ABSTRACT
The history of the early years of Portuguese expansion is only a part of the complex and varied history of the growth of Europe which began in the High Middle Ages. Portuguese historians have done much of the work and men such as Teixeira da Mota have brought the results of those labours to the attention of scholars outside Portugal. The Portuguese government maintained the myth that only caravelles could make a round trip to the Guinea coast. While chroniclers say little about the ships they do report the step-by-step progress of exploration down the coast. The regular commercial contacts between Genoa and Portugal led to the involvement of Italians in trading voyages and voyages of discovery to the Canaries and even down the coast of Africa. The Portuguese protected their African trading monopoly not so much by denying technical information about shipbuilding to potential competitors as by the use of force.
