Públia Hortênsia de Castro

Públia Hortênsia de Castro (1548–1595) was a scholar and humanist in the court of Catherine of Austria, Queen of Portugal.

[1][2] Born in 1548 in Vila Viçosa, Portugal, she was named for Hortensia, the famous Roman orator and daughter of Quintus Hortensius, suggesting that her parents intended for her to become a well-educated woman.

[1][3][4] She evidently studied Greek and Latin, and by the time she was seventeen she was engaged in public debates on Aristotle.

[1][3] There are stories that, dressed as a boy and chaperoned by her brother, she attended the University of Coimbra, in Lisbon, but historians consider this unlikely.

[2] Nonetheless, she is known to have composed psalms in Latin, although they are now lost, and she was well enough admired by King Philip II that he granted her a pension for life.