About World Globes

Cartographers and explorers worked together  in mapping out the world during the times of exploration.  Henry the Navigator (1394 – 1460),  the second son of King John I of Portugal set up a school at Sagres for sailors to learn the secrets of the ocean.  He paid for many sailing expeditions out of the Portuguese treasury.  Henry employed cartographers who created the most sophisticated maps of their time.  In 1419 he summoned Jehuda Cresques a noted cartographer to map the discoveries of his sailors.  The maps made it possible for sailors to learn from previous expeditions.

 As a fruit of Prince Henry’s work João Gonçalves Zarco, Bartolomeu Perestrelo and Tristão Vaz Teixeira rediscovered the Madeira Islands in 1420, and at Henry’s instigation Portuguese settlers colonized the islands.  In 1427, one of Henry’s navigators, probably Gonçalo Velho, discovered the Azores.  Portugal soon colonized these islands in 1430.  Gil Eanes, the commander of one of Henry’s expeditions, became the first European known to pass Cape Bojador in 1434.  This was a breakthrough as it was considered close to the end of the world, with difficult currents that did not encourage commercial enterprise.  Alvise Cadamosto was one of the sailors hired by Prince Henry to explore the Atlantic coast of Africa and he discovered several islands of the Cape Verde archipelago between 1455 and 1456.  In his first voyage, which started on March 22 1455, he visited the Madeira Islands and the Canary Islands.  On the second voyage, in 1456,  Cadamosto became the first European to reach the Cape Verde Islands.