Those who go to sea prepare on land

The Portuguese navigations, sung by Luiz de Camões in his poem The Lusiads, significantly expanded the world as it was known in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. They are part of the globalization process, which should not be seen as a recent phenomenon, given that since humankind's earliest days, man has been venturing into new territories.

What caused the Iberian globalization project to stand out was not only its geographic, economic, and cultural scope, but the preparation process that preceded it. In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the School of Sagres was a cornerstone for the whole venture. It was there that the project was conceived and planned, under the leadership of the bastard king D. João I, of his English wife Phillipa of Lancaster, who modernized the Portuguese court, and of their children and aides, not to speak of the heroes in the battles against the Spaniards and the Moors, all of whom played a relevant role.