Baie de la Praya. (Ile San Iago.)

Title

Baie de la Praya. (Ile San Iago.)

Description

total view of the island Santiago with the city of Praia, the Republic of Kap Verde.

ca. 1830

Artist

Lemercier / Levasseur (1838-1875)

Huge Parisian firm of lithographic printers founded by Joseph Rose Lemercier (1803-1887), who began as the foreman for Langlumé in 1825. Working on his own account from 1827, 1829-36 in partnership with Bénard association formed in 1837 according to IFF catalogue for Joseph Lemercier. The firm was still active in 1841.

Historical Description

The uninhabited islands were circled by António Fernandes in 1445 and discovered and entered for the first time in 1456 by the Venetian Alvise Cadamosto, who was in Portuguese service (Boa Vista). Antonio da Noli, a Genoese captain who also sailed on behalf of the Portuguese Prince Henry the Navigator, continued to explore the islands from 1458 in collaboration with Diogo Gomes, discovered most of the rest of the eastern Cape Verde Islands and baptized the archipelago with the name Ilhas de Cabo Verde and began settling the islands as governor of the Portuguese crown from 1461. In fact, Diogo Gomes later claimed to be the first of the two to have seen the island of Santiago from afar and also to have been the first to set foot on it. Antonio da Noli, however, managed to return to Portugal earlier, and he was then understandably rewarded by Heinrich the Navigator with the encouragement of the discovery, which, in the words of Diogo Gomes, "I, Gomes, discovered". Because of the rivalry between the two, Diogo Gomes is considered to be the true discoverer of the main island of Santiago in Portuguese historiography. The islands were named by the Portuguese after Cabo Verde (Green Cape) on the west coast of Africa.