The Sagres Point, in the Algarve of southern Portugal, which forms the southwesternmost tip of Europe, was already sacred ground in Neolithic times, as standing menhirs in the neighborhood still attest. Its name still recalls the Promentorum Sacrum

Sagres was at least as important during the Age of Discovery as Cape Canaveral was during the early years of space exploration. It was from that place that Prince Henry the Navigator came in the 15th century to work on his obsession to push back the frontiers of the known world, and opened Europe to the Great Discoveries.

Even though the exact location of Henry's School of Navigation is not currently known (it is popularly believed to have been destroyed by an earthquake in 1755), in the past, it attracted the best scholars in Europe concerned with the nautical sciences. Under Henry's patronage, a community of brilliant scientists came there to teach and study, and accumulated correlated nautical knowledge as it was brought back by captains of successive voyages to once unknown places. The scholars in turn instructed less experienced captains about Atlantic currents and wind systems and the latest navigation methods.

At the Sagres Academy, among many important discoveries, cartography was refined with the use of newly devised instruments, maps were regularly updated and extended, and a revolutionary type of vessel was designed: the caravel.

External link

• Sagres
• Photo of the Fortress of Sagres