maligen Sakristeischrankzyklus von Taddeo Gaddi in Santa
Croce. Worms: Wernersche Verlagsgesellschaft, 1984.
Trachtenberg, Marvin. The Campanile of Florence Cathedral
“Giotto’s Tower.” New York: New York University Press,
1971.
Vasari, Giorgio. Le vite de’ più eccellenti pittori, scultori, e
architettori nelle redazioni del 1550 e 1568, 2 vols., ed. R.
Bettarini and P. Barocchi. Florence: Sansoni, 1966.
Gail L. Geiger
GAMA, VASCO DA (1460–1524)
Vasco da Gama was born about 1460 in Sines. He was
the son of Estevão da Gama, a minor noble who had
fought in North Africa and later became admiral of
Portugal and governor of Sines.
The rounding of the Cape of Good Hope by Bar-
tolomeu Dias in 1488 had confi rmed the existence of
a sea route from western Europe to Asia; consequently
King Manuel I of Portugal ordered another, larger ex-
pedition and put the young Vasco de Gama in command
of it. His fl eet consisted of four ships: two naus, the São
Gabriel, captained by Gama himself, and the São Rafael,
captained by his brother Paulo; the Bérrio, a smaller
ship, probably a caravel, captained by Nicolau Coelho;
and a large supply ship captained by Gonçalo Nunes.
The number of sailors and soldiers who took ship on
Gama’s fi rst voyage was between 150 and 200 men.
Gama sailed out of the Tagus on 8 July 1497. He
reprovisioned in the Cape Verde Islands, leaving
there on 3 August and heading southwest to avoid the
doldrums. Like Dias he picked up the westerlies and,
turning east, made his fi rst South African landfall at
Saint Helena Bay on 7 or 8 November. He rounded the
Cape of Good Hope on 22 November and anchored in
Mossel Bay. Having abandoned his supply ship and
redistributed its remaining provisions, he sailed on,
reaching the Great Fish River on 16 December. Soon
thereafter he was at present-day Natal Point, so named
by Gama because it was sighted on Christmas Day. He
reached Quelimane on 24 January 1498, Mozambique
Island on 2 March, Mombasa on 7 April, and Malindi
on 13 April. Favorably received there by the sultan,
who liberally resupplied him, Gama set out to cross the
Indian Ocean on 24 April. He was able to profi t from
the southwest summer monsoon wind, which took him
to India in under a month. By 20 May he was anchored
off the Malabar coast just above Calicut. The samorin
of Calicut received him coldly, and at one point held
Gama and his retinue prisoner. By a judicious mixture
of threats and astuteness, Gama extricated his fl eet and
left India at the end of August 1498.
The return journey was disastrous: he was obliged to
burn Paulo’s ship for lack of men to sail her, for many
had died of scurvy and dysentery; Paulo died on Ilha
Terceira in the Azores. Gama arrived in Lisbon at the be-
ginning of September and was rewarded magnifi cently
by Manuel I with three pensions, the admiralty of India,
and, much later, the countship of Vidigueira.
In 1502 Gama made his second exploratory expedi-
tion with a fl eet of twenty ships that bombarded Calicut
and left a fi ve-warship guard at the entrance of the Red
Sea to thwart Muslim trading competition. He also
cemented an alliance with the more friendly Malabar
state of Cochin. He returned briefl y to India as viceroy
of Portuguese India in 1524, dying there at the close
of that year.
Vasco da Gama’s achievement cannot be overes-
timated: he circumnavigated the African continent,
directly linking the Indian Ocean with Europe, and he
effectively sent into economic and political decline the
powers of the eastern Mediterranean (Venice, Genoa,
Egypt, and Turkey) so that economic power would shift
permanently to the Atlantic. The consequent European
dominance of western Asiatic waters was to continue
until 1941–1942, when the Japanese overthrew British,
French, and Dutch power; thus some Indian historians
still call the period 1497–1941 “the Vasco de Gama era”
of Indian history.
See also Dias, BartolomeuFurther Reading
Jayne, K.G. Vasco da Gama and His Successors: 1460–1580.
London, 1910.
Velho, A., Roteiro da viagem que em descobrimento da India
pelo Cabo da Boa Esperança fez dom Vasco da Gama em
1497–1499. 2 vols. Oporto, 1945.
Robert OakleyGAUTIER D’ARRAS
A contemporary and rival of Chrétien de Troyes, Gautier
d’Arras identifi es himself in two romances as a writer
linked to important political and literary courts: Eracle
was begun for Thibaut V of Blois and his sister-in-law,
Countess Marie de Champagne, then completed and
dedicated to Baudouin de Hainaut (if Baudouin IV,
probable dates are 1164–71; if Baudouin V, somewhat
later), Ille et Galeron, begun after Eracle but possibly
fi nished before it (ca. 1167–70), praises the empress
Béatrice de Bourgogne (d. 1184), for whom he started
the romance (Chrétien may allude ironically to Gautier’s
praise in his prologue to the Charrette). The romance
was completed for Count Thibaut. The poet may be the
same man as the Gautier d’Arras who was an offi cer at
the court of Philippe d’Alsace and signed many docu-
ments between 1160 and 1185.
Eracle is a hagiographical romance in octosyllabic
rhymed couplets that offers a biography of Heraclius,
the Roman emperor who recovered from King CosdroesGAUTIER D’ARRAS