When Pedro Àlvares Cabral sailed west of the doldrums on his way to India, he discovered Brazil. The year was 1500. Travelling with him on his flagship was one Pero Vaz de Caminha, a Portuguese civil servant who’d been sent to run a business in Calicut. His famous letter to the King of Portugal, describing in great detail what they found there, was the first report sent back to Europe from the Lusitanian New World. It is thus a living testimony to a remarkable moment in a truly remarkable age … the Age of discovery!
to el-rei D. Manuel of Portugal
concerning the discovery of Brazil
View of Mauá
Illustrations by Ana Maria Plant
English translation by Timothy Plant
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