The Treaty of Tordesillas
“A bishop's hall in Tordesillas, Spain, June 7, 1494. Spanish and Portuguese envoys split the New World along a line west of Cape Verde. Foreground shows clerks rolling out a great map and a notary applying wax seals; midground reveals bearded ambassadors arguing over longitudes; sunlight through arched windows falls on a parchment that divides oceans and continents.”
