Camões: vida, obra y pervivencia en la cultura hispánica

The Biblioteca Nacional hosts an ambitious exhibition in the Sala Recoletos from 3 November to 14 February 2027, curated by Aurelio Vargas Díaz-Toledo, which pays tribute to one of the greatest writers in world literature and explores his close ties with letters in Castilian.

The exhibition is organised into four major thematic sections. The first sets out the historical, social and literary context of Portugal during the Renaissance, a period marked by sea voyages and Atlantic expansion. The second explores the author's intellectual milieu, showing the constant dialogue he maintained with the classical Greek and Latin poets, the Italian humanist tradition and the great Iberian poets, who shaped his lyric and theatrical output and, above all, his epic vein.

The third section forms the heritage core of the show and brings together a select collection of works by Camões held in the collections of the Biblioteca Nacional de España. Among the pieces on display are copies of the first editions of Os Lusíadas (1572), its early translations into Spanish, theatrical works, poetry cancioneros and the annotated edition by Manuel de Faria y Sousa, published in Madrid in 1639 and regarded as a key milestone in his literary canonisation.

Finally, the fourth section examines the author's legacy in Hispanic culture through writers who admired his work, such as Rosalía de Castro, Francisco Villaespesa and Jorge Luis Borges, culminating in the contemporary view of Antonio Muñoz Molina, who took the title of his novel Un andar solitario entre la gente from one of Camões's most memorable sonnets.