The () or "Royal Register" was the official and quasisecret Portuguese master map during the

Age of Exploration The Age of Discovery (), also known as the Age of Exploration, was part of the early modern period and overlapped with the Age of Sail. It was a period from approximately the 15th to the 17th century, during which Seamanship, seafarers fro ...

, used as a template for the maps of all official Portuguese expeditions. It formed the complete record of Portuguese discoveries both public and secret. First compiled under

Henry the Navigator Princy Henry of Portugal, Duke of Viseu ( Portuguese: ''Infante Dom Henrique''; 4 March 1394 – 13 November 1460), better known as Prince Henry the Navigator (), was a Portuguese prince and a central figure in the early days of the Portuguese ...

, it was later held and expanded by the

Casa da Índia The Casa da Índia (; English language, English: ''India House'' or ''House of India'') was a Portuguese state-run enterprise, state-run commercial organization during the Age of Discovery. It regulated international trade and the Portuguese Emp ...

("India House") in the Ribeira Palace in

Lisbon Lisbon ( ; ) is the capital and largest city of Portugal, with an estimated population of 567,131, as of 2023, within its administrative limits and 3,028,000 within the Lisbon Metropolitan Area, metropolis, as of 2025. Lisbon is mainlan ...

Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic, is a country on the Iberian Peninsula in Southwestern Europe. Featuring Cabo da Roca, the westernmost point in continental Europe, Portugal borders Spain to its north and east, with which it share ...

. It was hung from the ceiling of the Casa da Índia's Division of Maps, protected from foreign and commercial spies but sometimes available to the era's scientific elite and copied for navigators in royal service. The later Spanish counterpart of the was the or compiled under

Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic Monarchs were Queen Isabella I of Castile () and King Ferdinand II of Aragon (), whose marriage and joint rule marked the '' de facto'' unification of Spain. They were both from the House of Trastámara and were second cousins, ...

in 1507 or 1508 and kept in the

Casa de Contratación The ''Casa de Contratación'' (, House of Trade) or ''Casa de la Contratación de las Indias'' ("House of Trade of the Indies") was established by the Crown of Castile, in 1503 in the port of Seville (and transferred to Cádiz in 1717) as a cro ...

Seville Seville ( ; , ) is the capital and largest city of the Spain, Spanish autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Andalusia and the province of Seville. It is situated on the lower reaches of the Guadalquivir, River Guadalquivir, ...

, Castile. Like the , the was updated after the return of major expeditions. The Spanish were also obliged to share a copy of their master map under the terms of the 1529

Treaty of Zaragoza The Treaty of Zaragoza or Saragossa, also called the Capitulation of Zaragoza or Saragossa, was a peace treaty between Castile and Portugal, signed on 22 April 1529 by King JohnIII of Portugal and the Habsburg Emperor Charles V in the Arago ...

as part of establishing the line of demarcation between the two empires east of the

Spice Islands In the culinary arts, a spice is any seed, fruit, root, bark, or other plant substance in a form primarily used for flavoring or coloring food. Spices are distinguished from herbs, which are the leaves, flowers, or stems of plants used for ...

(now

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania, between the Indian Ocean, Indian and Pacific Ocean, Pacific oceans. Comprising over List of islands of Indonesia, 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, ...

Maluku Islands The Maluku Islands ( ; , ) or the Moluccas ( ; ) are an archipelago in the eastern part of Indonesia. Tectonics, Tectonically they are located on the Halmahera Plate within the Molucca Sea Collision Zone. Geographically they are located in West ...

). The original Padrão Real has been lost, although the Cantino planisphere copy still exists. It is thought to have been made by a Portuguese cartographer sometime between December 1501 and October 1502. Cantino presumably bribed the cartographer to produce it and then sent the map to the

Duke of Ferrara This is a list of rulers of the estates owned by the House of Este, Este family, which main line of Marquesses (''Marchesi d'Este'') rose in 1039 with Albert Azzo II, Margrave of Milan. The name "Este" is related to the city where the family came ...

, probably on 19 November 1502. It is now held by the Biblioteca Estense in

Modena Modena (, ; ; ; ; ) is a city and ''comune'' (municipality) on the south side of the Po Valley, in the Province of Modena, in the Emilia-Romagna region of northern Italy. It has 184,739 inhabitants as of 2025. A town, and seat of an archbis ...

Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

Notes

References

Bibliography

*
Note on the Castiglioni Planisphere
', Armando Cortesão, Imago Mundi, Vol. 11, 1954 (1954), pp. 53–55 * Harvey, Miles
The Island of Lost Maps: A True Story of Cartographic Crime
'. New York:

Random House Random House is an imprint and publishing group of Penguin Random House. Founded in 1927 by businessmen Bennett Cerf and Donald Klopfer as an imprint of Modern Library, it quickly overtook Modern Library as the parent imprint. Over the foll ...

, 2000. . (Also ). * . {{DEFAULTSORT:Padrao Real 16th-century maps and globes Portuguese Empire Maritime history of Portugal Portuguese exploration in the Age of Discovery