[Footnote 19: _Diccionario Bibliographico Portuguez_, vol. iii, p. 147.] We know not the precise date at which Azurara had begun to apply himself to the study of letters, and he makes no allusion whatsoever, in his writings, to his early life; but it is clear, from the _Chronica de Ceuta_, that his self-training had been lengthy, and his range of study wide.[20] In the Preface to this, his first literary essay still existing, he quotes from many books of the Old and New Testament, as well as from Aristotle, St. Gregory, St. Anselm, and Avicenna; while in the body of the work he compares the siege of Ceuta to that of Troy, talks of "Giovanni Boccaccio, a poet that was born at Florence", mentions the _Conde Lucanor_, and wanders off into philosophical musings that forcibly recall passages of the _Leal Conselheiro_ of D. Duarte, and prove him to have been no tyro in the learning of the age. He was equally well versed in astrology, in which he believed firmly, as in history, and of the latter he says: "I that wrote this history have read most of the Chronicles and historical works."[21] To understand how this was possible, it must be remembered that the Portuguese Court, in the first half of the 15th century, was an important literary centre, and that João I and his sons, besides being themselves authors of books, possessed libraries among the most complete in Europe.[22] The atmosphere of learning that he breathed made Azurara what he was, and it explains the ascendency he gained, as a pure man of letters, over the mind of Affonso V. [Footnote 20: Pisano testifies of Azurara, "scientiæ cupiditate flagravit".--_De Bello Septensi_, p. 27.] [Footnote 21: _Chronica de Ceuta_, ch. 38.] [Footnote 22: _Vide_ Theophilo Braga, _Historia da Universidade de Coimbra_, Lisbon, 1892, vol. i, ch. 4, for the catalogues of these libraries and an account of the books they contained.] Three years elapsed between the writing of his second and third books, and there can be little doubt that Azurara spent this period partly in the Royal Library and partly among the Archives, which were then housed in the Castle of S. Jorge in Lisbon, continuing his study of the history of his own and foreign countries in the chronicles and documents those places contained.