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The International Prester John Project: How A Global Legend Was Created Across Six Centuries

Infante Dom Pedro

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El Libro del Infante Dom Pedro
One of the most popular fictional narratives of the sixteenth century to feature Prester John, this highly romanticized account of the life and adventures of the Infante Dom Pedro, brother to Henry the Navigator, positions Dom Pedro as the mythic hero of Portugal's Age of Exploration. Silverberg (p. 231) calls this text "the last of the great Prester John tales."

While its author remains unknown, the book was originally printed in 1515 in Seville, though there is evidence to suggest that manuscript editions of the text circulated for some decades before. The text went through hundreds of editions from the sixteenth into the eighteenth century from Spanish and Portuguese presses.

The book is attributed to a man called Gómez de Santisteban, "one of the twelve that traveled with said prince." Given the Mandevillian tenor of the "travels" described within the book, it should not be presumed that this man was the book's actual author, though it is certainly possible.

The narrative takes Dom Pedro and his polyglot authorial companion from Castile to Norway to the Holy Land to Egypt, Arabia, and Mecca (where they witness Muhammad's floating coffin, a 12th century trope that parallels similar tales of St. Thomas). From there, the itinerary takes a more imaginative turn to the land of the Amazons, the home of Ten Lost Tribes of Israel, and a land of giants called Luca, all of which are subject to the sovereignty of Prester John. Finally, they reach the city of Alves (also called 'Edicia'), the domain of Prester John himself, where Dom Pedro presents the priest king with a letter from the King of Castile.

From there, more familiar tropes from the Letter of Prester John are discussed, including the important link to St. Thomas. Here it is also made clear that Prester John is more of a title than an individual with new Prester Johns divinely chosen through a miracle performed by St. Thomas.

As the travelers ready themselves to return homeward, Prester John gives them a Letter to share with European Christians (a reduced form of the 'original' twelfth-century Letter), which the companions heroically carry back to Europe.

From Silverberg (226-7):
Pedro’s active career and tragic end stirred the European imagination: to those outside Portugal, knowing no details of the domestic political struggle, his downfall seemed like the toppling of a mythic hero, and swiftly the mythmaking began. His deeds were rehearsed by historians, they were dramatized by poets, and they passed into the oral tradition as folk legends. The aspect of Dom Pedro’s life that received the greatest embellishment was his grand tour of 1425-28, which became not merely a conventional trot through the capitals of Europe but, in some retellings, a splendid journey to the ends of the earth. The Book of the Infante Dom Pedro was the climactic work of this group.
...

The world of the Book of the Infante Dom Pedro is the familiar medieval fantasy world already well explored in the fancies of such writers as Mandeville. Beyond Christendom lies the Moslem world, and on the far side of that is a world of fables, inhabited by Amazons, the Lost Tribes of Israel, and Prester John… All the remote lands save Eden itself are under the sovereignty of Prester John, who here is as much a figure of legend as he ever was in the twelfth or thirteenth century. The author’s intent seems utopian and ecumenical; he implicitly criticizes the disunified world of Latin Christendom by showing the ideal community of Prester John’s land, where command of church and state is united in the person of the same benevolent autarch, and Christian justice and harmony are universally prevalent.
Read the account in English.
Travels of Infante Dom Pedro of Portugal
Tratado da Virtuosa Benfeitoria (1433)

Infante Dom Pedro

From Silverberg (226-7):

Pedro’s active career and tragic end stirred the European imagination: to those outside Portugal, knowing no details of the domestic political struggle, his downfall seemed like the toppling of a mythic hero, and swiftly the mythmaking began. His deeds were rehearsed by historians, they were dramatized by poets, and they passed into the oral tradition as folk legends. The aspect of Dom Pedro’s life that received the greatest embellishment was his grand tour of 1425-28, which became not merely a conventional trot through the capitals of Europe but, in some retellings, a splendid journey to the ends of the earth. The Book of the Infante Dom Pedro was the climactic work of this group.
Its author is unknown, though there is some internal evidence that he was a priest. The book purports to be “written by Garci Ramirez de Santisteban, one of the twelve who traveled with said prince,” but since Dom Pedro did not in fact visit most of the places described by Garci Ramirez, it is clear that this ascription is merely a literary device. Though the publication of the work in printed form dated to 1515, it evidently circulated widely in manuscript for some time prior to that, perhaps for ten or even twenty years.
The world of the Book of the Infante Dom Pedro is the familiar medieval fantasy world already well explored in the fancies of such writers as Mandeville. Beyond Christendom lies the Moslem world, and on the far side of that is a world of fables, inhabited by Amazons, the Lost Tribes of Israel, and Prester John… All the remote lands save Eden itself are under the sovereignty of Prester John, who here is as much a figure of legend as he ever was in the twelfth or thirteenth century. The author’s intent seems utopian and ecumenical; he implicitly criticizes the disunified world of Latin Christendom by showing the ideal community of Prester John’s land, where command of church and state is united in the person of the same benevolent autarch, and Christian justice and harmony are universally prevalent” (226-7).
Read the account in English.