Castanheda, Fernão Lopes de (c. 1500-1559)

Portuguese chronicler. He produced a ten-volume História do descobrimento e conquista da India pelos portugueses/History of the Discovery and Conquest of India by the Portuguese, though only eight volumes were published during his lifetime. The first work of its kind, it was immensely popular and was translated into French, Castilian, Italian, and English.

Castanheda stressed his narrative was drawn from personal experience, not hearsay (a veiled reference to João de Barros's chronicle), which drew praise from Barros's successor Diogo do Couto.

Castanheda was born in Santarém, Portugal. His studies were interrupted in 1528 when he accompanied his father, a magistrate, to Goa, India. He remained there for ten years, collecting both oral and documentary material for a projected history of India. Returning to Portugal in 1538, he completed his studies at Coimbra, where he remained as a beadle and archivist due to family financial circumstances. He became involved in university intellectual life; one of his academic friends, Nicolau de Grouchy, translated his chronicle of the Portuguese in India into French in 1553.