Cadamosto (Luiz)

Luiz Cadamosto (Alvise Cadamosto) was a celebrated Venetian navigator in the service of Portugal. He made two voyages to the western coasts of Africa and wrote an account of them, which is regarded as a valuable source for the history of our maritime discoveries. The Navegações of Cadamosto were first published in Italian in 1507, and later in Latin. The Portuguese translation was first published in 1812 in the colecção de noticias para a historia e geographia... of the Royal Academy of Sciences (Academia Real das Ciências). Pinheiro Chagas discusses the worth and importance of these Navegações at length. They matter to the history of Madeira because Cadamosto devotes several pages to this archipelago, and his is the oldest account by any of the many navigators who have written about Madeira. The Heraldo da Madeira (‘Madeira Herald’) of 5, 9 and 11 January 1906 reproduced the passages of the Navegações in which Cadamosto describes his stay on Madeira and Porto Santo (‘holy harbour’). He anchored at the landing place of the latter island on 25 March 1445, and on the 28th of the same month in the bay of Machico. Pinheiro Chagas gives 1455 as the year of the Venetian navigator’s voyage, while Dr Azevedo, in a note to his article ‘Madeira’ in the Dicc. Port. Univ. III, adopts the date of 1445 on the basis of arguments that he sets out. Dr Pestana Júnior, in his valuable study on the Reconhecimento do Arquipelago da Madeira, places Cadamosto’s voyages in the years 1449 and 1450.