Le Cap de Bonne Esperance.

Title

Le Cap de Bonne Esperance.

Description

Total view of Capetown at the Cape of Good Hope with the towns landmark, the Table Mountain. Decorative offshore ships in the bay.

ca. 1750

Artist

Huquier

Historical Description

The Cape of Good Hope is a very striking cape near the southern tip of Africa that was once feared for its cliffs. Bartolomeo Diaz named the rocky headland that juts out more than 20 kilometers into the sea Cabo das Tormentas (Cape of Storms). The Portuguese King John II is said to have given it the new name because he rightly hoped that the sea route to India had now been discovered. After examining the few documents that still exist, historians today disagree as to whether Diaz had not already used the name Cabo da Boa Esperança (Cape of Good Hope). The Cape was first sighted by a European in April 1488 by the Portuguese navigator and explorer Bartolomeu Diaz, when he had already circumnavigated the southern tip of Africa (far from the coast) and was on his way back north. Diaz had set out with two caravels and a supply ship on a top-secret voyage of discovery in the summer of 1487. Because of the decreed secrecy of the voyage of discovery, no written records exist. With the opening of the Suez Canal in November 1869, the route around the southern tip of Africa suddenly lost its importance.