The Department of Life Sciences (DCV) of the Faculty of Science and Technology of the University of Coimbra (FCTUC), in collaboration with the Sociedade Broteriana (SB) and the Botanical Garden (JBUC), will inaugurate the exhibition “Plants in the poetic work of Luís Vaz de Camões” on June 17th.
The program, part of the Celebrations of the 5th Centenary of the birth of Luís Vaz de Camões, includes a botanical sprint on “Plantas Camonianas”, led by João Farminhão (JBUC), as well as the inauguration of the exhibition “Plantas na poetic work by Luís Vaz de Camões”, and also, Jorge Paiva and Rita Marnoto will present the lecture “Spices, aloes and other plants in Camões”, at DCV auditorium.
According to Jorge Paiva, a retired professor at DCV/FCTUC, «in the Camonian era, the best-known plants cited in literature were not edible or ornamental plants, but medicinal plants.» The Lusíadas were written almost entirely in the East and focus on the Discoveries; therefore, Asian plants, particularly medicinal plants and spices, appear more prominently. The lyrics, primarily written in Portugal and centred on love and passion, refer to European plants, particularly their flowers.
As Camões lived his great passion during the 13 years he was in Coimbra (1531- 1544), where he left at the age of 20, most of the plants mentioned in the Lyric are plants from the Mondego fields, which he also mentions, wistfully, in The Lusíadas, in the episode of “Inês de Castro” (Canto III, 118-135) and the episode of “Ilha dos Amores” (Canto IX, 18 – X, 95).
«It is not easy to determine exactly all the plants mentioned by Camões in his work (Epic and Lyric), as most of the time he poetically refers to them and uses, as he states, derivations with extraordinary linguistic juggling», adds Jorge Paiva.
Based on watercolours by Ursula Beau (1906-1984) belonging to the Sociedade Broteriana, Ana Margarida Dias da Silva, a researcher at the Center for the History of Society and Culture (CHSC) and DCV, Maria Teresa Gonçalves, a researcher at the Centre for Functional Ecology (CFE), DCV and SB and Jorge Paiva selected «plants related to those mentioned in Os Lusíadas and Lírica, associating the poetic excerpt where the plant is glossed, complemented with the indication of the scientific name, the common name and the name used by the poet. A set of spices mentioned by Camões will also be displayed, " concludes Ana Margarida Dias da Silva.