This article is about the Brazilian poet. For the comedian, see Cláudio Manoel.
Cláudio Manuel da Costa (June 4, 1729 – July 4, 1789) was a Brazilian poet and musician, considered to be the introducer of Neoclassicism in Brazil. He wrote under the pen name Glauceste Satúrnio, and his most famous work is the epic poem Vila Rica, that tells the history of the homonymous city, nowadays called Ouro Preto.
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He is the patron of the 8th chair of the Brazilian Academy of Letters.
It is speculated that he translated Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations and Theory of Moral Sentiments into Portuguese. Some claim that he had connections with the Illuminati, an Enlightenment-oriented secret society created in Bavaria that has influenced numerous revolutions.[1]
Cláudio Manuel da Costa was born in the city of Vargem do Itacolomi (nowadays Mariana), to Portuguese João Gonçalves da Costa and Brazilian Teresa Ribeiro de Alvarenga. In 1749, he went to Lisbon, where he was graduated in Canon law in the University of Coimbra, where he composed most of his poems. Returning to Brazil, to the city of Ouro Preto, in 1754, he became a lawyer and a goldsmith.
He was the secretary of Minas Gerais from 1762 to 1765, and a judge of lands from 1769 to 1773. He founded in Ouro Preto a Neoclassic literary academy called "Colônia Ultramarina" ("Ultramarine Colony") in 1768, where he wrote many of his poems and performed the theatre play O Parnaso Obsequioso.
During the 1770s and the 1780s, he became friends with Tomás António Gonzaga, who exercised a great influence in Cláudio's work. According to studies made in the mid-20th century, the preface of Gonzaga's Cartas Chilenas (Chilean Letters) was written by Costa.
Along with Gonzaga and others, Cláudio was a member of the unsuccessful 1789 Minas Conspiracy. Arrested, he was killed in prison on July 4, 1789.
