The School of Sagres (Escola de Sagres in Portuguese), also called Court of Sagres is supposed to have been a group of figures associated with fifteenth century Portuguese navigation, gathered by prince Henry of Portugal in Sagres near Cape St. Vincent, the southwestern end of the Iberian Peninsula, in the Algarve.
Since the nearby port of Lagos was the actual point of departure for numerous expeditions of exploration and colonization along the African coast and Atlantic islands, the existence of a "school" at Sagres has been questioned by some historians.[1][2][3][4] After the death of Prince Henry (1460), the center of Portuguese discoveries center shifted to Lisbon.
The first written mention of a "school" at Sagres in English dates from the seventeenth century by Samuel Purchas, although Damião de Gois had already pointed to a similar idea in the sixteenth century. Portuguese and English historians settled on the term and it gained popularity.
- ^ Randles (1993). The Alleged nautical school founded in the fifteenth century by Prince Henry at Sagres of Portugal, called the 'Navigator'. Vol. 45. Imago Mundi. pp. 20–28.
- ^ Luís de Albuquerque (1990). Dúvidas e certezas na história dos descobrimentos portugueses. Vega. ISBN 978-972-699-273-8.
- ^ Rocha, Daniel (8 February 2009). Brazil: nega historian existência da Escola Sagres. Público. Retrieved 16 October 2013.
- ^ Marques, Alfredo Pinheiro (2005). Os Descobrimentos e o 'Miller Atlas' (in Portuguese). University of Coimbra. p. 160.