This Lesson's logo is a Spanish caravelle

The fall of Granada, and Columbus' enterprise, coincided with the intellectual awakening of Europe known as the Renaissance. Although Iberia was late to feel the artistic impact of the Renaissance, in the field of exploration and navigation the Iberians (especially Portugal) were in the forefront.

It is important to note the significance of exploration and discovery in the Renaissance. As humans abandoned the narrow limits of the Church-controlled scholasticism of the Middle Ages, they began to wonder about their natural world and its limits. Thus, the Renaissance was also the Age of Discovery, when humans could defy old superstitions and push the boundaries of geographic knowledge. Most educated people had discarded the old notions of a flat earth, and reasoned that if the earth were a sphere, then it might be possible to navigate around it without running the danger of falling off the edge.

These new notions of geography and cartography became increasingly important when the Turks captured Constantinople in the year 1453 and cut the lucrative European trade route to the far East via the Mediterranean and the Middle East.