author
António Nunes Ribeiro Sanches
1699–1783
An Enlightenment-era doctor and thinker, he built an international life that stretched from Portugal to Russia and France. His writing on medicine, education, and public health helped make him one of the notable Portuguese intellectuals of the 18th century.
1 Audiobook
Cartas sobre a educação da mocidade
by António Nunes Ribeiro Sanches
About the author
Born in Penamacor, Portugal, António Nunes Ribeiro Sanches studied at Coimbra and Salamanca before leaving Portugal and continuing his medical training at Leiden under the influential physician Herman Boerhaave. A physician, philosopher, and man of letters, he came from a New Christian family of Jewish descent and spent much of his life outside Portugal.
His career became notably international. He worked in Russia and served as physician to Empress Anna Ivanovna, later building a reputation as a respected medical and intellectual figure in Enlightenment Europe. He also contributed to the wider culture of the period through his interest in public health, pedagogy, and reform.
Ribeiro Sanches is remembered not only for medical work but also for his ideas about education and society. He spent his final years in Paris, where he died in 1783, leaving behind a body of work that connects Portuguese intellectual history with the broader European Enlightenment.