Seguro and Felipe VI open Camões exhibition in Madrid ahead of Ibero-American summit

Exhibition opens at the National Library

Portuguese President António José Seguro began a four-day visit to Spain on Tuesday, 3 November, by joining King Felipe VI to inaugurate an exhibition on Luís de Camões at the Biblioteca Nacional de España in Madrid. The king received Seguro at the library entrance that morning, and the two men toured the show together minutes before it opened to the public. Portugal's culture minister Margarida Balseiro Lopes and her Spanish counterpart Ernest Urtasun accompanied them. Neither head of state spoke to journalists. The exhibition, titled "Camões. Vida, obra e permanência na cultura hispânica", marks the fifth centenary of the poet's birth and stays open until 14 February 2027. Its curator, Aurelio Vargas Díaz-Toledo of the Complutense University of Madrid, led the tour and told reporters beforehand that the aim is to make "one of Portugal's greatest poets" known in Spain, where Camões is not especially known to the general public or to poetry readers.

Works on display

The curator said most of the pieces come from the National Library of Spain. They include chronicles by Fernão Lopes, the chronicle of the conquest of Ceuta in 1415, a manuscript of "Menina e Moça" by Bernardim Ribeiro, and the commented edition of "Os Lusíadas" by Manuel de Faria y Sousa, published in Madrid in 1639. Several of the first editions of "Os Lusíadas" in Portuguese and Spanish are also on show. Other works were sent to Madrid from several institutions in Portugal, among them the only edition of "Saudades da Terra" by Gaspar Frutuoso that remains complete today, written between 1586 and 1590.

Summit and final stop in Salamanca

Seguro's programme continues with the 30th Ibero-American Summit in Madrid on Wednesday, 4 and Thursday, 5 November, which brings together representatives of 22 European and Latin American countries. Portuguese prime minister Luís Montenegro is due to attend, and UN Secretary-General António Guterres and European Council President António Costa are special guests. Seguro is expected to hold bilateral meetings with other leaders on the sidelines. According to the Ibero-American Secretary-General, as cited by CNN Portugal, the summit should formalise Angola's entry as a permanent observer of the community. The visit ends on Friday, 6 November, in Salamanca, where Seguro is due to attend the ceremony conferring an honorary doctorate on António Guterres at the University of Salamanca. Guterres is nearing the end of his mandate as head of the United Nations.