History of the Portuguese Navy - Voyages and naval operations 1139-1499

"Throughout its history, Portugal has always maintained a close connection with the sea and the activities carried out on it, which were fundamental for the creation of its identity as a Nation." (...) The History of the Portuguese Navy has been narrated throughout its existence by countless historians, fact by fact, episode by episode, or covering only a few historical periods. The elaboration of a more complete history is an absolutely necessary task to fill an unforgivable gap in our Historiography. The reason for this need is obvious: "the History of Portugal is the History of a maritime nation that, for much of its existence, lived almost exclusively from the sea and for the sea. The Maritime History of the Portuguese is therefore intertwined, over long periods, with the very History of the Country", a brilliant phrase that was written in the Preamble of its project, born in 1991 and approved by the Assembly of Academicians on July 5, 1994.

This work, an integral part of the various volumes published by the Academia de Marinha, addresses the period between the beginning of Portuguese Maritime Activity, the reoccupation of the territory and the Navy, the Development of Naval Activity, the Navy in the Dynastic Crisis, the 15th Century, the Conquest of Ceuta, the First Maritime Expeditions, the Expedition to Tangier, the Henry the Navigator Discoveries, Naval Activities at the time of Afonso V, and Maritime Activities during the Reigns of D. João II and D. Manuel.