COUTO, Diogo do. Lisbon 1542 — Goa 10.12.1616. Portuguese Historian of Colonial India. Son of Gaspar do Couto and Isabel Serrão del Castro. Educated by Jesuits at Colégio de Santo Antão in Lisbon, in Latin and rhetoric. Then in 1559-69 and, after brief visit to Portugal again from 1571 in military service in India and the East, remaining the rest of his life in India. Married 1571/72 Luisa de Melo. In 1595-1616 state historian of Portuguese India, in Goa. Friend of Camões, helped him with the Lusiads. In his opinion the Portuguese State of India was already sclerotic, decadent and moribund.
Publications: Continuation to the Decadas da Asia of —> J. Barros, covering the years 1539-1616: Decadas 4-7 published in Lisbon 1602-16, Decada 12 1645, Decada 8 ed. by J. da Costa & J. de Mendoça 1673 and Decada 10 1778 (decadas 9 & 11 were lost, apparently stolen).
– Tratado de todas as cousas socedidas ao valeroso Capitão Dom Vasco da Gama primeiro conde da Vidigueira: almirante do mar da India: no descobrimento, e conquista dos mares, e terras do Oriente: e de todas as vezes que ha India passou, e das cousas que socederão nella a todos seus filhos. 206 p. Lisbon 1998.
– The History of Ceylon, from the Earliest Times to 1600 A.D., as related by João de Barros and Diogo de Couto. Translated and edited by D. Ferguson. 445 p. JRAS-CB 20:60, 1908.
– O soldato prático, written 1611, publ. in 1790, new ed. by M. Rodrigues Lapa. Lisbon 1937.
Sources: Grande Enc. Port. e Bras. 7; Wikipedia with portrait (see also Portuguese version).
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