before the birth of D. Philippa (1437). Another remarkable early work is the anonymous _Corte Imperial_ (14th or early 15th c.), the language of which often bears traces of a Latin original.[200] Many of its sentences are veritable _dobres_ and _mordobres_ in prose,[201] and to a superficial reader will have little meaning; but in fact this mystic treatise is closely reasoned. It may have some connexion with similar works by Juda Levi, Ramon Lull, and Don Juan Manuel. In a _corte_ or parliament the Church Militant, in the person of a ‘glorious Catholic Queen’ argues with Gentile, Moor, and Jew on the nature of God and the Trinity. The Gentiles and Moors gradually accept her doctrines, but the Jewish rabbis prove more contumacious. Saints and angels and all the company of heaven discourse sweet music in the intervals of the discussion. One of the best known of the many other important translations of this time was the _Flos Sanctorum_ (1513),[202] which begins[203] with extracts from the Gospels and has a savour of the Bible about its prose. There were many later versions of the Gospel story, as _A Paxã de Jesu Christo Nosso Deos e Senhor_, &c. (1551); _Tratado en que se comprende breue e deuotamente a Vida, Paixão e Resurreição_, &c. (1553); _Traatado em q̃ se contẽ a paixam de x̃po_, &c. (1589?). But the earliest and most splendid, an incunable of which Portugal has reason to be proud on account of its beautiful print, is the _Vita Christi_ (Lixboa, 1495), translated _em lingoa materna e portugues linguagem_ from the original of Ludolph von Sachsen by the Cistercian monk Frei Bernardo de Alcobaça (†1478?), at the bidding of Queen Isabel, sister of the Constable D. Pedro, in the middle of the fifteenth century (1445). Another notable translation for the same queen is the _Espelho de Christina_ (1518),[204] from the French of Christine de Pisan: _Livre des trois vertus pour l’enseignement des princesses_ (1497). The Portuguese manuscript, translated from the French manuscript nearly half a century before the latter appeared in print,[205] was published at the bidding of Queen Lianor (wife of João II), who so keenly encouraged Portuguese art, language, and literature. Her squire Valentim Fernandez’ version of Marco Polo, _Marco Paulo_, was published at Lisbon in 1502. The _Espelho de Prefeyçam_ (1533) was translated from the Latin by the Canons of Santa Cruz, Coimbra, and edited by Bras de Barros (_c._ 1500-59), Bishop of Leiria and cousin of the historian João de Barros. A Portuguese version of a scriptural work entitled _Sacramental_, originally written in Spanish by Clemente Sanchez de Vercial, was published apparently in 1488 (it would thus be one of the earliest books printed in Portugal), and was reprinted at Lisbon in 1502. FOOTNOTES: