New Rome and New Lusitania: Portuguese Empire in the Works of Camões and Gândavo

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to analyze the concept of maritime expansion and empire in the works of Luís de Camões, The Lusiads (1572) and Pero Magalhães de Gandavo, History of the Province of Holy Cross that is vulgarly called Brazil (1576). Camões argues that the Portuguese voyages to the Indies projected Portugal as a new empire, a New Rome, an empire based on the Roman model, but superior in conquests and language. Gandavo, by the other hand, argues that the discovery of Brazil projected Portugal as a new empire in the modern era and, due to it, a new imperial model to be imitated and implemented, a New Lusitania