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This article intends to draw attention to some letters written by Fr. Estêvão da Purificação (O.C.), Fr. António da Conceição (C.S.J.E) and Father João Cardim (S.J.), especially addressed to ladies, insofar as they allow to see the spiritual ascendant, accomplished, in this concrete case, through spiritual advice and guidance, which these religious exercised with them. Indeed, these letters indicate to us some interesting vectors of the orientation of the spiritual life and the direction of consciousness in Portugal in the seventeenth-century: recommendations for readings, ways of praying or ascetic and devout practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The background of this study is the problem of the reading of works on spirituality, in XVI-XVII centuries, in Portugal, especially "devote lives", and intending to draw attention to their dedication, and exposes, based on the analysis of three "devote lives", published between 1570 and 1625 and dedicated to two important female figures of the time - D. Juliana de Lara e Meneses, duchess of Aveiro, and D. Ana de Lencastre, comendadeira of the monastery of Santos - some questions concerning both the readings and spiritual or devotional practices, and the relations of authors and/or religious orders to influential families, especially with the female figures of these families. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]