Francisca Duarte (

Antwerp Antwerp (; ; ) is a City status in Belgium, city and a Municipalities of Belgium, municipality in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It is the capital and largest city of Antwerp Province, and the third-largest city in Belgium by area at , after ...

, 1595 – Gest Alkmaar, 1640) was a Portuguese singer. She was active as a court singer at the court of the governor in the

Spanish Netherlands The Spanish Netherlands (; ; ; ) (historically in Spanish: , the name "Flanders" was used as a '' pars pro toto'') was the Habsburg Netherlands ruled by the Spanish branch of the Habsburgs from 1556 to 1714. They were a collection of States of t ...

. She was the daughter of the banker and jeweler Diego Duarte (1545? -1628) and Leonora Duarte Rodrigues (1565? -1632?), Jewish converts to Catholicism who emigrated from Portugal to the Spanish Netherlands, and married Francisco Ferdinand du Pas (1586-1646) in 1613. She settled in Alkmaar, where she became acquainted with Maria Tesselschade Visscher, who introduced her to artistic circles, where she was noted to be a great singer, and became the muse of poets. From 1630 onward, she acted as court singer at the court of the general governor of the Spanish Netherlands,

Isabella Clara Eugenia Isabella Clara Eugenia (; 12 August 1566 – 1 December 1633), sometimes referred to as Clara Isabella Eugenia, was sovereign of the Spanish Netherlands, which comprised the Low Countries and the north of modern France, with her husband Albert ...

and then

Cardinal-Infante Ferdinand of Austria Cardinal-Infante Ferdinand (also known as Don Fernando de Austria, Cardenal-Infante Fernando de España and as Ferdinand von Österreich; 16 May 1609 – 9 November 1641) was a Spanish and Portuguese prince (Infante of Spain, Infante of Portugal (u ...

. In 1638, for example, she performed to the exiled Maria de Medici. Duarte was famous in contemporary Europe and the subject of poetic celebration for her song.

References

* http://www.historici.nl/Onderzoek/Projecten/DVN/lemmata/data/Duarte * Gerdien van Gorp, Duarte, Francisca, in: Digitaal Vrouwenlexicon van Nederland. URL: http://resources.huygens.knaw.nl/vrouwenlexicon/lemmata/data/Duarte 3/01/2014 1595 births 1640 deaths Musicians from the Spanish Netherlands 17th-century singers from the Holy Roman Empire 17th-century women singers Belgian Sephardi Jews {{Portugal-singer-stub