The Navy Arsenal were the old maintenance facility and ship repair the Portuguese Navy located in Lisbon. They were deployed to the west of the Palace Square, substantially in one site of the ancient Ribeira das Naus and the Tejo Opera House, destroyed by the earthquake of 1755. Until the establishment of the Republic were […]
The Armada comprised squadrons of different types of vessel. The principal naval ships were the great galleons of Portugal, sailing vessels with guns and naval crews. The Armada set sail from Lisbon on 28th May 1588 (British date or Old Style), picking its way out of the Tagus River and working north up the […]
São Martinho (meaning Saint Martin), built as a Portuguese Navy galleon, became the flagship of Duke of Medina Sedonia, commander-in-chief of the Spanish Armada. São Martinho in combat with English ships, in a painting by Hendrik Cornelisz Vroom When the Kingdom of Portugal came under the rule of King Philip II of Spain (Philip I […]
The Nossa Senhora da Graça incident, alternatively called the Madre de Deus incident, was a four-day naval action between a Portuguese carrack and samurai junks belonging to the Arima clan near the waters of Nagasaki in 1610. The richly-laden “great ship of commerce”, famed as the “black ship” by the Japanese, sank after its captain […]
Flor do Mar or Flor de la Mar (Flower of the Sea), spelled Frol de la Mar in all Portuguese chronicles of the 16th century, was a Portuguese nau (carrack) of 400 tons, which over nine years participated in decisive events in the Indian Ocean until her sinking in November 1511. Nobleman Afonso de Albuquerque was […]
The São Gabriel was the flagship of Vasco da Gama’s armada on his first voyage to India in 1497-1499. The other three ships Velho indicated that the sources agreed that the armada contained four ships, but there was disagreement about the names. These were the other three ships according to him: The São Rafael: The […]
In the seventeenth century, the naval industry in colonial Brazil built the galleon Padre Eterno, one of the biggest ships of its kind at that time. The headlines in Mercurio Portuguez announced: “…a galleon called Padre Eterno will come from Brazil. It was built in Rio de Janeiro and is the most famous warship that […]
The São João Baptista, Saint John the Baptist, commonly known as the Botafogo, was a Portuguese galleon warship built in the 16th century, around 1534, considered the biggest and most powerful warship in the world at the time. Botafogo on the left in this engraving, Portuguese flag on the top This ship could carry 366 […]
Santa Catarina do Monte Sinai was a higher-castled Portuguese carrack with 140 cannons, launched down in 1520 (800t, length 38 m, width 13 m, draft 4-4,5 м). Built in Kochi, India around 1512 it had two square rig masts and is depicted on a painting attributed to Joachim Patinir. In 1524, it was the flagship […]
THE PORTUGUESE NAVY The Oldest Navy in the world existing today from the XII century In the XVI century Portugal had the most powerful navy in the world and the ninth largest empire on the history until today . In the XV and XVI century spices were as valuable as gold and only nobles could buy […]