José Basílio da Gama (April 10, 1740 – July 31, 1795) was a Portuguese poet and member of the Society of Jesus, born in the colony of Brazil, famous for the epic poem O Uraguai. He wrote under pen name Termindo Sipílio.

He is patron of the 4th chair of the Brazilian Academy of Letters.

Biography

José Basílio da Gama was born in 1740, in the city of São José do Rio das Mortes (whose name was later changed to Tiradentes), in Minas Gerais, to Manuel da Costa Villas-Boas and Quitéria Inácia da Gama. The death of his father, when he was a young child, caused a hard situation in his life. During this period, a brigadier named Alpoim who served as his protector sent him to Rio de Janeiro, where he studied at Jesuit College, starting his novitiate for the Society of Jesus. With the expulsion of the Jesuits in 1759, Basílio went to Europe, where he travelled through many countries, such as Italy and Portugal, between 1760 and 1767. In Italy, he ingressed at the Roman Arcadia, where he adopted the pen name Termindo Sipílio.

Vasco da Gama, 1st Count of Vidigueira, (Portuguese pronunciation: [ˈvaʃku ðɐ ˈɣɐmɐ]; c. 1460s – 23 December 1524) was a Portuguese explorer. He was the first European to reach India by sea, linking Europe and Asia for the first time by ocean route, as well as linking the Atlantic and the Indian oceans entirely and definitively, and in this way, the West and the Orient. This was accomplished on his first voyage to India (1497–1499).

Da Gama's discovery was significant and opened the way for an age of global imperialism and for the Portuguese to establish a long-lasting colonial empire in Asia. The route meant that the Portuguese would not need to cross the highly disputed Mediterranean nor the dangerous Arabian Peninsula, and that the whole voyage would be made by sea. The sum of the distances covered in the outward and return voyages made this expedition the longest ocean voyage ever made until then, far longer than a full voyage around the world by way of the Equator.

One century after the discovery, European powers such as England, the Netherlands and France were finally able to challenge and break Portugal's monopoly and naval supremacy in the Cape Route around Africa, the Indian Ocean and in the Far East, opening a new era of European imperialism in the East.