D. Afonso V and the 31 May 1469

On this day, at an uncertain hour, on a unpredictable place, an infant was borned!
He was a son of a prince and one day he'd become king of one of the greatest empires of the Renascence period!!
By that time the kingdom of Portugal was submerged into the discouveries ond conquers in Africa led by king D.Afonso V who would nicknamed "The African".

In the 1450's with the fall of Constantinopla, Afonso was the first to respond Pope Calisto III's request to fight back on a cruzade that never happened, so the portuguese king took advantage and set sail not to Constantinopla but to Africa where he between 1458 and 1471 conquered Alcacer Ceguer, Anafé e Arzila.
To celebrate such triumphs, King D.Afonso V, as a prince of his time, ordered he's legend on a series of tapestries in Tournai (now Belgium).

Its true that the great king didn't saw their arrival but in fact nobody did!
In 1530's they appeared but in Spain where they stayed untill today...

Salazar, the portuguese dictator, tried to get them back in 1930 but he could only be given copies of it which are today in Guimarães at the Palacio Ducal dos Duques de Bragança.

Last year, thanks to a partnership between Portugal and Spain the real ones came to Lisboa where they stayed exhibited at Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga (where I visited them 3 times!)
Since an early age I've been fascinated by the imagery of these tapestries and last year I started working on what I'm showing you now, for my great honnour and King D.Afonso V's too!

It was in this very same Portugal that in 31st May 1469 the future kind D.Manuel I was borned and if it wasn't for this uncle - King D.Afonso V - surely he wouldn't have been as fortunate as his epitaph would remember him!