| Summary: | Having initiated his noviciate within the Franciscan Order, D. Leão de Noronha (1500-1572) had to abandon his vocation in order to succeed his father as the head of the family household. Already as a married man and father, he devoted his life to prayer in a close spiritual relationship with the Dominican friars of Lisbon – Fr. Luis de Sottomayor, O.P., the well-known exegete, referred to him as a saint –, pledged his fortune to the assistance of the poor, and even himself would tend to and heal those in suffering with his own hands. And this he did but, conscious of his family heritage, he did not forsake the privileges he was entitled to as a distinguished landlord. His remarkable biography (which includes the miracles performed during his lifetime that gave him the standing of a living saint) was written by his granddaughter’s husband, Jerónimo de Melo Coutinho, c. 1623. In this biography, the hagiographer is commited to preserving the fama sanctitatis of D. Leão, but also in presenting a model as sanctify for “ those responsible for the orientation of the marital state”. With this research we will attempt to interpret the statements, remarks and silences that can be perceived in the hagiography written, above all, for the descendants of the “reverend D. Leão”.
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