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• 1 media/Early Portugal.jpg 2016-02-15T16:29:55-08:00 Prince Henry the Navigator 13 image_header 2023-10-21T17:21:02-07:00 Infante Dom Henrique of Portugal, Duke of Viseu, more commonly known as Prince Henry the Navigator (1394-1460) was a (if not the) key figure of Portuguese sea exploration in the so-called Age of Discovery. He is most famous for forming a loose coterie of mapmakers and navigators focused on organizing the systematic exploration of the parts of the world unexplored by Europeans. 
  
  The ascetic and allegedly celibate Henry, the son of King John I and the English-born Queen Philippa, established a center for geography and cartography at Cape Sagres.
  
  Henry persuaded his father to conquer the North African, Muslim-controlled port city of Cueta in 1415. This event, described as an "African Crusade" helped inspire a longstanding interest in the continent for Henry. Much of his subsequent adult life was dedicated to discovery and trade along the African coast and a fervent desire to locate the legendary kingdom of Prester John. 
  
  As detailed in Azuzara's contemporary account of Henry's exploits in Guinea in the 1440s, Henry's exploration of Africa was influenced in large part by the specter of finding Prester John. Beazley (p. 18-19), referring to Azurara's account, recalls the following:

  He rejoiced at news of fresh discoveries in 1441 which seemed to bring him nearer 'to the Indies and to the land of Prester John.' Since the early fourteenth century, the tradition which at first referred only to a Tartar chieftain... is gradually transferred to the Negush (sic) of Abyssinia, and it is probably this potentate, however vaguely understood, whom Dom Henrique seeks under the name of 'Preste João.' And, failing the Prester, he catches eagerly at any tale of a Christian prince in Guinea. Thus in 1446 he sends an expedition to Cape Verde, having heard that the king of that land was a Christian, inviting this potentate, 'if he truly held the law of Christ,' to aid in the war against the Moors, in which 'the King of Portugal and the Infant were continually toiling.'

  
  Henry was also the younger brother of Prince Pedro, whose imagined exploits were recorded in a Spanish chapbook by Gómez de Santisteban.