Henry the Navigator
Henry the Navigator was born in 1394 and died in 1460. He was a prince from Portugal, the third son of King John I of Portugal. He was called Infant Dom Henrique in Portuguese. He was never a navigator himself. He got his name because he organized many ocean voyages on which lands were found. He is seen as the man who started the Age of Discovery.
He opened a navigation school in Portugal, so the technology of tools and ships could be made better. One of these developments was the caravel. His explorers discovered the first shipping routes directly from Europe to Asia for the Portuguese monarchy.
Portuguese expansion in Africa and Middle East - 1415 - 1645
Portrait believed to be true likeness of Prince Henry. Detail from fifth panel of polyptych of St. Vincent by Nuno Gonçalves, c. 1470.
Frontispiece of Zurara's Crónicas dos Feitos de Guiné (Paris codex), with the phrase talent de Bien Faire ("the talent of doing well" or "Hunger for good deeds") and the pyramids, of Prince Henry's motto. It has been argued that the image portrays his brother, King of Portugal, rather than Henry.
Henry's tomb in the Monastery of Batalha
Henry the Navigator bronze by Léon-Joseph Chavalliaud (1899), outside the Palm House at Sefton Park, Liverpool (appears similar to a sculpture of the beginning of the 16th century, in the Jerónimos Monastery, Lisbon, possibly close to a true likeness of Prince Henry)
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