António Ferreira (1528 – 29 November 1569) was a Portuguese poet and the foremost representative of the classical school, founded by Francisco de Sá de Miranda. His most considerable work, Castro, is the first tragedy in Portuguese, and the second in modern European literature.
His life
Ferreira was a native of Lisbon. His father held the post of escrivão de fazenda (estate clerk) in the house of the Duke of Coimbra at Setúbal. In 1547, he went to the University of Coimbra, and graduated with a bachelor's degree.
He took his doctor's degree on 14 July 1555, an event which was celebrated, according to custom, by a sort of Roman triumph, and he stayed on as a professor, finding Coimbra, with its picturesque environs, congenial to his poetical tastes and love of a country life.
Ferreira was intimate with princes, nobles and the most distinguished literary men of the time, such as the scholarly Diogo de Teive, and the poets Bernardes, Caminha and Corte-Real. In 1558, at the age of 29, he married D. Maria Pimentel. After a short and happy married life, his wife died.