The Monument of the Discoveries
The Monument of the Discoveries was commissioned by the Salazar regime to honor Portugal's Age of Discoveries in which much of the world was discovered, explored, and charted during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The monument was completed in 1960 to coincide with the 500th anniversary of the death of Henry the Navigator, the Portuguese prince who sponsored many of the voyages of discovery. It was built on a site on the Tagus riverfront where many of the ships departed into the unknown on their epic journies. The designers of the Monument of the Discoveries were architect Cottinelli Telmo and sculptor Leopoldo de Almeida. Their design was of a stylized caravel with Henry the Navigator at the bow. Along the sloping lines on each side are 33 sculptures of Portuguese explorers, mariners, crusaders, cartographers, cosmographers, poets, missionaries, and royal patrons responsible for...
