Biography
Francisco Álvares was born around 1465, probably in Coimbra according to the English Wikipedia entry; none of the sources consulted gives the exact date, nor says anything about his education. A priest, he became chaplain and almoner to King Manuel I of Portugal, a court office that placed him at the heart of the kingdom's designs on the East and on the mythical Prester John.
In 1515 he left with the embassy Portugal was sending to the negus of Ethiopia, alongside the Ethiopian envoy Matheus. The mission stalled: the designated ambassador, Duarte Galvão, died in 1517 on the island of Kamaran in the Red Sea, and Dom Rodrigo de Lima took his place. Under Diogo Lopes de Sequeira, the fleet finally reached Massawa on 9 April 1520. Álvares accompanied the embassy to the court of the negus Lebna Dengel, stayed about six years, and associated with two Europeans settled in the country, Pêro da Covilhã and the painter Nicolao Brancaleone. His return to Lisbon is placed in 1526 or 1527 depending on the source.
From this stay came the Verdadeira Informação das Terras do Preste João das Índias, printed in Lisbon in 1540 by Luís Rodrigues. In it Álvares describes in detail for the first time Axum and the churches of Lalibela, as well as the government, the religious customs and the itinerant court of the sovereign, before the ravages of Ahmad Gragn's invasion. Modern scholars note, however, that the 1540 edition gives only part of his full account: Ramusio published another version of it in 1550 in his Navigationi et Viaggi, and Roberto Almagià identified extracts in three manuscripts of the Vatican Library. A French translation appeared in 1556.
His role was not limited to Ethiopia. In 1533 he accompanied Dom Martinho de Portugal to Rome, where he handed Pope Clement VII the letter of Lebna Dengel; the entry in the Dictionary of African Christian Biography has him leaving for Italy as early as 1532. A priest faithful to his diplomatic mission, he showed curiosity about the customs of the Ethiopian Church, which he observed through the eyes of a Latin cleric.
The date of his death remains uncertain. English Wikipedia gives a range from 1536 to 1541, while the Dictionary of African Christian Biography proposes around 1542, in Rome, where he is said to have remained about ten years. C.F. Beckingham and G.W.B. Huntingford even think he may have died before his book appeared. Henry Stanley of Alderley produced the first English translation for the Hakluyt Society in 1881; Beckingham and Huntingford took it up and completed it in 1961 under the title The Prester John of the Indies, judging the witness more reliable than the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica had done. The sources consulted say nothing of his personal papers.
