ABSTRACT
In the later we can clearly see the impact that the Portuguese navigations had in Europe, namely when we compare the representation of the African coast with the Indian coast.
1 INTRODUCTION
In the 16th century meeting new spaces in Africa, Asia, or America, meant for European countries a questioning of their own conventional identities. Portugal assumes then a nuclear role in the way that Europe knows the different places and peoples. This becomes clear when we analyse the changes that take place in cartography. Didactic narratives of Christian history and places give way to reality as such. Urgency of information required a rigorous worldwide configuration of
2 THE CURIOSITY AND THE IMPORTANCE OF THE NEW SPACES ACROSS EUROPEAN INTELLECTUAL CIRCLES
They echo in Sir Thomas More’s persona Raphael (Fig. 3) “… a stranger, who seemed past the flower of his age; his face was tanned, he had a long beard, and his cloak was hanging carelessly about him, so that, by his looks and habit, I concluded he was a seaman.” (More, 2012, Sec 4:29) Besides, he is an educated man; as Sir Thomas More says:
It was not only the Brazilian coast that Raphael had met. He also travelled to Indian shores; he explored Ceylon, and arrived at Calicut, where he got a passage in a Portuguese ship, using the Cape of Good Hope Route, and returning home.
