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BENSAÚDE (Joaquim). A CRUZADA do Infante D. Henrique. Lisboa. 1942. - BENSAÚDE (Joaquim) A CRUZADA do Infante D. Henrique . Lisboa: Agência Geral das Colónias, 1942. [6], 124 pp.; 220 mm. This volume brings together the writings of Joaquim Bensaúde on the figure of Prince Henry the Navigator and the so-called plan for the Indies, some of which were written many years earlier: the introduction and final study date from 1942, and the lecture and letters from 1930. The work opens with an introduction that deals with peninsular astronomy in the Middle Ages, the plan of the Indies, the criticisms that the thesis provoked, and documents from the Vatican archives and the Library of Florence. This is followed by a lecture on the origins of the plan of the Indies, given at the Seville Exhibition in 1930, two letters of response to Duarte Leite from the same year, and a study on the financial difficulties of the Infante's discoveries. The volume concludes with a bibliography and an index of names. The interpretation of Prince Henry the Navigator as a crusader, summarized in this book, has been much discussed in the historiography of the Discoveries and criticized, among others, by Vitorino Magalhães Godinho, who contested the crusading spirit as the sole motive for the expansion. ⚑ Auto-translated via Google Translate