Portugal and Spain

Padrão dos Descobrimentos (Monument of the Discoveries) is a monument on the northern bank of the Tagus River estuary, in the civil parish of Santa Maria de Belém. Located along the river where ships departed to explore and trade with India and the Orient, the monument celebrates the Portuguese Age of Discovery (or "Age of Exploration") during the 15th and 16th centuries.
 

 

(L-R) Peter, Duke of Coimbra (son of King John I of Portugal); Queen Philippa of Lancaster; Fernão Mendes Pinto (explorer and writer); Frei Gonçalo de Carvalho, O.P. (Dominican Missionary); Frei Henrique de Coimbra, O.F.M. (Franciscan Missionary); Luís de Camões (renaissance poet who celebrated the navigations in the epic Lusiads); Nuno Gonçalves (painter); Gomes Eanes de Zurara (chronicler); Pêro da Covilhã (traveller); Jácome de Maiorca (Jehudà Cresques, cartographer); Pedro Escobar (pilot); Pedro Nunes (mathematician); Pêro de Alenquer (pilot); Gil Eanes (navigator); João Gonçalves Zarco (navigator); Ferdinand the Holy Prince (son of King John I of Portugal)
 

(L-R) Afonso V of Portugal; Vasco da Gama (discoverer of the sea route to India); Afonso Gonçalves Baldaia (navigator); Pedro Álvares Cabral (discoverer of Brazil); Ferdinand Magellan (first to circumnavigate the globe); Nicolau Coelho (navigator); Gaspar Corte-Real (navigator); Martim Afonso de Sousa (navigator); João de Barros (writer); Estêvão da Gama (sea captain); Bartolomeu Dias (first to cross over the Cape of Good Hope); Diogo Cão (first to arrive to the Congo river); António de Abreu (navigator); Afonso de Albuquerque (second viceroy of Portuguese India); Saint Francis Xavier (missionary); Cristóvão da Gama (captain);
 

An armillary sphere (variations are known as spherical astrolabe, armilla, or armil) is a model of objects in the sky (on the celestial sphere), consisting of a spherical framework of rings, centered on Earth or the Sun, that represent lines of celestial longitude and latitude and other astronomically important features.
 

 

 

The Museu de Marinha (Navy Museum) is a maritime museum dedicated to all aspects of the history of navigation in Portugal. The museum is administered by the Portuguese Navy and is located in the tourist district of Belém. It occupies a part of the neo-Manueline Western wing of the Jerónimos Monastery with the National Museum of Archaeology, as well as a modern annex built to the North of the monastery.
 

 

Henry the Navigator