João de Castro(1500-1548)-Portuguese exlorer

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Anatol
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João de Castro(1500-1548)-Portuguese exlorer

Post by Anatol » Wed Nov 29, 2017 2:15 pm

D. João de Castro (7 February 1500 – 6 June 1548) was a Portuguese nobleman and fourth viceroy of Portuguese India. He was called Castro Forte ("Stronghold" or "Strong Castle") by poet Luís de Camões
A younger son, and destined therefore for the church, he became at an early age a brilliant humanist, and studied mathematics under Pedro Nunes, in company with Louis, Duke of Beja, son of king Manuel I of Portugal, with whom he contracted a lifelong friendship. At eighteen he went to Tangier, where he was dubbed knight by Dom Duarte de Menezes the governor, and there he remained several years.
In 1535 he accompanied Dom Louis to the siege of Tunis, where he had the honor of refusing knighthood and reward at the hands of the emperor Charles V. Returning to Lisbon, he received from the king the small commandership of São Paulo de Salvaterra in 1538.
Soon after this he left for India in company with his uncle Garcia de Noronha, and on his arrival at Goa went off for the relief of Diu. In 1540 he served on an expedition to Suez under Estêvão da Gama (the son of Vasco da Gama and them viceroy of Portuguese India), by whom his son, Álvaro de Castro, a child of thirteen, was knighted, out of compliment to him. D. Estêvão da Gama, and D. João de Castro was found with him in the expedition to the Red Sea. D. Estêvão da Gama went with 12 large galleons and carracks, and 60 galleys, on 31 December 1540, being D. João de Castro captain of a galleon. This expedition to Suez was truly remarkable, and João de Castro made a detailed roadmap of it, with maps, calculations, pictures and detailed notes from the coasts of the Arabian Peninsulaas of those of the countries of today Somalia, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Sudan and Egypt, as far to Suez and to several ports in the shores of the Sinai Peninsula, all included in the Roteiro do Mar Roxo, which offered to the Prince Louis. Eight months later he returned to Goa on 21 August, having acquired by the experiences made during the expedition, the name of the philosopher. "I pay great attention to eclipses of the moon," he writes, as also to longitudes and latitudes, fishes, seaweeds, currents, winds,the colour of the Red Sea, and every detail that might concern the art of navigation, to the delight of his friends Pedro Nunes and Prince Louis, who had furnished him with special instruments and other assistance for his voyage.
Unlike other viceroys, João de Castro had much interest in Indian culture and its religion, and even project the creation, in collaboration with of the humanist André de Resende (which he wanted to invite to visit India for this purpose), of a book on Indian art. His estate of Penha Verde, in Sintra, also contains the two famous black stones of Cambay, brought by João de Castro and his son, Álvaro de Castro.
Returning to Portugal, João de Castro was named commander of a fleet, in 1543, to clear the Atlantic European seas of pirates; and in 1545 he was sent, with six sail, to India, to assist Martim Afonso de Sousa, who had been dismissed of the viceroyalty. Seconded by his sons (one of whom, Fernão, was killed before Diu) and by João Mascarenhas, João de Castro achieved such popularity by the overthrow of Mahmud, king of Gujarat, by the relief of Diu, and by the defeat of the great army of the Adil Khan, that he could contract a very large loan with the Goa merchants. These deeds were followed by the capture of Broach, by the complete subjugation of Malacca, and by the passage of António Moniz into Ceylon; and, in 1547, by the appointment as viceroy by king John III of Portugal.
After the victory of his Armada in the refief of Diu, he besought the King not to prolong his term of office beyond the ordinary three years, and to allow him to return to the Serra de Sintra, and in his will he says: "I have near Cintra a quinta, called the Quinta of the King's Fountain, which I made, and to which I am greatly devoted because I made it and because it is in a country where my father and ancestors were born". After his victory over the overwhelming odds of Mahmud and of the Adil Khan, D. João de Castro set about rebuilding Diu, and to obtain money sent an appeal to the citizens of Goa with some hairs of his beard in pawn since it was impossible to send the bones of his son, as he had first intended, his death being but recent. The citizens of Goa responded nobly to the appeal, and when the Governor returned to Goa in the spring of 1547. they received him with great rejoicing. His triumph ceremony has been often described in the chronicles and tapestry.
He did not live long to fill this charge, dying in the arms of his friend, Saint Francis Xavier, on 6 June 1548. He was buried at Goa, but his remains were afterwards exhumed and conveyed to Portugal, to be reinterred under a splendid monument in the convent of Benfica. The chronicler Diogo do Couto ends his portrait of the Viceroy thus: "And for his great charity, temperance, disinterestedness, exceeding love of God, and other qualities of a good Christian, it may be affirmed that he will be receiving in glory the prize and guerdon of all his trouble and toil." And for the author Aubrey Fitz Gerald Bell: "by his energy, vigour of thought and action, by his splendid character, humane and resolute, he closed the most brilliant half-century of Portugal's history with a key of gold."
Portugal 1994;10,0;SG?
Source:wikipedia.org/wiki/João_de_Castro
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