CASTELLO

castello, valerio (1625-1659), italian painter, was the youngest son of bernardo castello (q.v.). he surpassed his father, and particularly excelled in painting battle-scenes. he painted the "rape of the sabines," now in the palazzo brignole, genoa, and decorated the cupola of the church of the annunziata in the same city. in these works he is regarded by his admirers as combining the fire of tintoretto with the general style of paolo veronese. castello branco, camillo, visconde de correia botelho (1825-1890), portuguese novelist, was born out of wedlock and lost his parents in infancy. he spent his early years in a village in traz-os-montes. he learnt to love poetry from camoens and bocage, while mendes pinto gave him a lust for adventure, but he dreamed more than he read, and grew up undisciplined and proud. he studied in oporto and coimbra with much irregularity, and since his disdain for the intrigues and miseries of politics in portugal debarred him from the chance of a government post, he entered the career of letters to gain a livelihood. after a spell of journalistic work in oporto and lisbon he proceeded to the episcopal seminary in the former city with a view of studying for the priesthood, and during this period wrote a number of religious works and translated chateaubriand. he actually took minor orders, but his restless nature prevented him from following one course for long and he soon returned to the world, and henceforth kept up a feverish literary activity to the end. he was created a viscount in 1885 in recognition of his services to letters, and when his health finally broke down and he could no longer use his pen, parliament gave him a pension for life. when, having lost his sight, and suffering from chronic nervous disease, he died by his own hand in 1890, it was generally recognized that portugal had lost the most national of her modern writers. apart from his plays and verses, castello branco's works may be divided into three sections. the first comprises his romances of the imagination, of which _os mysterios de lisboa_, in the style of victor hugo, is a fair example. the second includes his novels of manners, a style of which he was the creator and remained the chief exponent until the appearance of _o crime de padre amaro_ of eca de queiroz. in these he is partly idealist and partly realist, and describes to perfection the domestic and social life of portugal in the early part of the 19th century. the third division embraces his writings in the domain of history, biography and literary criticism. among these may be cited _noites de lamego_, _cousas leves e pesadas_, _cavar em ruinas_, _memorias do bispo do grao para_ and _bohemia do espirito_. in all, his publications number about two hundred and sixty, belonging to many departments of letters, but he owes his great and lasting reputation to his romances. notwithstanding the fact that his slender means obliged him to produce very rapidly to the order of publishers, who only paid him from l30 to l60 a book, he never lost his individuality under the pressure. knowing the life of the people by experience and not from books, he was able to fix in his pages a succession of strongly marked and national types, such as the _brazileiro_, the old _fidalgo_ of the north, and the minho priest, while his lack of personal acquaintance with foreign countries and his relative ignorance of their literatures preserved him from the temptation, so dangerous to a portuguese, of imitating the classical writers of the larger nations. among the most notable of his romances are _o romance de un homem rico_, his favourite, _retrato de ricardina, amor de perdicao_, and the magnificent series entitled _novellas do minho_. many of his novels are autobiographical, like _onde esta a felicidade_, _memorias do carcere_ and _vinganca_. castello branco is an admirable story-teller, largely because he was a brilliant improvisatore, but he does not attempt character study. nothing can exceed the richness of his vocabulary, and no other portuguese author has shown so profound a knowledge of the popular language. though nature had endowed him with the poetic temperament, his verses are mediocre, but his best plays are cast in bold lines and contain really dramatic situations, while his comedies are a triumph of the grotesque, with a mordant vein running through them that recalls gil vicente. the collected works of camillo castello branco are published by the companhia editora of lisbon, and his most esteemed books have had several editions. the _diccionario bibliographico portuguez_, vol. ix. p. 7 et seq., contains a lengthy but incomplete list of his publications. see _romance do romancista_, by a. pimentel, a badly put together but informing biography; also a study on the novelist by j. pereira de sampaio in _a geracao nova_ (oporto, 1886); dr theophilo braga, _as modernas ideias na litteratura portugueza_ (oporto, 1892); padre senna freitas, _perfil de camillo castello branco_ (s. paulo, 1887); and paulo osorio, _camillo, a sua vida, o seu genio, a sua obra_ (oporto, 1908). (e. pr.)