Henry the Navigator and his Italian Initiated Network
Henry the Navigator was a nickname for Prince Henry of Portugal. The name was not used during his lifetime: only in the nineteenth century German historians mentioned him this way. There is no doubt that this nickname is well-deserved. He was the moneylender for many explorations. He set up explorations throughout the world, but the most important ones were the journeys to the west-African coast. He picked Italian explorers for this job, because they were specialized in slave trade and most often experienced sailors. In 1454, the Venetian Alvise Ca’ da Mosto and the Genoese Antoniotto Usodimare were selected and they set sail to the west-African coastline, places now known as Gambia and Senegal. On their journey, they discovered Cape Verde. |
Ca’ da Mosto and Usodimare reported on what they found during their journey. Ca’ da Mosto did this in his Navegazioni and Usodimare did this in letters to his creditors he owed money. The reliability of this sources regarding the descriptions of the local people and their behaviour, is much questioned. But it is indeed useful to get a picture of what networks were created during this journeys. Because Henry the Navigator was the moneylender and the person who instructed Ca’ da Mosto and Usodimare what to do, he is the most important hub in this network. |
In their reports they mention many people which they claim to have met. It is important to separate the ‘literary’ participants of this network from the ‘real’ participants. According to supplementary literature, the persons Ca’ da Mosto describes in his reports, are ‘real’ participants of this network. More questions are asked about the people Usodimare describes in his letters. A certain Prester John he mentions, a Christian leader who is said to live in Africa, have never existed. This ‘literary’ participant has to be left out when the final ‘real’ network is reconstructed. When the network Usodimare describes and the network Ca’ da Mosto describes are put together, the following network appears. Henry the Navigator is the most important hub, since it can be said that this journeys would not have taken place without his desire to explore and his financial contribution.
Further Reading
Arbel, Benjamin. Intercultural Contacts in the Medieval Mediterranean. New York: Routledge, 2013.
Casanova, Giacomo. The Complete Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt. Alexandrie: Library of Alexandria, 1827.
Claesen, Henri J. M. en Pieter Van De Velde. Early State Economics: Political and Legal Anthropology Series, Vol. 8. New Jersey: Transaction Publishers, 2009.
Fernandez-Armesto, Felipe. Before Columbus: Exploration and Colonisation from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic, 1229-1492. Londen: Macmillan Education, 1987.
Hoh, Nikolas Jaspert Jenny Rahel Oesterle & Marc von der. Cultural Brokers at Mediterranean Courts in the Middle Ages. Paderborn: Ferdinand Schoningh.
Kadir, Djelal. Columbus and the Ends of the Earth: Europe’s Prophetic Rhetoric as Conquering Ideology. University of California Press, 1991.
Kerr, Robert. A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels Arranged in Systematic Order: Forming a Complete History of the Origi and Progress of Navigation, Discovery and Commerce by Sea and Land from the Earliest Ages to the Present Time. Alexandrie: Library of Alexandria, 1812.
Kurt, Andrew. Journal of Medieval History: The search for Prester John, a projected crusade and the eroding prestige of Ethiopian kings, c. 1200-c, 1540. Atlanta: Georgia State University, 2013.
Lopez, Robert S. & Irving W. Raymond. Medieval Trade in the Mediterranean World: Illustrative Documents. New York: Columbia University Press, 2013.
Major, Richard Henry. The Life of Prince Henry of Portugal, Surnamed the Navigator, and Its Results: Comprising the Discovery, Withing One Century, of Half the World. Berlijn: A. Asher, 1868.
Massing, Andreas. Mapping the Malagueta Coast: A History of the Lower Guinea Coast, 1460-1510. African Studies Association, Vol. 38, 2009.
Figures
Figure 1: http://music.library.appstate.edu/guides/worldmusic/africa/western
Figure 2: http://spinnet.eu/wikibanknotes/index.php/File:Henry_the_navigator.por.jpg