Prince Henry the Navigator, the Hero of Portugal and of Modern Discovery, 1394-1460 A.D. | Page 6

of the
best examples of this kind of work, which gave us our first really
accurate map of any part of the globe, but which for some time was
entirely confined to coast drawing, and was meant to supply the
practical wants of captains, pilots, and seamen. The Catalan atlas of
1375-6 shows the portolano type extended to a real Mappa Mundi; the
elaborate carefulness and sumptuousness of this example prepares us
for the still higher work of Andrea Bianco and of Benincasa in the
fifteenth century. As the Laurentian portolano of 1351 commemorates
the voyage of 1341 and marks its discoveries in the Atlantic islands, so
the Catalan map of 1375-6 commemorates the Catalan voyage of 1346,
and gives the best and most up-to-date picture of the N.W. African
coast as it was known before Prince Henry's discoveries.
Last of these groups of maps is that of examples from Henry's own age,
such as the Fra Mauro map of 1459 or the maps of Andrea Bianco and
Benincasa (e.g., 1436, 1448, 1468), among which the first-named is the
only one we have been able to give here.
The Borgian map of 1450 is given as an extraordinary specimen of
what could be done as late as 1450, not as an example of geographical
progress; and the map of 1492, recording Portuguese discoveries down
to the rounding of the Cape of Good Hope, is added to illustrate the
advance of explorers in the years closely following Henry's death, as it

was realised at the time.
The maps have in most cases been set from the modern standpoint, but,
as will readily be seen by the position of the names, the normal
mediæval setting was quite different, with the S. or E. at the top.
II. The illustrations aim at giving portraits or pictures of the chief
persons and places connected with the life of Prince Henry. There are
three of the Prince himself; one from the Paris MS. of Azurara, one
from the gateway of the great convent church of Belem, one from the
recumbent statue over his tomb at Batalha. Two others give: (1) The
whole group of the royal tombs of Henry's house,--of his father, mother,
and brothers in the aisle at Batalha, and (2) the recumbent statues of his
father and mother, John and Philippa, in detail; the exterior and general
effect of the same church--Portugal's Westminster, and the mausoleum
of the Navigator's own family of Aviz--comes next, in a view of this
greatest of Portuguese shrines.
Coimbra University, with which as rector or chancellor or patron Prince
Henry was so closely connected, for which he once provided house
room, and in which his benefactions earned him the title of "Protector
of the studies of Portugal" is given to illustrate his life as a student and
a man of science; the mother church of the order of Christ at Thomar
may remind us of another side of his life--as a military monk, grand
master of an order of religious chivalry which at least professed to bind
its members to a single life, and which under his lead took an active
part in the exploration and settlement of the African coasts and the
Atlantic islands.
The portraits of Columbus, Da Gama, and Albuquerque, which
conclude this set of illustrations, are given as portraits of three of
Prince Henry's more or less conscious disciples and followers, of three
men who did most to realise his schemes. The first of these, who owed
to Portuguese advance towards the south the suggestion of
corresponding success in the west, and who found America by the
western route to India,--as Henry had planned nearly a century before
to round Africa and reach Malabar by the eastern and southern
way,--was the nearest of the Prince's successful imitators in time, the

greatest in achievement; he was not a mere follower of the Portuguese
initiative, for he struck out a new line or at least a neglected one, made
the greatest of all geographical additions to human knowledge, and
took the most daring plunge into the unknown that has ever been
taken--but Columbus, beside his independent position and interest, was
certainly on one side a disciple of Henry the Navigator, and drew much
of his inspiration from the impulse that the Prince had started. Da
Gama, the first who sailed direct from Lisbon to India round Africa,
and Albuquerque, the maker, if not the founder, of the Portuguese
empire in the East, were simply the realisers of the vast ambitions that
take their start from the work and life of Prince Henry, and he has a
right to claim them as two leading champions of his plans and policy.
In many points Albuquerque, like Columbus, is more than a follower;
but in the main outline of his achievement