GOMEZ, DIOGO (DIEGO) (fl. 1440 – 1482), Portuguese seaman,
explorer and writer. We first trace him as a cavalleiro of the royal
household; in 1440 he was appointed receiver of the royal customs – in
F466 judge – at Cintra (juiz das camas e feitorias contadas de Cintra);
on the 5th of March 1482 he was confirmed in the last-named office.
He wrote, especially for the benefit of
Martin Behaim, a Latin chronicle of great value, dealing with the life
and discoveries of Prince Henry the Navigator, and divided into three parts."
(1) De prima inventione Guinieae; (2) De insulis primo inventis
in mare (sic) Occidentis; (3) De inventione insularum de Acores.
This chronicle contains the only contemporary account of the rediscovery
of the Azores by the Portuguese in Prince Henry’s service, and is also
noteworthy for its clear ascription to the prince of deliberate scientific
and commercial purpose in exploration. For, on the one hand, the infante
sent out his caravels to search for new lands (ad quacremdas terras)
from his wish to know the more distant parts of the western ocean,
and in the hope of finding islands or terra firma beyond the limits
laid down by Ptolemy (ultra descrip-tionem Tolomei); on the other
hand, his information as to the native trade from Tunis to Timbuktu and
the Gambia helped to inspire his persistent exploration of the West African
coast – “to seek those lands by way of the sea.” Chart and quadrant were
used on the prince’s vessels, as by Gomez himself on reaching the Cape
Verde Islands; Henry, at the time of Diogo’s first voyage, was in correspondence
with an Oran merchant who kept him informed upon events even in the Gambia
hinterland; and, before the discovery of the Senegal and Cape Verde
in 1445, Gomez’ royal patron had already gained reliable information of
some route to Timbuktu. In the first part of his chronicle Gomez
tells how, no long time after the disastrous expedition of the Danish nobleman
“ Vallarte ” (Adalbert) in 1448, he was sent out in command of three vessels
along the West African coast, accompanied by one Jacob, an Indian interpreter,
to be employed in the event of reaching India. After passing the Rio Grande,
beyond Cape Verde, strong currents checked his course; his officers and
men feared that they were approaching the extremity of the ocean, and he
put back to the Gambia. He ascended this river a considerable distance,
to the negro town of “Cantor,” whither natives came from “Kukia” and Timbuktu
for trade; he gives elaborate descriptions of the negro world he had now
penetrated, refers to the Sierra Leone (“ Serra Lyoa ”) Mountains, sketches.
the course of this range, and says much of Kukia (in the upper Niger basin?),
the centre of the West African gold trade, and the resort of merchants
and caravans from Tunis, Fez, Cairo and “ all the land of the Saracens.”
Mahommedanism was already dominant at the Cambria estuary, but Gomez
seems to have won over at least one important chief, with his court, to
Christianity and Portuguese allegiance. Another African voyage, apparently
made in 1462, two years after Henry the Navigator’s death (though assigned
by some to 1460), resulted in a fresh discovery of the Cape Verde Islands,
already found by Cadamosto (q.v.). To the island of Santiago. Gomez, like
his Venetian forerunner, claims to have given its present name. His narrative
is a leading authority on the last illness and death of Prince Henry, as
well as on the life, achievements and purposes of the latter; here alone
is recorded what appears to have been the earliest of the navigator’s exploring
ventures, that which under Joao de Trasto reached Grand Canary in 1415.
Of Gomez' chronicle there is only one MS., viz. Cod. Hisp. 27, in
the Hof- und Staats-Bibliothek, Munich; the, original Latin text w.as printed
by Schmeller “ Über Valentim Fernandez Alemao” in the Abhandlungen
der philosoph.-philolog. Kl. der bayerisch. Akademie der Wissenschaften,
vol. iv., part iii. (Munich, 1847); see also Sophus Ruge, “Die Entdeckung
der Azoren,” pp. 149-180 (esp. 178-179) in the 27th Jahresbericht des
Vereins fur Erdkunde (Dresden, 1901); Jules Mees, Histoire de la
decouverte des îles Acores, pp. 44-45, 125- 127
(Ghent, 1901); R.
H. Major, Life of Prince Henry the Navigator, pp. xviii., xix.,
64-65, 287-299, 363-305 (London, 1868); C. R. Beazley, Prince Henry
the Navigator,289-298, 304-305; and Introduction to Azurara’s Discovery
and Conquest of Guinea, ii., iv., xiv., xxv.-xxvii., xcii.-xcvi. (London,
1899). (C. R. B.)
Charles
R. Beazley
Eleventh edition