“O demo lhes ensina tanto”. A alcoviteira nas comédias de Jorge Ferreira de Vasconcelos

The influence of Celestina, Fernando de Rojas’s famous alcahueta of Tragicomédia de Calisto e Melibea, is essential to the study of the matchmaker in Jorge Ferreira de Vasconcelos’s three comedies: Comédia Eufrosina, Comédia Ulissipo and Comédia Aulegrafia. The debt towards Rojas’s character is explored in a twofold manner, for the Portuguese author chooses to enlighten their similarities in order to emphasise the absence of magical powers. But if the lack of this capacity contributes to the creation of a “moralized” character in Vasconcelos’s first two comedies, in Aulegrafia the same process has a different aim, underlining not