Spangenberg, Hans. Cangrande I. della Scala (1291–1329), 2
vols. Berlin: R. Gaertner, 1892–1895. (Vol. 1 covers 1291–
1320; Vol. 2 covers 1321–1329.)
Varanini, Gian Maria. “Delia Scala, Cangrande.” In Dizionario
biografi co degli Italiani. Rome: Istituto della Enciclopedia
Italiana, 1960–.
Maureen C. Miller
CÃO, DIOGO (fl. 1482-1486)
Portuguese navigator in the service of João II who
explored the African coast as far south as Cape Saint
Catherine; his most memorable discovery was the Congo
River. His itineraries and other accomplishments are
unclear, as are the dates of his birth and death. He was
descended from a Trasmontane family that had fought
for Portuguese independence in the 1380s and, accord-
ing to tradition, was born in Vila Real. The fi rst mention
of him is from 1480, as already being in the service of
João II as a navigator; it is recorded that he returned
from Africa with captured Spanish vessels.
In 1482 his career as an explorer seems to have be-
gun on an expedition that stopped at San Jorge da Mina
(Elmina) before proceeding south into the unknown seas
beyond Cape Saint Catherine. It was on this voyage that
he discovered the Congo (Zaire) River and planted the
stone pillar known as the Padraõ de San Jorge. He then
proceeded south to Cape Santa Maria, where he erected
another padrão before returning to Lisbon.
He brought with him four Sonyo nobles taken as
hostages in return for the safety of Portuguese crew
members, who had been sent on an embassy to the
Manicongo but had not returned before the ship sailed.
The nobles were treated well; according to the chroni-
cler Barros, the intent was to teach them the Portuguese
language for future communication with natives of the
region. João II was highly pleased with the results of the
expedition and ennobled Cão, apparently believing, that
his navigator had approached “the Arabian Gulf.”
The outlines of Cão’s second voyage of 1485 are
much hazier, but it is known from Barros that he re-
turned the hostages to their homeland; he then, planted
a padrão at Cape Negro, Morocco, according to Martin
Behaim’s globe of 1492, and another at Cape Cross,
before reaching Walvis Bay. During this voyage he
seems to have visited the Manicongo, at least accord-
ing to the chroniclers Rui de Pina and João de Barros.
And, given the authenticity of inscriptions on the cliff
at Ielala, he sailed his ships a hundred miles up the
Congo River. Otherwise, reports on this second voyage
are contradictory. A legend on the famous globe by the
German cartographer Martin Behaim, hic moritur, has
been taken to indicate Cão’s death, probably in 1486,
though Barros does not mention it in his Decades, (I,
book 3, chapter 3) and speaks as if Cão returned safely
home. Whether or not Cão actually returned from this
second voyage, he fell into complete obscurity. The late
Damião Peres suggests (based on the Soligo map) that
Cão may have incurred the displeasure of João II (and
subsequently fallen into obscurity) by asserting that he
had found the terminal cape of Africa—which turned
out to be only a deep, but blind, bay.
Two other confusions render even the briefest biog-
raphy of Cão uncertain: the fact that one or more other
voyages of Portuguese discovery somewhat overlap
his and easily become confused with them, and the
question of whether Martin Behaim accompanied Cão
and labeled his maps in accordance with the explorer’s
discoveries.
See also Beheim, MichaelFurther Reading
Barros, João de. Décadas da Ásia. Decade I, books 2 and 3.
Lisbon, 1778.
Peres, D. Descobrimentos portugueses. 2d ed. Coimbra, 1960.
George D. WiniusCARTAGENA, ALFONSO DE
(1385/6–1456)
Alfonso García de Santa Maria (Alphonsus Burgensis)
was the second son of Shlomo ha-Levi, rab de la corte
of the Jewish aljama of Burgos, who on 21 July 1390,
before Alfonso had been taught Hebrew, converted to
Christianity under the name Pablo de Santa María and
was subsequently elected bishop of Cartagena (1402)
and Burgos (1415). The Santa María became leading
members of the Burgos patriciate, intermarrying with
the noble houses of Manrique, Mendoza, Rojas, and oth-
ers; on being granted a royal patent of nobility in 1440,
the family changed its surname to Cartagena. Alfonso
García read canon law at Salamanca (ca. 1400–1406)
before entering the church and court bureaucracy. By
1415 he was dean of Santiago de Compostela (dean of
Segovia and canon of Burgos, 1420) and judge in the
royal audiencia of Castile; in 1419, on the majority of
Juan II of Castile (1406–1454), he was appointed to the
king’s council. In 1421–1423 he was sent on the fi rst
of several diplomatic missions to the Portuguese court
of João I, where in the summer of 1422, at the behest
of Prince Duarte, he wrote the “fi rst-born of all my
writings,” Memoriale uirtutum, a scholastic compilatio
of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics with glosses from
Aquinas written in rhythmical Latin prose; the prologue
to Book II extols the delights of studious solitude, adduc-
ing the parallels of Scipio Africanus (Cicero, De offi ciis,
III, 1) and Count Fernán González in Pelayo’s cave on
the banks of the Arlanza, while the ultilogus illustrates
the effects of vice in public life with Tarquin’s rape of
Lucretia and King Roderick’s of La Cava, while virtueCANGRANDE DELLA SCALA