Prince
Henry the Navigator in the early 1400s initiated Portugal's expeditions
by sea southward along the coast of Africa.
In
1497 Vasco da Gama, who had already gained distinction in Portugal's
wars against Castile, was appointed by the Portuguese king to lead a
royal fleet of four vessels beyond the farthest point previously explored.
Departing Portugal in July 1497, DaGama's fleet reached the Cape of
Good Hope by November. At the beginning of the following year, he left
the African Coast, sailing across the Indian Ocean and making port at
Calicut on the west coast of India in May 1498.
By September
1499 Da Gama had successfully returned to Portugal, bearing the shattering
news that the goal that had eluded Columbus and other mariners for
centuries before him -- a sea route to the Orient -- had been achieved.
For Venice the
discovery was a blow as great as Columbus'
discovery of the New World just a few years earlier. Now the large
and lucrative trade between Northern Europe and Asia could bypass
entirely the trade routes through the Mediterranean Ocean and Black
Sea that Venice dominated.