Just as the world's oceans were about to be opened by Columbus's epochal voyage, the treaty sought to limit the seas to these two favored Catholic nations.
Which nation was to control the world's oceans? To quell the argument, Pope Alexander VI-the notorious Rodrigo Borgia-issued a proclamation laying the foundation for the Treaty of Tordesillas of 1494, an edict that created an imaginary line in the Atlantic Ocean dividing the entire known (and unknown) world between Spain and Portugal. When Columbus triumphantly returned from America to Spain in 1493, his discoveries inflamed an already-smouldering conflict between Spain's renowned monarchs, Ferdinand and Isabella, and Portugal's João II. Bown tells the untold story of the explosive feud between monarchs, clergy, and explorers that split the globe between Spain and Portugal and made the world's oceans a battleground. It sounds like Shakespeare and it could have very well been the plot of one of his plays." -Toronto Star In 1494, award-winning author Stephen R. "This is a starry love story, a tale of seething jealousies and subterfuge, a political imbroglio, and religious cruelties.
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