Aos estudiosos portuguezes.

[Colophon] Lisbon, Na Offic. Patriarc. de Francisco Luiz Ameno, 1782.. FIRST and ONLY EDITION. 4°, disbound. Caption title. Typographical ornament above colophon. Overall in good to very good condition. Old manuscript foliation in ink ("3-6"). 7 pp. *** FIRST and ONLY EDITION. Xavier attacks Tomás Antonio Sánchez's assertions (in Coleccion de poesias castellanas anteriores al siglo XV, Madrid: Sancha, 1779) regarding Fernão Alvares do Oriente, whose Lusitânia transformada was first published in 1607. Alvares, a contemporary of Camões, had traveled widely in India and China; his pastoral poem centers on the protagonist's travels through the Persian Gulf, India, Goa, Japan, China, Indonesia, and Ethiopia, using an Eastern rather than a European Arcadia. This pamphlet begins and ends with quotes from Alvares's work.Father Francisco José da Serra Xavier (Lisbon, ca. 1740?–ca. 1803–5?), a secular presbyter and a distinguished philologist, as assigned by a royal alvará of 13 May 1780 to write "a historia completa e verdadeira das grandes e gloriosas acções obradas pela nação portugueza na America, Asia e Africa, desde o principio do seu descobrimento até o presente." Innocêncio could discover no traces of such a work. Xavier, who was related to Diogo Barbosa Machado, wrote several works defending Barbosa's works against critics.*** Fonseca, Pseudónimos p. 203: attributing the work to Francisco José da Serra Xavier. Innocêncio II, 414; on the author, see II, 413-4 and IX, 317 (noting that it was difficult to gather this author's works). Not located in Porbase. Not located in Jisc.