies in order to fit them to any
king or prince of the Braganza Dynasty, Castelo Branco’s work, no matter how
brilliant, could not survive beyond the reign of his chosen king.
Furthermore, the history of Sebastianism suffered a major downturn after
the death of John V, as the policies of enlightened despotism implemented by
Sebastião José de Carvalho e Melo, better known as the Marquis of Pombal,
Secretary of the State of Internal Affairs of the Kingdom under King Joseph I,
began to take hold. Shortly after 1750, Sebastianism was held up as an example
of backwards superstition, an expression of the anti-rational sentiment that
was ingrained in the country and needed to be fought.295 Even if the Lisbon
earthquake of 1755 brought about a small renascence of astrological, prophetic,
and apocalyptic publications,296 as the country was rebuilt, Pombal furthered
his regalist agenda by targeting several strategic elements within Portuguese
society. Probably the most relevant among these were the Jesuits, who became
the target of an effective slur campaign that led to brutal persecution. António
Vieira, a Jesuit and the cornerstone of all post-seventeenth-century Sebastianist
constructions, became an explicit target of Pombal, who promoted the burn-
ing of his books and other Sebastianist literature.297
In this environment, Castelo Branco’s fondness of and proximity to António
Vieira most likely meant political disfavor and ridicule. Moreover in 1772 the
curriculum of the University of Coimbra was reformed,298 and a new genera-
tion of medics and natural philosophers managed to place Portugal largely
on-par with the rest of Enlightenment Europe. Consequently, Castelo Branco’s
idiosyncratic ideas on medicine, the nature of matter, metallic transforma-
tions, and health had nowhere to go, except towards oblivion.
295 Besselaar, O Sebastianismo, 137–38.

296 Capelo, Profetismo e Esoterismo, 93–94.
297 Besselaar, O Sebastianismo, 138.
298 Braga, Historia da Universidade de Coimbra, 3:101.

Thus, the recognition denied to Castelo Branco during his lifetime could not
be awarded to him in the decades following his death either. Still, it is not an
exaggeration to say that Castelo Branco is arguably the most interesting and
innovative Portuguese prophetic author of the eighteenth century. More than
a simple imitator of Vieira, Castelo Branco’s ultimate ambition was to surpass
him by closing the gap between the opposing movements of Portuguese mes-
sianism based on a new cosmic theory, and, equally, to justify alchemy and
non-Christian virtue during a time of divisive conflicts in the Portuguese aca-
demic world.
Acknowledgements
I thank Jenn Zahrt, for her eleventh-hour revision of this paper, and also
Michael Lüdke, Managing Editor of the International Journal of Divination and
Prognostication for his extensive work in bringing this paper into a publishable
form. I also thank the Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT) for the grant
SFRH/BD/144983/2019, which was used in the research for this article.
Bibliography
Writings by Castelo Branco

Note: For works written or assumed to be written by Castelo Branco, the author informa-
tion is given exactly as it appears in the original. Spelling variants have not been unified.
If the original lists one or more different author names, it is assumed that these are
pseudonyms for Castelo Branco, as discussed in this article. Titles are listed by year of
publication; undated manuscripts follow at the end. For each of Castelo Branco’s writings,
an English translation of its title is provided in the note attached to its first mention in
the article.
1732
Consequencias do Fenomeno, Que Appareceu em Sinco de Agosto do Anno Prezente
Sobre Contantinopla. Published under the pseudonyms Jacome Fernandes as author
and Manoel Alveres do Couto as translator. Occidental Lisbon: Nova Officina de
Mauricio Vicente de Almeyda, 1732.
Onomatopeia Oannense, ou Annedotica do Monstro Amphibio, Que na Memoravel Noite
de 14. Para 15. de Outubro do Prezente Anno de 1732 Appareceu no Mar Negro, e Saindo
em Terra Falou aos Turcos de Constantinopla Com Voz Tão Alta, e Horrivel, Que Parecia

142 Leitão
hum Trovão, Respirando Com Tanta Furia, Que o Alento Era Mais Impetuozo, e Forte,
do Que a Mayor Tempestade, e Com Esta Tormenta Subverteo os Navios do Ponto
Euxino, e Arrasou Mesquitas, Torres, e Palacios da Corte Othomana. Published under
the pseudonyms Jacome Fernandisi as author and Monsieur Roberto Wainger as
translator. Occidental Lisbon: Nova Officina de Mauricio Vicente de Almeyda, 1732.
Relaçaõ do Admiravel Phenomeno, Que Appareceo na Noyte de 5 de Agosto Deste Presente
Anno Sobre a Cidade de Constantinopla, e do Discurso, Que Sobre a Sua Observaçaõ
Fez Hum Arabe. Published under the pseudonym Antonio Nunes. Occidental
Lisbon: Officina de Miguel Rodrigués, 1732.
1733
Ennæa, ou Applicaçaõ do Entendimento Sobre a Pedra Philosophal, Provada, e Defendida
Com os Mesmos Argumentos Com Que os Reverendissimos Padres Athanasio
Kircker no Seu Mundo Subterraneo, e Fr. Bento Hieronymo Feyjoo no Seu Theatro
Critico, Concedendo a Possibilidade, Negaõ, e Impugnaõ a Existência Deste Raro, e
Grande Mysterio da Arte Magna. By Anselmo Caetano Munhós de Abreu Gusmão
e Castello Branco. Occidental Lisbon: Nova Officina de Maurício Vicente de
Almeida, 1733.
Escudo Apologetico, Contraposto aos Golpes do Descuido Critico, Composto pelos
Sapientissimos Dous Censores do Xdato Fœmineis, Collegiaes do Antigo Collegio
de Gestas, Fundado nas Obras Novas, e Imperfeitas, Que Estão no Citio da Cotovia.
Published under pseudonyms André Paulino Carregueiro da Costa Botado and
Marcos Valentim Páo Botelho Pegado. Occidental Lisbon: Nova Officina de Mauricio
Vicente de Almeida, 1733.
Oraculo Prophetico, Prolegomeno da Teratologia, ou Historia Prodigiosa, em Que Se
Dá Completa Noticia de Todos os Monstros, Composto Para Confuzaõ de Pessoas
Ignorantes, Satisfaçaõ de Homens Sabios, Exterminio de Prophecias Falsas, e
Explicaçaõ de Verdadeiras Prophecias: Parte Primeira, em Que Se Exterminaõ as
Prophecias Falsas; Consagrada a Marte, Como Quinto Entre os Planetas. By Anselmo
Caetano Munhós de Avreu Gusmaõ e Castello Branco. Occidental Lisbon: Nova
Officina de Mauricio Vicente de Almeida, 1733.
Vida, Nascimento, e Morte de Xdato Fæmineis. Published under the pseudonym Vasco
de Mendanha Coelho. Occidental Lisbon: Officina de Pedro Ferreira, 1733.
1746
Vieira Abbreviado em Cem Discursos Moraes, e Politicos, Divididos em Dous Tomos. By
Anselmo Caetano Munhoz de Avreu Gusmam e Castello Branco. 2 vols. Lisbon:
Officina de Miguel Rodrigues, 1746.

Undated Manuscripts
Juramento Prophetico, ou Concordia do Mysterioso Juramento do Augustissimo
Monarcha Lusitano D. Afonso I Com os Vaticínios dos Prophetas Canonicos: Pedra
Firme, em Que Se Estabelece o Real Edificio da Historia Prodigiosa, Passada, Presente,
e Futura. Composed under the pseudonym Rustico Agricola. Manuscript. Biblioteca
Nacional de Portugal, Manuscritos Reservados.
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Agudas, Cholericas, Ardentes, Atrabilias, Intermitentes, Perniciosas, Continuas,
Malignas, e Pestillentas, Complicadas Com Todos os Sympthomas Funestos, e
Mortaes, Especialmente Com Vomitos Pretos e Dejecçoes Atrabiliarias, Como Forão as
Que na Quadra do Outono do Anno de 1723 Infestarão Esta Corte de Lisboa Oriental,
e Occidental; Chamados Vulgarmente: Vomitos Pretos, Segunda Parte. By Anselmo
Caetano Munhós de Avreu Gusmão e Castelo Branco. Manuscript. Biblioteca
Nacional de Portugal, Manuscritos Reservados.
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Anselmo Castelo Branco: Profiling an

José Vieira Leitão

Anselmo Castelo Branco – Sebastianism – prophecy – alchemy – teratology – Fifth

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2021 | doi:10.1163/25899201-12340014

continuously inflate Portuguese history with a persistent sense of sacrality

1 Givens, “Sebastianism in Theory and Practice in Early Modern Portugal,” 127.

International Journal of Divination & Prognostication 2 (2020) 83–149

Even if unique in his overlapping roles – a prophet and an alchemist, a phy-

International Journal of Divination & Prognostication 2 (2020) 83–149

constantly changing opinion on the nature of Portuguese future imperial glory.

2 State of the Field

The uniqueness of Castelo Branco within the history of Portuguese medicine

5 Machado, Bibliotheca Lusitana Historica, Critica, e Cronologica, 1:178–79.

International Journal of Divination & Prognostication 2 (2020) 83–149

8 Gandra, nota preambular [prefatory note] to Ennoea, 5–43.

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of Portuguese identity, largely basing his work on the methodologies of Gilbert

in the future,” refers to a complex aesthetic, literary, and religious-philosophical move-

International Journal of Divination & Prognostication 2 (2020) 83–149

3.1 Early Years and Immediate Family

International Journal of Divination & Prognostication 2 (2020) 83–149

International Journal of Divination & Prognostication 2 (2020) 83–149

Villarroel’s mention of meeting a certain alchemy master in Coimbra in his

26 Torres Villarroel, El Ermitaño y Torres, 93.

International Journal of Divination & Prognostication 2 (2020) 83–149

32 Carvalho, História da Santa Casa da Misericórida de Soure, 289–98.

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3.2 Academic Studies

47 Dedication in pt. 1 of Ennæa, n.p.

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53 Full title: Systema Medico, Galeno-Chymico do Morbo Humgarico, ou Do Summo Grao

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3.3 Adult Life

62 Ennæa, pt. 2, p. 28.

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Still academically restless, Castelo Branco enrolled as a medical student in

72 AUC, Universidade de Coimbra, Matrículas 1718–1719, fol. 271v.

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located in São Lourenço (currently Azeitão).79 Furthermore, he seems to have

79 Azevedo, Solares Portugueses, 111.

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Timothy Walker, for a physician sympathetic to the Enlightenment or one with

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One of the immediate results of Castelo Branco’s second marriage was a

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3.4 Later Years and Descendants

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107 Juramento Prophetico, fol. 7v.

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113 Colen, “A Irmandade de Nossa Senhora do Loreto de Lisboa,” 258.

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4 List of Written Works

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124 Silva, Diccionario Bibliographico Portuguez, 1:75.

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5 Prophetism, the Miracle of Ourique, Sebastianism, Brigantism, and

135 Escudo Apologetico, 24.