To rise a king with prophecies: texts and pretexts in the case of King Sebastian of Venice (1598-1603)

Abstract

1598 – precisely twenty years after Don Sebastian’s disappearance – was a year of huge Sebastianic expectation, fed by miracles, portents and, above all, by the apparition in Venice of a man – from Calabria, named Marco Tulio Catizone – who claimed to be the king who had vanished in Africa twenty years before. This article studies the contexts that fueled the hopes and the nonconforming yealings of some Portuguese individuals and analyzes the main arguments used to justify and promote the idea of a fourth and last (false) coming of King Don Sebastian.