Bartolomeu Lourenço de Gusmão (December 1685 – 18 November 1724) was a Portuguese priest and naturalist from Colonial Brazil who was a pioneer of lighter-than-air aerostat design, being among the first scholars at that time to understand the operational principles of the hot air balloon and to build a functional prototype of such device. He is also one of the main characters in Nobel Prize-winning José Saramago's Baltasar and Blimunda.
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Bartolomeu de Gusmão in the context of Court (royal)
A royal court, often called simply a court when the royal context is clear, is an extended royal household in a monarchy, including all those who would regularly attend on a monarch, or another central figure. Hence, the word court may also be applied to the coterie of a senior member of the nobility. Royal courts may have their seat in a designated place, several specific places, or be a mobile, itinerant court.
In the largest courts, the royal households, many thousands of individuals constituted the court. These courtiers included the monarch or noble's camarilla and retinue, household, nobility, clergy, those with court appointments, bodyguards, and may also include emissaries from other kingdoms or visitors to the court. Foreign princes and foreign nobility in exile may also seek refuge at a court.