Luís of Portugal, Duke of Beja
Portuguese infante
Infante Luís of Portugal, Duke of Beja (3 March 1506 – 27 November 1555) was the second son of King Manuel I of Portugal and his second wife, Maria of Aragon. He participated in the Conquest of Tunis.
Early life
Born in Abrantes on 3 March 1506, Luís was the fourth child of Manuel I and Maria of Aragon. His godparents were his aunt Isabel of Viseu, and his cousins Jaime, Duke of Braganza, and João de Almeida, 2nd Count of Abrantes.
Luís displayed exceptional intelligence and enthusiasm for learning from a young age. Under the guidance of Pedro Nunes, he excelled in philosophy, mathematics, and astronomy. He was educated alongside João de Castro and the two became lifelong intimate friends. Luís's amiable nature earned him both admiration among the nobility and widespread popularity among the people, standing out as an educated, affable, and jovial prince in stark contrast to his more somber older brother, John III.
Duke of Beja
Luís was granted the title of Duke of Beja on 5 August 1527, as well as possession of several parishes and municipalities that spanned Beira and Alentejo. He also held the titles of Constable of the Kingdom (Portuguese: Condestável do Reino) and Prior of the Order of Saint John of Jerusalem, with its Portuguese headquarters in the town of Crato. Previously reliant on the crown, Luís's newfound territorial holdings afforded him a measure of economic autonomy.
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This entry incorporates text from “Luís of Portugal, Duke of Beja” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.