“SUCH THEN ARE THE MATTERS I HAVE HAD TO WRITE FOR YOUR WARNING”: THE UPDATE OF THE TOPOS OF HISTORIA MAGISTRA VITAE IN THE CHRONICLES BY GOMES EANES DE ZURARA

Abstract

Our goal is to analyze how Gomes Eanes de Zurara, second chief chronicler of Portugal, updated in the fifteenth century the topos of historia magistra vitae in his chronicle writing under King Afonso V. In order to delight and instruct his audience, Zurara exposes in his chronicles good and bad examples of conduct retrieved among men and women, nobles and plebeians, while always observing the need for verisimilitude, whose precepts are provided by authorized rhetorical treatises read in his time.