Gonzalo Annes Bandarra, surnamed the Portuguese Nostradamus, born at Trancoso, province of Beira, died in Lisbon in 1550. He was a cobbler, addicted to improvising religious verses and prophecies, and was in 1541 persecuted by the inquisition, but allowed to return to his trade. A clandestine edition of what purported to be his improvisations (Troras re-dondilhas) was printed in 1581; this has been regarded as spurious, and a rival edition appeared in Paris in 1003. A Portuguese missionary in Brazil, Antonio Vieyra, was visited with severe punishment by the inquisition for predicting the resurrection and triumphant reign of John IV., in accordance with Bandarra's prophecies of a fifth empire of the world. This led to new editions of the predictions, especially one issued in Nantes, and they have been associated with the sect of the Sebastianists, who had many followers at the time of the French invasion, and who from a mystical interpretation of these prophecies predicted the return of King Sebastian to the throne for 18(8. Bandarra having been altogether illiterate, the work ascribed to him must have been penned by another hand.

Writers of the 17th century called him the holy cobbler (o sapateiro sante).