ABSTRACT
Antonio Ferreira was, of all the creative writers of the Portuguese Renaissance, the one most closely associated with the second Portuguese university, the Jesuit college at Evora. Christian Stoicism provided the basis of his moral thought. Through the conventions of Roman and neo-Latin tragedy the play Castro deals with the judicial murder of the heroine, and uncovers a complex web of motivation. The prose comedies are known only to a handful of specialists. This chapter discusses the character of Julio, the cioso [jealous man] in the play Cioso title, and his violent mood-swings point to the underlying moral of the comedy. It also discusses how all the action of the comedy, not just its final scenes, is driven by Julio's strange and disordered personality. The two plays are also alike in the prominence given to women and in their strength of character.
