The extraordinary feats of navigation accomplished by Portuguese sailors gave their kingdom a new prominence on the European stage. Portuguese rulers publicized their accomplishments by displaying the exotic products from the East to a European public hungry for information about distant lands. Perhaps no single item brought back from India created a greater stir than the live rhinoceros that arrived in 1515. Crowds flocked in amazement to view a beast that had not been seen in Europe for over 1,000 years and was only known through an account by the ancient Roman scholar Pliny.

The most systematic effort to associate the Portuguese monarchy with the opening of the East took the form of a twenty-six-panel series of tapestries commemorating da Gama’s 1498 voyage to Calicut. Commissioned by King Manuel in 1504, these expensive woven works of art were intended to hang in the great hall of the royal palace where official business was conducted. The scenes incorporate a wide variety of exotica, including dark-skinned people dressed in elaborate, if often inaccurate, costumes and rare or mythical animals. Woven in the Low Countries (modern day Belgium and the Netherlands), by artisans who had never seen their subjects, the tapestries feature many scenes containing fanciful elements, while other scenes draw on more familiar topics, including classical accounts of Alexander the Great’s conquests in the East. Nevertheless, these tapestries proved influential in shaping European conceptions of India, as the same artisans produced many copies and variations on these panels for other European elites fascinated by the Portuguese discoveries.

The panel reproduced here depicts the arrival of da Gama at Calicut. The scene includes accurate renderings of Portuguese vessels anchored in the port; however, the buildings and town gates of Calicut are more fanciful, constructed out of distinctly European, not Indian, architectural elements. In the foreground to the left, da Gama presents a letter from his monarch to the ruler of Calicut. In the center of the scene, the Portuguese are in the process of unloading from their vessels exotic animals, including ostriches, wild cats, and even a unicorn. To the right, a great crowd dressed in garments reminiscent of European styles gathers to view these curiosities, very much like the Europeans who gathered to view the Indian rhinoceros unloaded in Lisbon harbor in 1515.

Questions to consider as you examine the source:

The Arrival of da Gama at Calicut