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.

Early life 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, who were well-connected and affluent, intended her to become a well-educated woman.

Under the protection of a relative, Archbishop D. José de Melo, she moved from Vila Viçosa to nearby Évora to study at the University of Évora. She evidently studied Greek and Latin, and by the time she was seventeen she had been awarded a doctorate and was engaged in public debates on Aristotle, impressing her professors with her reasoning ability. She is believed to have been the first woman in Europe to have been awarded a doctorate. André de Resende, her teacher, was sufficiently impressed by his disciple's skills to inform foreign scholars, with whom he exchanged correspondence about her, arousing curiosity among distinguished academics. one of several roads named after her in Portugal. A Secondary School bears her name in Vila Viçosa.