Education
Ph.D., Universidade Nova de Lisboa, 1994
Professor Emeritus

Ph.D., Universidade Nova de Lisboa, 1994
Medieval Studies, Urban History, History of Portugal, Iberian History
A historian of Medieval Portugal with strong interests in Iberian and Mediterranean history, Costa Gomes published a monograph about the royal court of Portugal, two volumes on the history of the Portuguese frontiers, the biography of king Fernando I of Portugal (r. 1367-1383), the annotated edition of the 15th-century letter collection of Abbot Gomes Eanes. She was Jean Monnet Fellow at the European University Institute (Florence), Research Fellow at the Newberry Library (Chicago), FLAD/Biblioteca Nacional (Portugal), and at the Folger Library (Washington, D.C.). Some of her recent publications are available at .

Her most recent is an annotated edition of the letters of Gomes Eanes, a Portuguese who lived for
three decades in Italy and was head of the Badia Fiorentina (Monastery of Santa Maria
of Florence) between 1419 and 1439. It includes the transcribed 550 original missives
he received, currently kept in two Florentine archives (Biblioteca Laurenziana, Biblioteca
Nazionale Centrale). The texts provide a detailed record of the abbot鈥檚 activities
and of his constant communication with men and women living in Italy, Portugal, and
other parts of Europe, revealing a multilingual cultural world and a wide field of
human relations. The book includes an introductory study of the abbot and his career,
of the origins and evolution of the letter collection within the intellectual and
institutional context of the Benedictine abbey, and of letterwriting as a cultural
practice in Portuguese and Italian societies. A general index of the missives closes
the volume. [ISBN 978 88 222 6516 6]
Costa Gomes, Rita. A Portuguese Abbot in Renaissance Florence. The Letter Collection of Gomes Eanes (1415-1463), Florence: Olshki, 2017.
Costa Gomes, Rita. The Making of a Court Society: Kings and Nobles in Late Medieval Portugal, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003.
鈥淪t茅phane P茅quignot, Au Nom du Roi. Pratique Diplomatique et Pouvoir durant le R猫gne
de Jacques II d鈥橝ragon (1291-1327), Madrid: Casa de Vel谩zquez, 2009鈥, forthcoming
in the American Historical Review
鈥淢ar铆a Narbona C谩rceles, La Corte de Carlos III el Noble, rey de Navarra: espacio
dom茅stico y escenario del poder, 1376-1415, Pamplona: Bara帽谩in Navarra (EUNSA), 2006鈥,
Francia-online, 2009-2.
(in collaboration with Olga Bettencourt) 鈥淩eview article: Publications on the Portuguese
Earthquake of 1755鈥, Bulletin of the Society for Spanish and Portuguese Historical Study 33/2 (2008), 30-33.
鈥淭he Spatial Turn and Un-archived Histories鈥 at the Workshop 鈥淯n-archived Histories鈥
organized by the History Department, Emory University, 2011.
鈥淐ultural Exchanges between Africa and Iberia in the late 1400s鈥, at the Conference
鈥淐ontact and Exchange in Medieval Europe鈥, St John鈥檚 College, Oxford, 2010.
鈥淎lfarrobeira: The Death of the Tyrant?鈥, at the International Conference on 鈥淒eath
at Court鈥, Greifswald University (Germany), 2010.
鈥淎 Lost City in the Early Atlantic: Ribeira Grande (Cape Verde) before Drake鈥檚 Conquest鈥
at the 41st Annual Meeting of the Association for Spanish and Portuguese Historical
Studies, Ottawa (Canada) , 2010.
Research Grant FLAD/Biblioteca Nacional at the National Library of Portugal, Fall
2011
Audrey Lumsden-Kouvel Fellow at the Newberry Library, Chicago, 2009.
Jean Monnet Fellow at the European University Institute, Italy, 2002
HIST 410: The Dawn of Europe in Twenty Five Images