ABSTRACT
The Chronicle of the Discovery of Guinea was written by a contemporary. It is one of the most valuable monuments of the history of the Portuguese discoveries and conquests. It was believed, until well on in the nineteenth century, that the oldest chronicler to write of the Infante Dom Henrique, and of his labours and discoveries, was a foreigner, the celebrated Italian traveller Cadomosto, who came to Portugal and entered the service of the Infante about the year 1455. The Chronicle of the Discovery of Guinea, however, was completed in 1448. It seems that the Portuguese King Dom Affonso V presented it to his uncle the King of Naples, Affonso the Magnanimous, about 1453–7. Gomes Eannes de Azurara authority as a contemporary writer is very great, for he lived in intimate relations with the Infante Dom Henrique, and he knew personally the leading captains to whom the world owed the discoveries of this period.
