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Straits, Capes and Islands as Points of Confluence in the Portuguese Ocean Route between the Atlantic and the East (in the Fifteenth Century)
Abstract In this paper, I will present a reflection on the role of straits, capes and islands as geographical references in the oceanic route from Europe to India. All three have a double dimension; geographical and cultural. So, the challenge is how to explain the nautical and intellectual process in which the generation of the oceanic concept operated. To support this idea, I will consider three successive aspects of these reference points: first, their importance in medieval oceanic doctrines; second, their role as reference points in the
maritime routes of the central and southern Atlantic; finally, based on the linkage between the initial Atlantic experience and the emerging notion of oceanic space, I will emphasize two specific issues: their role in the shaping of the doctrine of a maritime rearguard, as well as their importance in fifteenth-century Portuguese diplomacy.
