Júlio Dantas

Júlio Dantas, GCC (Lagos, 1876 – Lisboa, 1962) was a Portuguese doctor, poet, journalist, politician, diplomat and dramatist.

Biography

The son of a military officer, he studied at Lisbon's Colégio Militar, and later Medicine at the University of Lisbon.

He published his first article in 1893; he was later a doctor in the Portuguese Army, president of the Academia de Ciencias de Lisboa (Lisbon academy of science), Minister of Education, Minister of Foreign Affairs (1922–1923) and ambassador to Brazil (1941–1949).

In his time, he was famous for his historical works (both theatre plays and novels). Most popular was the "A Ceia dos Cardeais" ("The Cardinals' Supper"). His work "A Severa" was made into the first Portuguese sound film in 1931.

For the younger generations, he is however most famous for being the target of Almada Negreiros' Manifesto Anti-Dantas (the anti-Dantas manifest), a humorous pamphlet in the futurism style, filled with violent personal attacks, but written with an almost poetic style: "Dantas might know grammar, he might know syntax, he might know medicine, he might know how to cook suppers for cardinals, he might know everything except how to write, which is the only thing he does".