Henry the Navigator

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  Geography, Cartography and Nautical Science in the Renaissance

  The Impact of the Great Discoveries

  • W.G.L. Randles(Author)
  • 2022(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  III The alleged nautical school founded in the fifteenth-century at Sagres by Prince Henry of Portugal, called the ‘Navigator’1

  1 We put ‘Navigator’ in inverted commas since the term ‘Henry the Navigator’ was first used successively by two German historians Heinrich Schaefer and Gustav de Veer and then later taken up as the title of their books by the English historians Henry Major in 1868 and Raymond Beazley in 1895. Only secondary Portuguese historians, following the above writers, have called him the ‘Navigator’.

  DOI: 10.4324/9781003110323-3

  The statement that in order to implement his program of maritime discovery, Prince Henry of Portugal (1394–1460) had founded at Sagres in the early fifteenth century a nautical school to which he attracted experts in astronomy, navigation and cartography, has appeared in recent works published in connection with the quincentenary of Columbus’ first voyage. The assertion has already for long been the subject of heated controversy among Portuguese historians of which the best and most authoritative have amassed respectable evidence to show that no such institution ever existed.2 In his Atlas of Columbus and the Great Discoveries (1990), destined for a wide audience, Kenneth Nebenzahl writes:

  2 The most recent critic of the ‘Sagres School’ was the late Luis de Albuquerque, Dúvidas e Certezas na História dos Descobrimentos Portugueses, Lisbon, 1990, Part I, Chap. II .

  ‘By 1420, Henry had founded his renowned school for mathematicians, astronomers, navigators, cartographers, and instrument makers at Sagres.’3

  3 Kenneth Nebenzahl, Atlas of Columbus and the Great Discoveries

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  The Portuguese Pioneers

  • Edgar Prestage(Author)
  • 2021(Publication Date)
  • Johnston Press

    (Publisher)

  terra incognita to Christian Europe. Overland travellers, mostly Moslems, had penetrated to the coast as far south as the Senegal, but if a line were drawn from the mouth of that river to the lower waters of the Niger and then across to the east coast a little below Abyssinia, the whole of the continent to the south was entirely unknown, save a narrow strip of the eastern coast down to Sofala, frequented by Arab traders. In less than a century from their start the Portuguese mapped the coastline, dotting it with names, many of which are still in use, and explored part of the interior. This great contribution to geographical science was one of the achievements of Henry the Navigator and his successors.

  Before entering upon a relation of the maritime expeditions made under his auspices it is natural to ask ourselves how far their results may have been anticipated, and the reply is that the undoubted pre-Henrician voyages down the west coast of Africa were very few. The Phoenicians, who were sent out by Pharaoh Necho, may have rounded the Cape of Good Hope, but Hanno probably got no farther than Sierra Leone; in medieval times Ibn Fatima seems to have reached Cape Branco, but the Genoese Malocello did not pass beyond the Canaries, while Doria and Vivaldi disappeared, so that it is impossible to fix their furthest south. The voyages of the men of Dieppe in the fourteenth century are not proven, owing perhaps to the destruction of records, the existing evidence being of too late a date.1

  1 The documents are in J. P. Oliveira Martins, Os filhos de D. João I ; they are not included in the English version by J. J. Abraham and W. E. Reynolds called The Golden Age of Prince Henry the Navigator (London, 1914).

  1 The following account of the expedition to Ceuta is based on Zurara’s Cronica de Ceuta (ed. Esteves Pereira, Lisbon, 1915).

  2 Cronica de Ceuta , cap. 62. In 1410 John I seems to have sent his confessor to inform Pope John XXIII of the project, and in 1413 he obtained from the Pope the appointment of the Queen’s confessor as Bishop of Morocco, as though in anticipation of the conquest he had planned. Vide Snr. L. Teixeira de Sampayo, Arquivo de Historia , vol. i (Coimbra, 1923). Barros (Asia , dec. I, bk. i, cap. 2) says that John had nourished the idea for a long time.

  1 Ordenaçoens do Rey Affonso V , bk. v, tit. 83 and 84. The first volume of the Documentos das Chancellarias Reais anteriores a 1531 relativos a Marrocos

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  The Handy History Answer Book

  From the Stone Age to the Digital Age

  • Stephen A. Werner(Author)
  • 2020(Publication Date)
  • Visible Ink Press

    (Publisher)

  EXPLORATION FAMOUS ANCIENT EXPLORERS Who was Hannu?

  Hannu (or Hennu) was one of the earliest known explorers in the history of the world. This Egyptian noble, of the twenty-first or twentieth century B.C.E. , reputedly made numerous explorations from his native Egypt into surrounding countries, such as Libya and Punt. He encountered the Red Sea on different voyages. He recounted many of these expeditions in stone.

  When did Marco Polo travel to the Far East?

  Marco Polo (1254–1324) was only in his teens when he left Venice, Italy, in about 1271 with his father, Niccolò, and his uncle Maffeo, traveling an overland route to the East along the Silk Road, eventually reaching China. Marco returned to Venice after twentyfour years of travel and wrote The Travels of Marco Polo , describing all that he had seen. His book became a window into the unknown world of India, China, and Japan.

  CIRCUMNAVIGATION OF THE GLOBE Why was Portugal such a force in exploration?

  Portugal was the leading seafaring country in the world for a good part of the fifteenth century. For a small country, it has a long coastline and is positioned on the western end of Europe. Another reason for Portugal’s predominance was due to Prince Henry the Navigator (1394–1460), the son of King John I of Portugal. Although Henry was neither a sailor nor a navigator, he was the patron and supporter of Portuguese explorers, explicitly urging his father to support various sailing missions to Africa to expand his country’s trade. He promoted the development of a ship called the “caravel.” Although it was smaller than other ships, it was much faster and highly maneuverable.

  However, Henry also played a key role in creating the Atlantic slave trade. Who was Vasco da Gama?

  Vasco da Gama (c. 1460–1524) led an expedition of four ships that left Portugal in 1497 and sailed south from Portugal down the African coast, rounding the Cape of Good Hope at the southern tip of Africa, then sailing north on the other side of Africa to Madagascar, then on to India. The expedition returned to Portugal in 1499. (Do an online image search “map of da Gama route.”) Da Gama’s voyage opened up the possibilities for trading along the east coast of Africa and with India. His mission around the tip of Africa inspired other explorers and convinced them that it would be possible to circumnavigate the globe (sail around the entire Earth).

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