O teatro popular Tchiloli em São Tomé: origem quinhentista ou oitocentista?

Tchiloli is an emblematic popular theatre in São Tomé, based on the sixteenth-century play Tragédia do Marquês de Mântua e do Imperador Carlos Magno, written around 1540 by Baltasar Dias (c.1515 – c.1580), a Madeiran playwright from the Gil Vincente school (1465-1536). This article focuses on the question of the period of introduction of the Tchiloli by Portuguese colonists in São Tomé. Inspired by the ideology of Lusotropicalism, in the 1960s, Portuguese authors asserted that this play had existed in the island since the beginning of colonization in the 16th century, despite the absence of any historical document proving this idea. In 1985, a research article was published which argues that this play was unknown in São Tomé before 1880. Ignoring this and subsequent articles on the subject, several authors and institutions continue to disseminate the colonial literature’s unsubstantiated idea on the sixteenth-century origin of this theatre in São Tomé.