Padrão dos Descobrimentos
The Padrão dos Descobrimentos ( German Monument to the Discoveries ) is in the Belém district of Lisbon on the banks of the River Tagus. It was the Navigator built in 1960 to mark the 500th anniversary of the death of Henry by the Salazar regime.
The monument commemorates the Age of Discovery and shows 33 important personalities of the time:
- Prince Henry the Navigator
- Prince Peter of Portugal
- Queen Philippa of Lancaster
- Fernão Mendes Pinto ( writer )
- Gonçalo de Carvalho
- Henrique de Carvalho
- Luís de Camões ( poet )
- Nuno Gonçalves (painter)
- Gomes Eanes de Azurara ( historian )
- Pêro da Covilhã ( researcher)
- Jude Cresques ( cartographer )
- Pêro Escobar ( sailors )
- Pedro Nunes ( mathematician and astronomer )
- Pêro de Alenquer ( sailors )
- Gil Eanes ( sailors )
- João Gonçalves Zarco ( sailors )
- Prince Ferdinand of Avis
- King Alfonso V " the African "
- Vasco da Gama ( discoverer of the sea route to India)
- Afonso Gonçalves Baldaia ( sailors )
- Pedro Álvares Cabral ( sailors, Brazil took possession of Portugal )
- Ferdinand Magellan ( sailors )
- Nicolao Coelho ( sailors )
- Gaspar Corte- Real ( sailors )
- Martim Afonso de Sousa ( colonizer and first governor of Brazil)
- João de Barros ( historian )
- Estêvão da Gama ( navigator, governor of India)
- Bartolomeu Diaz ( discoverer of the Cape of Good Hope )
- Diogo Cão ( sailors )
- António Abreu ( sailors )
- Afonso de Albuquerque ( sailors, military and politicians )
- Saint Francis Xavier ( missionary )
- Cristóvão da Gama
On the floor in front of the entrance there is a wind rose from mosaic. The compass rose has a diameter of 50 meters and was a gift from the Republic of South Africa. A world map in the center of the mosaic shows the routes of the Portuguese explorers in the 15th and 16th centuries.
With a premium elevator in the interior of the monument you get to the top, from where one has a view of the Tagus river, the Ponte 25 de Abril, the Jerónimos Monastery and the Belém Tower.