Age of Discovery
There had been many voyages of discovery in the immediately preceding years:
- Dias’ rounding of Africa (1487)
- the discovery of Newfoundland by John Cabot (1497)
- Vasco da Gama’s travel to India (1499)
- the explorations of the Caribbean and South America by Columbus (1492–93, 1493–94, 1498, 1502–04)
- visits to the Caribbean and South America by Vespucci (1499, 1501–02)
Although there had been maps created after these voyages, such as Juan de la Cosa’s map of the world in 1500 (based on Columbus' second voyage) and the Cantino world map (circa 1502), the information on these maps was closely held and guarded as state secrets. Often a limited number of copies were made.
Read more about this topic: Contarini-Rosselli Map
Famous quotes containing the words age of, age and/or discovery:
“Nearly all our powerful men in this age of the world are unbelievers; the best of them in doubt and misery; the worst of them in reckless defiance; the plurality in plodding hesitation, doing, as well as they can, what practical work lies ready to their hands.”
—John Ruskin (1819–1900)
“Youth is a blunder; Manhood a struggle; Old Age a regret.”
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“I have known no experience more distressing than the discovery that Negroes didn’t love me. Unutterable loneliness claimed me. I felt without roots, like a man without a country ...”
—Sarah Patton Boyle, U.S. civil rights activist and author. The Desegregated Heart, part 1, ch. 10 (1962)