author
António Nunes Ribeiro Sanches
1699–1783
A Portuguese physician and Enlightenment thinker, he spent much of his life in exile and built a reputation across Europe for his medical knowledge and sharp ideas about education and public health.
1 Audiobook
Cartas sobre a educação da mocidade
by António Nunes Ribeiro Sanches
About the author
Born in Penamacor, Portugal, in 1699, António Nunes Ribeiro Sanches came from a New Christian family of Jewish descent. He studied at Coimbra and Salamanca, then left Portugal amid the pressures of the Inquisition. His career took him through London and the Netherlands before he established himself as a physician of international standing.
Ribeiro Sanches went on to work in Russia, where he served at court and became known for his medical writing. He is often remembered as part of the wider European Enlightenment: a doctor, philosopher, and reform-minded writer who argued for better education and a more practical, scientific culture.
He spent his later years in Paris, where he died in 1783. His life reflects both the opportunities and the upheavals of 18th-century Europe, and his work helped connect Portuguese intellectual life with broader debates in medicine and ideas.